AOL to discontinue dial-up internet

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Who Still Used AOL Dial‑Up (and Why)

  • Main guesses: very rural users with no broadband or cellular coverage; elderly users reluctant to change; people maintaining long‑standing @aol.com addresses for business, trust, or fear of losing access.
  • Some were knowingly paying for dial‑up they no longer used, treating the bill as “insurance” that their AOL email would remain active.
  • Others appear to be “zombie” subscriptions: auto‑pay accounts where the actual dial‑up access isn’t used at all.

Rural Connectivity and Alternatives

  • Starlink, fixed wireless, and cellular “home internet” are discussed as replacements, but:
    • Starlink is seen as good but expensive, especially for low‑income rural users.
    • Many rural or mountainous areas still have weak or nonexistent cell coverage or only 2G/3G.
    • Old DSL services can be oversubscribed, slow, and overpriced; some telcos are actively backing away from landlines.
  • Some commenters note the paradox that dial‑up is nearly dead not just from demand, but because POTS lines and modem‑compatible voice paths are disappearing or going VoIP.

AOL’s Business and Shutdown Logic

  • Several recall AOL dial‑up as an incredibly high‑margin profit center well into the 2010s, effectively subsidizing AOL’s other money‑losing ventures.
  • There’s debate on why to shut it down:
    • One side: even a six‑figure user base at $10–$20/month could be run cheaply with modern soft‑modem infrastructure.
    • The other: customer numbers are likely shrinking rapidly (aging, deaths, churn), making it a dying line with regulatory and infrastructure entanglements, especially as telcos try to retire copper.

Dial‑Up vs the Modern Web

  • Multiple accounts say dial‑up became functionally unusable as sites bloated: HTTPS overhead, huge JS bundles, and timeouts make even 128 kbps mobile throttling feel worse than old 30–56 kbps dial‑up once did.
  • Some note a few “light” holdouts (Hacker News, Craigslist, text‑mode or basic HTML email) remain viable, but mainstream sites don’t.

Nostalgia and Technical Memories

  • Extensive reminiscence about AOL’s ubiquity (CDs/floppies everywhere, “You’ve got mail!”, keywords, chat rooms) and early modem eras (300 baud up through “56k”, ISDN, campus T1s).
  • Several correct misconceptions: 56k was kilobits, rarely achieved in practice, with typical speeds much lower and high latency.
  • Many share stories of long downloads, BBSes, AOL CDs as coasters/floppy stock, and how lightweight clients once delivered chat and email over tiny bandwidth compared to today’s Slack/Teams.