AOL is binning off its dial-up internet service after 30 years, which, frankly, is more surprising for the fact AOL still offered a dial-up internet service than for the fact it’s closing it. Regardless, it’s a milestone moment. AOL opened the doors of the internet for millions of people; its name was synonymous with it. And yes, I know that most of those people were Americans, the acronym AOL standing for America Online after all, but AOL did operate in the UK. I vividly remember having an AOL promo disk in a cardboard sleeve. I think it came attached to a newspaper – things like that happened back in the 90s. I remember trying to use it once, too, and being whisked away to an AOL-themed portal of bite-sized internet games and fledgling news services, and beautifully ugly 90s websites. The internet back then was a proper mood (there’s a game called Hypnospace Outlaw that recreates it, if you don’t know.)
