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AOL is finally pulling the plug on its dial-up Internet service. America Online's signature beeps, static sounds and screeches were the iconic way many people first accessed the internet in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, high-speed lines quickly replaced telephone lines. By 2023, dial-up made up about 1%...

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After more than 30 years of connecting people to the internet through dial-up, AOL is hanging up its iconic service. The service and dialer software will be discontinued as of Sept. 30, 2025.
0:33

After more than 30 years of connecting people to the internet through dial-up, AOL is hanging up its iconic service. The service and dialer software will be discontinued as of Sept. 30, 2025.

ABC News

108,779 views • 1 year ago

AOL will discontinue its Dial-up Internet service on September 30, 2025 After 34 years in operation, the famous Dial-up modem handshake sound burned into our memories, will now become a relic of the past.
0:28

AOL will discontinue its Dial-up Internet service on September 30, 2025 After 34 years in operation, the famous Dial-up modem handshake sound burned into our memories, will now become a relic of the past.

Adrian Dittmann

3,652,124 views • 1 year ago

✨ Three months ago, AOL.com officially shut down its dial up internet service after 40 years! America Online was one of the first internet providers (ISPs) and existed even before the world wide web Many Americans know it especially for its walled garden type internet access where you'd open the AOL app, and your news, mail, chat and message boards were all in there Most ISPs back then were like that, but in the end not the AOL walled garden, but the open internet won, where anyone could make a website, start an online business, just by registering a domain name and putting up a website. Without asking AOL for permission What's interesting here that this "open web" was only for a short time from about 1995 to 2010 when social media platforms took over and the walled gardens came back Anyway to bring that back Chris Kearney reverse engineered the AOL servers so you can experience America Online how it was in 1995 but today > < I've installed it above, so all you do is boot, then open AOL and click Sign On as guest, then login with username pieter and password pieter I already made a working AOL Instant Messenger so this is a nice addition! 🌐 KEEP AOL ALIVE!!!
2:13

✨ Three months ago, AOL.com officially shut down its dial up internet service after 40 years! America Online was one of the first internet providers (ISPs) and existed even before the world wide web Many Americans know it especially for its walled garden type internet access where you'd open the AOL app, and your news, mail, chat and message boards were all in there Most ISPs back then were like that, but in the end not the AOL walled garden, but the open internet won, where anyone could make a website, start an online business, just by registering a domain name and putting up a website. Without asking AOL for permission What's interesting here that this "open web" was only for a short time from about 1995 to 2010 when social media platforms took over and the walled gardens came back Anyway to bring that back Chris Kearney reverse engineered the AOL servers so you can experience America Online how it was in 1995 but today > < I've installed it above, so all you do is boot, then open AOL and click Sign On as guest, then login with username pieter and password pieter I already made a working AOL Instant Messenger so this is a nice addition! 🌐 KEEP AOL ALIVE!!!

@levelsio

60,455 views • 8 months ago

AOL HANGS UP FOR GOOD After 34 years, AOL’s dial-up internet is logging off forever on Sept. 30, 2025. That screechy modem handshake - once the soundtrack of the early web - is about to be museum material. For a whole generation, “You’ve got mail” was the metaverse. Now, even Elon is calling it the “end of an era.” For anyone who waited 7 minutes for a single JPEG to load, this isn’t just a shutdown. It’s the final unplugging of the internet’s training wheels. Next month, the last holdouts will click “connect” … and hear silence. Source: AOL announcement, Adrian Dittmann, Elon Musk
0:28

AOL HANGS UP FOR GOOD After 34 years, AOL’s dial-up internet is logging off forever on Sept. 30, 2025. That screechy modem handshake - once the soundtrack of the early web - is about to be museum material. For a whole generation, “You’ve got mail” was the metaverse. Now, even Elon is calling it the “end of an era.” For anyone who waited 7 minutes for a single JPEG to load, this isn’t just a shutdown. It’s the final unplugging of the internet’s training wheels. Next month, the last holdouts will click “connect” … and hear silence. Source: AOL announcement, Adrian Dittmann, Elon Musk

Mario Nawfal

481,761 views • 1 year ago

Bridgit Mendler on why the space economy is like the early internet: "I get really inspired by the analogy especially thinking about, you know, for folks that were early with the internet." "There's no way they would've foreseen what the internet is today." "But they were betting on a direction and they were setting up a model that would basically unlock a lot of innovation." "A year ago today, would we think that everybody would be talking about orbital data centers? No way." Bridgit Mendler of Northwood with Erik Torenberg
2:03

Bridgit Mendler on why the space economy is like the early internet: "I get really inspired by the analogy especially thinking about, you know, for folks that were early with the internet." "There's no way they would've foreseen what the internet is today." "But they were betting on a direction and they were setting up a model that would basically unlock a lot of innovation." "A year ago today, would we think that everybody would be talking about orbital data centers? No way." Bridgit Mendler of Northwood with Erik Torenberg

a16z

297,068 views • 5 months ago

AOL: THE COMPANY THAT TAUGHT AMERICA TO INTERNET Before TikTok, before Google, before your grandma was sharing cat memes on Facebook… there was AOL. Born in 1989, America Online took the wild, lawless frontier of the early web and packaged it in chatrooms, buddy lists, and that magical “You’ve got mail” chime. AOL’s CDs flooded mailboxes, gas stations, and cereal boxes like some sort of tech plague. People hoarded them. People decorated with them. Some probably tried to use them as coasters. At its peak, AOL was the gateway to the digital world, hosting news, games, gossip, and the occasional flame war in a forum about hamster care. It connected pen pals, sparked romances, and birthed a million bad screen names. And now? The last few dial-up diehards will be yanked into the broadband age, ending one of tech’s most oddly charming chapters. From revolutionizing communication to turning “BRB” into a cultural reflex, AOL didn’t just connect us, it trained us to live online. Source: Washington Post, NY Times
2:00

AOL: THE COMPANY THAT TAUGHT AMERICA TO INTERNET Before TikTok, before Google, before your grandma was sharing cat memes on Facebook… there was AOL. Born in 1989, America Online took the wild, lawless frontier of the early web and packaged it in chatrooms, buddy lists, and that magical “You’ve got mail” chime. AOL’s CDs flooded mailboxes, gas stations, and cereal boxes like some sort of tech plague. People hoarded them. People decorated with them. Some probably tried to use them as coasters. At its peak, AOL was the gateway to the digital world, hosting news, games, gossip, and the occasional flame war in a forum about hamster care. It connected pen pals, sparked romances, and birthed a million bad screen names. And now? The last few dial-up diehards will be yanked into the broadband age, ending one of tech’s most oddly charming chapters. From revolutionizing communication to turning “BRB” into a cultural reflex, AOL didn’t just connect us, it trained us to live online. Source: Washington Post, NY Times

Mario Nawfal

95,797 views • 1 year ago

Zimbabwe's internet price and capacity can be solved by tomorrow with enough will from the Ministry of ICT, ISPs, and Potraz. Google, Meta, YouTube, and Netflix want the end users to have the best internet; in fact they want everyone to be connected to High Speed Internet. That is why Google Equiano ran a cable from the EU to Nigeria, Namibia, and South Africa with the goal of making the internet cheaper. Zimbabwe does not have an internet problem because peering is FREE in Johannesburg, local pricing is artificially priced high because of "Maintenance Costs" Unfortunately, its alot harder to ran cable inland, its alot easier to ran the cable in the ocean because there is less regulation. If Zimbabwe can partner with Meta, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, and many other players for inland fibre, it will take less than a few months for us to have the best internet and over-the-top service. The biggest challenge is the Regulators and Gatekeepers.
2:45

Zimbabwe's internet price and capacity can be solved by tomorrow with enough will from the Ministry of ICT, ISPs, and Potraz. Google, Meta, YouTube, and Netflix want the end users to have the best internet; in fact they want everyone to be connected to High Speed Internet. That is why Google Equiano ran a cable from the EU to Nigeria, Namibia, and South Africa with the goal of making the internet cheaper. Zimbabwe does not have an internet problem because peering is FREE in Johannesburg, local pricing is artificially priced high because of "Maintenance Costs" Unfortunately, its alot harder to ran cable inland, its alot easier to ran the cable in the ocean because there is less regulation. If Zimbabwe can partner with Meta, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, and many other players for inland fibre, it will take less than a few months for us to have the best internet and over-the-top service. The biggest challenge is the Regulators and Gatekeepers.

willard shoko

16,464 views • 1 year ago

Marc Andreessen says AOL killed the early internet on a single day in September 1993. Before that day, the internet had maybe two million users. They were the smartest two million people in the world. Andreessen says it felt like Athens in 500 BC. "The most pure, clean, intellectual, vibrant space" since the Greeks. No advertising. No commerce. No spam. Just the smartest engineers, scientists, and academics talking to each other. Then America Online bought a connection to it. In September 1993, AOL pumped two million normal people directly onto the internet. It became known as **Eternal September**. Andreessen, who was building Mosaic at the time, watched it happen. "That's the day the internet changed." Pre-1993 internet veterans had a phrase. Every September, when the new freshmen got their college email accounts, the discussion forums would briefly drop in quality before stabilizing. After AOL connected, the September never ended. The smartest two million were swallowed by the next two million, then twenty million, then five billion. Andreessen, looking back: "I'm pro that. I'm glad that happened. But the pro and the con of that is that took the internet from this ivory tower kind of thing to this basically mainstream consumer ordinary people thing." Was AOL right to open the gates? If you're new here, GeniusThinking is a gallery for the greatest minds in economics, psychology, and history. Follow along for more similar content. P.S. I made a free toolkit breaking down 100+ mental models used by history's greatest thinkers. 5,000+ downloads. 113 five-star reviews. Grab your free copy here: — Marc Andreessen ( Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 ), co-founder of a16z, on David Senra's ( David Senra ) podcast
1:37

Marc Andreessen says AOL killed the early internet on a single day in September 1993. Before that day, the internet had maybe two million users. They were the smartest two million people in the world. Andreessen says it felt like Athens in 500 BC. "The most pure, clean, intellectual, vibrant space" since the Greeks. No advertising. No commerce. No spam. Just the smartest engineers, scientists, and academics talking to each other. Then America Online bought a connection to it. In September 1993, AOL pumped two million normal people directly onto the internet. It became known as **Eternal September**. Andreessen, who was building Mosaic at the time, watched it happen. "That's the day the internet changed." Pre-1993 internet veterans had a phrase. Every September, when the new freshmen got their college email accounts, the discussion forums would briefly drop in quality before stabilizing. After AOL connected, the September never ended. The smartest two million were swallowed by the next two million, then twenty million, then five billion. Andreessen, looking back: "I'm pro that. I'm glad that happened. But the pro and the con of that is that took the internet from this ivory tower kind of thing to this basically mainstream consumer ordinary people thing." Was AOL right to open the gates? If you're new here, GeniusThinking is a gallery for the greatest minds in economics, psychology, and history. Follow along for more similar content. P.S. I made a free toolkit breaking down 100+ mental models used by history's greatest thinkers. 5,000+ downloads. 113 five-star reviews. Grab your free copy here: — Marc Andreessen ( Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 ), co-founder of a16z, on David Senra's ( David Senra ) podcast

GeniusThinking

327,285 views • 4 months ago

"The first day you opened up a Netscape browser and didn't go through AOL, you knew you were no longer playing in that walled garden" Simon Koster, CSO at DCG, on why AI needs its Netscape moment, breaking out of the AOL walled garden "We all talk about the days where most of us are old enough to have started on the internet using AOL. The first day you opened up a Netscape browser and didn't go through AOL, you knew you were doing something different, that you had to pay attention, do the right things, go to the right places. It took a little while to learn how to use that broader internet" "That's exactly what has to happen in AI. We need to get out of the walled garden of the specific tools we use today, that are very good but not all things to all people, and are going to become very expensive, and into an open internet of solutions" "When we have that level of access and broad tools on the AI side, we'll have to develop the skill of how to use all those different tools, but that'll be a really good learning curve for everybody"
1:03

"The first day you opened up a Netscape browser and didn't go through AOL, you knew you were no longer playing in that walled garden" Simon Koster, CSO at DCG, on why AI needs its Netscape moment, breaking out of the AOL walled garden "We all talk about the days where most of us are old enough to have started on the internet using AOL. The first day you opened up a Netscape browser and didn't go through AOL, you knew you were doing something different, that you had to pay attention, do the right things, go to the right places. It took a little while to learn how to use that broader internet" "That's exactly what has to happen in AI. We need to get out of the walled garden of the specific tools we use today, that are very good but not all things to all people, and are going to become very expensive, and into an open internet of solutions" "When we have that level of access and broad tools on the AI side, we'll have to develop the skill of how to use all those different tools, but that'll be a really good learning curve for everybody"

The Wolf Of All Streets

37,424 views • 1 month ago

Claude Code vs Codex vs Grok Build: Who builds the best Windows 95 OS in HTML? I benchmarked them live on speed, lines of code, file size… and actual usability. Claude: Fastest (384 lines, 14KB) but basic Grok: Took longer… and built a monster (full Explorer, Paint, interactive Grok terminal, browser, Control Panel, dial-up to AOL, shutdown & more) Codex/GPT-5: Didn’t quite make it Out-of-the-box winner? Grok. By a mile. 👑 Full breakdown + results inside 👀
8:10

Claude Code vs Codex vs Grok Build: Who builds the best Windows 95 OS in HTML? I benchmarked them live on speed, lines of code, file size… and actual usability. Claude: Fastest (384 lines, 14KB) but basic Grok: Took longer… and built a monster (full Explorer, Paint, interactive Grok terminal, browser, Control Panel, dial-up to AOL, shutdown & more) Codex/GPT-5: Didn’t quite make it Out-of-the-box winner? Grok. By a mile. 👑 Full breakdown + results inside 👀

Dan

44,952 views • 3 months ago

JUST IN: Trump says he has spoken to Elon Musk about providing Starlink to communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, says “Elon always comes through.” Hundreds of thousands of people are currently without internet. Towns like Asheville are currently considered “blackout zones” for accessing the internet, texting and making calls. Starlink is one of the only ways to get internet access after fiber optic lines buried along roads were damaged and cell towers were knocked offline. “I just spoke to Elon. We want to get Starlink hooked up because they have no communication whatsoever.” “Elon will always come through. We know that.”
1:12

JUST IN: Trump says he has spoken to Elon Musk about providing Starlink to communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, says “Elon always comes through.” Hundreds of thousands of people are currently without internet. Towns like Asheville are currently considered “blackout zones” for accessing the internet, texting and making calls. Starlink is one of the only ways to get internet access after fiber optic lines buried along roads were damaged and cell towers were knocked offline. “I just spoke to Elon. We want to get Starlink hooked up because they have no communication whatsoever.” “Elon will always come through. We know that.”

Collin Rugg

957,053 views • 1 year ago

Now that the internet is back in Iran and the world has caught up with the horrors inflicted by the Islamic regime on its own people, a quick capsule review of how the alarm🚨was raised. I’ll be on BBC News (UK) 6pm tonight with Maryam Moshiri #IranMassacre #IranRevoIution2026
1:29

Now that the internet is back in Iran and the world has caught up with the horrors inflicted by the Islamic regime on its own people, a quick capsule review of how the alarm🚨was raised. I’ll be on BBC News (UK) 6pm tonight with Maryam Moshiri #IranMassacre #IranRevoIution2026

Omid Djalili

101,803 views • 7 months ago

.Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 says we haven't had a true internet election yet, and he thinks we'll have a fully 'internet candidate' by 2032. "People talk about Trump as the internet candidate, but he's really a hybrid." "He's very social media fluent, but he is also very television and of course his entire career was made on television." "There will be an internet president who gets elected, I believe, entirely based on the internet, where they don't pay any attention at all to what's on TV... they're gonna be a 100% a creature of the internet."
2:52

.Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 says we haven't had a true internet election yet, and he thinks we'll have a fully 'internet candidate' by 2032. "People talk about Trump as the internet candidate, but he's really a hybrid." "He's very social media fluent, but he is also very television and of course his entire career was made on television." "There will be an internet president who gets elected, I believe, entirely based on the internet, where they don't pay any attention at all to what's on TV... they're gonna be a 100% a creature of the internet."

MTS

90,177 views • 4 months ago

In 1997 the internet was still a strange new world for most people, and simple tutorial videos like this one had to explain how to open a browser, search for information, and even send a message online. Millions of households were connecting for the first time through slow dial-up modems that tied up the phone line, exploring a much smaller and quieter web than the one we know today. Looking back, these videos capture a real turning point when the internet was not something people grew up with, but something they had to learn how to use.
1:18

In 1997 the internet was still a strange new world for most people, and simple tutorial videos like this one had to explain how to open a browser, search for information, and even send a message online. Millions of households were connecting for the first time through slow dial-up modems that tied up the phone line, exploring a much smaller and quieter web than the one we know today. Looking back, these videos capture a real turning point when the internet was not something people grew up with, but something they had to learn how to use.

Modern History

19,895 views • 22 days ago

President Trump says the war against Iran is part of the America First agenda because he saved Israel and the world from being blown up by Iran’s nuclear weapons. He says Iranians are crazy people, but he gets along with them. "I'm doing the world a service." "I'm doing our country a service."
0:52

President Trump says the war against Iran is part of the America First agenda because he saved Israel and the world from being blown up by Iran’s nuclear weapons. He says Iranians are crazy people, but he gets along with them. "I'm doing the world a service." "I'm doing our country a service."

Shadow of Ezra

163,209 views • 3 months ago

SpaceX now has over 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit (and growing), providing internet data service to every corner of the earth. Even ships at sea or aircraft in the sky can receive high speed internet service. Over 2/3 of the active satellites in orbit are Starlink now. And it won't create any long term trash in orbit. The orbits are so low (480 km to 550 km) that even if SpaceX were to lose control of one, the small satellites will run out of fuel within 5 years. Then they get dragged back into the atmosphere and burn up. Every satellite is in a lane to avoid other Starlink satellites. They all are connected to a collusion avoidance system and can make small course adjustments if needed. Starlink can provide high speed internet anywhere on the planet without having to bury expensive fiber cables underground or undersea. All you need is a small dish which scans the sky for the closest satellite to provide internet connectivity.
0:26

SpaceX now has over 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit (and growing), providing internet data service to every corner of the earth. Even ships at sea or aircraft in the sky can receive high speed internet service. Over 2/3 of the active satellites in orbit are Starlink now. And it won't create any long term trash in orbit. The orbits are so low (480 km to 550 km) that even if SpaceX were to lose control of one, the small satellites will run out of fuel within 5 years. Then they get dragged back into the atmosphere and burn up. Every satellite is in a lane to avoid other Starlink satellites. They all are connected to a collusion avoidance system and can make small course adjustments if needed. Starlink can provide high speed internet anywhere on the planet without having to bury expensive fiber cables underground or undersea. All you need is a small dish which scans the sky for the closest satellite to provide internet connectivity.

Wall Street Mav

815,298 views • 5 months ago

Raw and not auto-tuned. The bass is the star in this one. Picked up my first album by them in the 2000s and had no idea this was from '77. Quirky, nervous, art-punk, they were way ahead of their time! Name this iconic band.
0:58

Raw and not auto-tuned. The bass is the star in this one. Picked up my first album by them in the 2000s and had no idea this was from '77. Quirky, nervous, art-punk, they were way ahead of their time! Name this iconic band.

Hot Pepper

159,967 views • 7 months ago

Africa's staggering economic potential is summed up in real numbers by entrepreneur and Harvard graduate Marian Braimah. According to her, by 2050, a fifth of internet customers will be in Africa—which is nothing but the truth!
0:47

Africa's staggering economic potential is summed up in real numbers by entrepreneur and Harvard graduate Marian Braimah. According to her, by 2050, a fifth of internet customers will be in Africa—which is nothing but the truth!

Typical African

37,709 views • 7 months ago

From 1 April, the City’s water tanker service provision will be entirely internal. The water tankers will be driven by our staff of 23 drivers who volunteered to take up the position and build internal capacity. We were joined by the staff in Mamelodi at the launch our Water Stabilisation Plan. City of Tshwane
1:22

From 1 April, the City’s water tanker service provision will be entirely internal. The water tankers will be driven by our staff of 23 drivers who volunteered to take up the position and build internal capacity. We were joined by the staff in Mamelodi at the launch our Water Stabilisation Plan. City of Tshwane

Dr Nasiphi Moya

19,690 views • 5 months ago