Dial-up Internet to be discontinued

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Modern Web on Dial-Up (and Other Slow Links)

  • Consensus: most modern sites are effectively unusable at 56k; page loads would take minutes to tens of minutes.
  • Simple, text-first sites (HN, personal blogs, “smolweb”/HTML+CSS only) are considered viable; once you add large images or heavy JS, it breaks down.
  • Several people point out that you can simulate dial-up via browser dev tools (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) or by experiencing weak mobile coverage, which can approximate or exceed dial-up pain.
  • “Lite” or text-only versions of news sites (e.g., lite.cnn.com, text.npr.org) are praised and sometimes preferred even on fast connections.
  • Adblocking (e.g., uBlock Origin) is suggested as a major performance win on slow links.

Who Still Uses Dial-Up and Why

  • Some rural or remote users still rely on dial-up because DSL, cable, or good cellular coverage aren’t available or are prohibitively expensive.
  • Where available, satellite (HughesNet, later Starlink) or new fiber builds have replaced dial-up, but coverage is patchy.
  • Dial-up is mostly seen as usable only for basic email (without images), text-heavy sites, or text-mode browsers like lynx.

Technical Limits and Infrastructure

  • Dial-up speed is still effectively capped around 56 kbps due to analog phone line limitations (~3.1 kHz channel / 64k digital channels, with signaling overhead).
  • Many users historically never reached 56k; noisy lines often forced 33.6k or less.
  • Some areas never got DSL due to distance from central offices or old equipment; new deployments tend to leapfrog straight to fiber.

SPA vs. Server-Rendered vs. Native for Low Bandwidth

  • One side argues SPAs can be good for low bandwidth: large bundle once, then minimal incremental traffic.
  • Others counter that typical SPAs ship massive JS bundles and fail to load at all on bad connections, while simple server-rendered HTML + forms remains robust and lightweight.
  • Some suggest offline-first or native apps as the ideal for very poor or intermittent connectivity.

AOL, Business Model, and Sunset

  • Surprise that AOL still existed as an ISP in 2025.
  • Dial-up was reportedly a major revenue source as late as 2010; by 2014 it had shrunk to a small share as AOL pivoted to ads/media.
  • Concern that customers may keep getting billed for “AOL plans” even after dial-up ends, with plans padded by marginal “benefits.”
  • Some users discover and stop paying for legacy AOL subscriptions while keeping free email.

Nostalgia and Cultural Memory

  • Strong nostalgia for the dial-up modem sound; links to visual/audio explanations, remixes, and jokes.
  • Remembered as a symbol of the idealistic early internet versus today’s more commercial, AI-driven landscape.
  • People recall AOL CDs, aggressive marketing, and call-center upsells, plus rival services (Prodigy, MSN).
  • Some mark this shutdown as a symbolic end of the dot-com era.