The Rise And Fall Of AOL

[@jxsilicon9]

I remember we use to throw those AOL discs around like frisbees. They use to mail you a thousand of those things.

[@mosh101]

And at every store too

[@jxsilicon9]

@@mosh101 Yea, they fell out of every magazine also.

[@carlosbecerra5243]

I remember making box cars using shoe boxes and those CD's for wheels

[@michaellindsey31]

YUPP

[@adnankazim88]

lol you just bought out some memories

[@SaltySparrow]

You've got mail is the ultimate snapshot of pre 9/11 America.

[@Randomsae]

The first thing I thought just from seeing the thumbnail was, “You’ve got mail.”

[@blackice214]

Good times, now intrusion into privacy from the patriot act , social media and over sensitivity rule our lives

[@TheMadisonHang]

why is that sad just a bit 😢

[@rippedoff7004]

Even though I wished I never signed on to AOL, pre-9/11 America were much better times than now.

[@mpfeldma]

It's sad, you know? I work with adults who have no recollection of this world.

[@Applefanatic1000]

Shout out to the summer interns at CNBC for pumping out some high quality content this summer

[@snowyschannel]

#5 You mean how they stole Company man's gig?

[@hellothere7946]

Kristy C I mean if they do it better.....

[@TheFourthWinchester]

@@hellothere7946 If you give Company Man a tenth of their budget, he would pump out a 100 times better video than this. They are ripping off his research and ideas.

[@dannyospirit]

@@TheFourthWinchester I fail to understand how they could rip off his research (until he's not actively sharing it, and in that case you can't call it ripping off)? As far as ideas go, nobody's got a patent on that.

[@Neojhun]

@@snowyschannel The predecessor inspiration of this format was from an Australian TV show called Hungry Beast on ABC. It ran from 2009 to 2011 predating most of the parties mentioned. It was based on the mid 20th century Info Graphic News Reel which had that cliche presenter voice over. The format like Hungry Beast worked realy well on youtube and spread.

[@PokeyBessie]

AOL was my childhood. "Get off that dang computer" since I was on AOL dialup. Older millennials know the struggle. This company use to be big enough to buy some of its competitors. It probably could have originally bought Amazon when it came out when you look back.

[@michaelbergman1950]

Shout-out to the minds in the production staff who are behind the influx of these videos recently. Big fan 👌

[@silversonic99]

Search up Company Man on KZbin. Its where they got their ideas from

[@michaelbergman1950]

@@silversonic99 Looks good, thanks. I get what you're saying, but these CNBC videos also focus on specific products, like the Toyota Prius.

[@ambert.3792]

@@silversonic99 THIS! thank you for pointing it out. im a big fan of CM, so i was laughing a bit at them just redoing his vids.

[@TheFourthWinchester]

They are going after every original content creator's past works and ripping them off with a much much bigger budget.

[@happytobehere200]

silversonic99 good tip

[@kimberlybjrc]

Before texting, you rushed home from school to get on AIM with your friends. Screen names, away messages, buddy icons. Can’t think of my pre-teen/early teen years without AIM

[@TheFrenchPug]

Wow. I actually forgot about that offline online setting. You'd see someone you didn't want to respond to and immediately go offline on them because they were always on.

[@keaulanisilva1920]

Omg does anyone else remember asl? Lol 😆

[@RF-vg5kv]

@@keaulanisilva1920 yes and the yahoo chat rooms

[@andreas.9175]

The merger made no sense. Time Warner never needed AOL. It was as if Henry Ford bought horse and carriage companies.

[@DRM-nb1fg]

AOL bought Time Warner, not the other way around. You are right that Time Warner didn't need AOL, but Time Warner didn't have much choice given the fact AOL could buy them out in hostile takeover at the time. AOL's market cap was insane, haha.

[@Tornado1994]

@@DRM-nb1fg AOL had SLEAZY DRM policies in the late 90s. No wonder why I hated them so much in HS. I to used NetZero(When it was known as FreeNet during '99-00). In July 2001, I/we got MSN and used it faithfully until 2005 when we switched to EarthLink. The Turner Time Warner buyout in Early '01 drained their Cash Flow and their capital start to sink and by 2010, they had little money left. I'd say that was comeuppance for pulling the plug on WCW, and destroying Turner Time Warner and its Properties and IPs.

[@billblaski9523]

Facts, that merger killed WCW. WCW could possibly still be around today if not for Jaime Kellner

[@spark300c]

It more like Carriage company buying a car company and then forget to make cars. AOL could transfer it service over broad band.

[@followmyrule]

Netflix as a DVD rental service at 4:22. Little did it know what it would become 😂

[@encr3160]

Netflix going down now too.

[@jorgearmandorodriguezrodri1740]

A cash burning company?? 😂

[@michelguevara151]

and now it's 'woke' agenda is going to blockbuster it.

[@Ms.NoNo2]

michel Guevara lmfao... imagine thinking that being inclusive and diverse is a bad thing. * cough * bigot. Netflix will be just fine, they have service in 190 countries.

[@amvin234]

Netflix grew as a primarily DVD rental company, where their gimmick was ordering online and shipping straight to your door. Almost an Amazon-like (in the old vein when it was an online bookstore) rental service but for movies instead of books. So it was new for the time. AOL was also new for the time, providing software to access the internet through dial-up. Then the economy changed rapidly for both companies. A big part of what they were focusing on were quickly becoming obsolete: the DVD for Netflix, and dial-up for AOL. The difference between these companies is that Netflix smartly saw what was coming from a mile away, and was among the very first to start offering digital content through the internet, instead of shipping. AOL, on the other hand, only tried adapting when the changes had already arrived, by which time it was already too late and they were left in the dust. Netflix *might* start running into a potential new speed bump with increased competition, e.g. Disney+ and others. But they've had such a head start in online streaming services, they can probably weather the storm, as the newcomers don't offer anything new compared to Netflix in terms of technology. And Netflix has seen this problem coming from a mile away too: namely, movie and show producers getting into the game of distributing. Netflix has, over the past few years, prepared for this by aggressively producing their own content as well.

[@MynameIsnotforsell]

As for the game idea, aol was ahead of their time. Should have came back to the original idea, they would have made a fortune.

[@kei2142]

part of their decline came from their neglect and active refusal to support and grow AIM. They could've been the facebook.

[@fawkkyutuu8851]

I doubt It unfortunately as much as I hate Facebook as the single worst thing that ever happened to the Internet , they arrived at a perfect time when Myspace was an unstable leader and the Internet was becoming fast enough and solidified to be the millennial hang out. Besides people hate something that feels old or their parents used , it has to remain popular and dominant to the young crowd although i can't figure out why Facebook has stuck around even though it's an old old dinosaur that's as uncool as can be with privacy breaches and grandparents and a really invasive way of linking anyone you may know but never cared to see again to your profile. I think people are just brainwashed Facebook should be dead , I miss Myspace and AOL chatrooms though that's golden age imo.

[@GamerbyDesign]

Let me save you about 13 minutes. AOL was last to broadband. That killed it. End of story.

[@melodramatic7904]

It was used to being the only choice. Before broadband you couldn't get online unless you had AOL because you needed the program to tap into tje phone line. I don't think it knew how to compete in a broadband world where you didn't need special (paid) software to connect.

[@robertallen9696]

@@melodramatic7904 Malarkey, there were a dozen major competitors by 1994, all with free 10hrs/week. When AOL bought Time Warner it forgot to partner with the cable providers to lock down the broadband access. That's it. And really, AOL hasn't been relevant since 2000. Those valuations are preposterous.

[@jayfawn8478]

As a non american who doesn't know it was a thing of the past, I always like these 'shortcut' comments

[@UmmYeahOk]

melodramatic7904 yes there were. Before AOL, I had Prodigy. Compuserve was another. And MSN tried to get in on that as well during the late 90s. There were also a variety of free services, like Juno, EarthLink, and netzero. What made made services like AOL so great was that it simplified the internet and connection process. Other dialup providers were just that, dial up. You told your computer's modem what number to call, and once connected, then what? You had to provide your own browser, and know where to go, there was no google back then. There were a few search engines, but you could only find sites that were submitted to them. You mostly were stuck using things known as web directories and web rings. Yahoo was a big deal back then because to those who didn't have services like AOL, that was one of the best search engines, and offered a lot of free services like games and email, that would normally cost money with a subscription service like AOL.

[@amyoung6455]

GamerbyDesign yesssss. Broadband brought upon its demise

[@Discotraxx16]

I loved AOL chat rooms I would stay up past 2 am just talking to strangers funny thing I was 12 when we first got internet at home and access to chat rooms I remember posting A/S/L lol

[@ct5951]

@tommy aronson Age/Sex/Location

[@Dedicated2WendyWilliams]

@tommy aronson age sex location

[@ji6087]

Age, sex, location.

[@Ghost-nt4vk]

tommy aronson Age Sex Location

[@kikomontes8444]

@tommy aronson A/S/L = Age/Sex/Location

[@Neftegna]

Y'all remember the awful sound of the modem? 😂😂😂

[@mho...]

enjoy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/naSxkoVse7eohZI

[@truthseeker7564]

It’s awful now but at the time it was an amazing sound once you got through 🤣

[@crimsonhalo13]

Like a pterodactyl gnawing on a corncob.

[@DryLog420]

In college, I hooked up a magnetic card reader to my laptop's microphone input... when I swiped a card and recorded it, then I replayed the sound and it was almost exactly like a 56k modem sounds. Great times!

[@rudysalas9138]

Ah yes, so beautiful.

[@jrwheeler81]

My husband and I met on AOL. It will be 22 years in June. Without AOL, we never would have met since we lived in different states over 3 hours away from each other, so AOL was obviously a huge part of my life. I remember when my parents bought our first family PC in the fall of 1995 and the first thing we did was sign up for AOL. I had just turned 14 years old and was in the 8th grade. Every night was an endless battle over the phone line from thereon out until my parents finally caved for a second phone line for the computer in 1997. I remember getting so annoyed whenever the call waiting would kick me offline. Of course, it would always happen right in the middle of instant messaging with somebody. Then, there were the nights when all of the access numbers were busy and you had to keep trying over and over to get a connection. Kids today will never understand the struggle of trying to use the internet in the 90s!

[@paulsolfelt8452]

haha ,you almost never got a busy signal dialing into netzero or juno and it was free , unlimited free for me since I just bypassed the ten hour limit easily, LOL !

[@sdmurphy20]

An internet love story ❤️

[@kbhasi]

Yep! Your comment reminded me of a Nostalgia Mall video in which the host mentioned that his family signed up for AOL using a trial included with their Packard Bell PC they shared. While I didn't experience dial-up myself, I did experience direct ADSL without a router in Australia when I lived there with some family members from 2003 to 2005, and remember Windows XP (on my mum's NEC Versa M320 laptop) popping up a disconnection message whenever someone else in the same house was using the (landline) phone.

[@sagatuppercut2960]

A long time ago, there was a girl I met in an AOL chat room. We went out on dates and then she became my girlfriend.

[@johnl.7754]

It was smart of AOL to purchase Time Warner with over valued stock.

[@HyperpigeonPigeon]

Than verizon bought AOL.

[@HyperpigeonPigeon]

@@girlgreenivy And at&t tried to buy tmobile at one point afterwards.

[@Mylada]

It is kinda funny that Time Warner kinda won but because the bubble was so big they still ended up lower than before.

[@retnavybrat]

My dad and stepmom still use AOL and I can't seem to convince them that they're paying extra for the same service since they already pay AT&T for a TV/phone/computer bundle.

[@trawlins396]

How is that even possible???

[@sdmurphy20]

At this point, they are set in thier ways.

[@PhD4me]

Y'all see the Netflix advertisement on the AOL screen?

[@handsoffmymacaroni102]

Ya

[@AC-kf2ky]

no. i'm blind.

[@ShawZam]

I missed the chat rooms...they should of kept that part of aol..

[@victormorgado5318]

except that chat rooms were civilized back then, we could actually have a chat with several people on a particular subject because "trolls" were virtually inexistent in that early part of social media

[@ericpa06]

This is what happens when people lacking a futuristic vision run a company.

[@majlordag1889]

I think this was inevitable

[@shahnawazali2005]

Agreed

[@IQFungNet2]

AOL is still charging seniors for free email. Reason they are being charges are to protect and scan your emails for virus. I told them can't catch new virus or zip attachment.

[@drinkingpoolwater]

Mickey yea i worked at a computer repair shop and old ladies would come in saying they had to pay AOL to use their email. i told them you don’t have to pay.

[@thriftbee]

My mom was doing those monthly payments for probably ten years after we didn't use the AOL service anymore, and I was horrified when she listed out bills to pay in 2014-ish and AOL was one of them. She defended herself by saying she still used it every day, not understanding that the website and email isn't a service you have to pay for. I wish more people would talk about this, because I assume they're scamming huge quantities of older people this way.

[@takuyachanwoo63]

The Email is Free for everyone But you should understand that Fee is for 24/7 Technical support and Antivirus program like McAfee and Norton. Do some research

[@christinemorales3679]

My dad still pays because he thinks he will lose his email if he doesn’t. 😒

[@froladee]

It took soooo long for me to convince my mom to switch to broadband! It was torture watching the pages take minutes to load lol

[@Emsyaz]

Me and siblings had to collaborate just to convince mum to switch to broadband. Now I'm 26 Memories

[@Blackw0lff]

1. It was too slow 2. You couldnt use your phone while being online 3. They charged per minute 4. Shitty software 5. Better options came along

[@kadacho]

Honestly they didn’t even need this video, they just needed your 5 bullet points xD

[@1N73RC3P7OR]

And the alternative was....? What was better than AOL in 1999?

[@samuelrs5138]

1. Broadband 2. Broadband 3. Broadband 4. Broadband 5. Broadband

[@Tornado1994]

1.Correct. 2.Correct. 3. Also Correct. 4. Absolutely Correct. 5.CORRECT.

[@GlobalGaming101]

My family used NetZero before getting broadband internet in 2005.

[@keaulanisilva1920]

GlobalGaming101 omg I remember netZero!!

[@paulsolfelt8452]

@@keaulanisilva1920 Netzero and juno were great in there time since it was easy to bypass the time limit and have free unlimited internet,LOL !

[@mikecarrasco9498]

Dude I remember the cd bins located at the front door of sears for customers to grab. They made good frisbees.

[@nathancosta36]

Rest in Peace, AOL. You will not be missed😏

[@Dino.808]

😂😅

[@michaellindsey31]

TRUE

[@meagancasselberry7728]

Used aim to talk to my first “love” in high school. Also used it in middle school to research anime. Those were the days...

[@Timbone07]

Why is love in parenthesis?

[@meagancasselberry7728]

Timbone Because I was in high school back then. I don’t know if it was real love or puppy love

[@Timbone07]

@@meagancasselberry7728 Haha. Every failed love feels like puppy love

[@Megasigggg]

I miss the hissing 14.4k modem, and downloading pics, youd be in suspence when it loaded a few lines at a time. And pranking your friends by calling their phone while they were online and it kicked them off😆 those were good times!!

[@johniii8147]

AOL took online hooking up mainstream with its chat rooms

[@yaotly1]

AOL didn't see broadband until it was too late.

[@rachf9695]

Wow, this brings back serious flashbacks of my younger teenage life, and yet my teenager has no idea what it’s like to wait 30-45 seconds per page to load or minutes to connect with the crazy noises! 🤣 only my grandparents had dial up at first! I was always so excited to be able to instant message when I went over there! I feel old lol

[@dreamchaser5758]

Your grandparents were in the know

[@shootingstar987]

I to this day use AOL email. I miss the chat rooms though, they were pretty lit 🔥

[@carlosbam3783]

Shooting Star me 2 its funny when your out and a store asks if you want to sign up for their service and ask for your email and you say ur email is with aol

[@Onetrue1c]

Me too

[@l2xsniper1]

are there even any services that have chat rooms like that anymore? I feel like that is something that is missing in the web culture today, where everything now is just posting comments which is technically a pre-cursor to chatrooms we've gone backwards. Where are the chat rooms where the focus was on people actually communicating with each other in real time, not centered around some video or some live streamer.

[@shootingstar987]

carlosbam yeah I get those comments as well and it makes me feel old or something 😩

[@shootingstar987]

HODL2Lambos I wonder as well, I remember searching for those AOL type chat rooms on the web and couldn’t find anything like it. I miss those, especially the chat rooms where you can choose what or who you’re interested it in.

[@sevenhenson3926]

Notice a full-stop in the new AOL brand logo. It already signalled it's own end

[@samuelmitchell5937]

Love how the former executives who drove AOL into the ground blamed literally everything else but their own shortsightedness, lack of vision, inability to adapt with the constantly fast changing landscape of tech with their outdated mindsets and business strategies.

[@spark300c]

yep yet they could change to cable world since they bough time Warner Cable. They had infrastructure to do it. Yet to fail capitalize on what they had.

[@maryellenw]

12:10: I have a striped polo shirt that looks so much like the shirt worn on-screen! I purchased the shirt from the Saan store located in Beauséjour, Manitoba, Canada in the summer of 2003! What a great memory! Thank you so much for this video, CNBC!

[@zariaeda007]

Never had AOL. We didn't even have netzero back in the day. I remember we had Juno internet.

[@mattyiannielli2067]

Zariaeda 007 I remember those Juno CDs. When I was 2 I once stuck a Juno CD in the old radio 6 disc changer in 2001 and the disc got stuck for years. We finally got the Juno CD out of the radio in 2013 and now the 6 disc changer radio works well again. Good times.

[@papagen00]

There's no modern substitute for AOL Chatrooms. It was a lot easier to meet people then.

[@victormorgado5318]

yes, easier because people were still "civil" back then, no trolls on line, no bullies back then in social media

[@mrbear1302]

Interesting how all of the CEO's kept complaining that if I had only gotten support I could have made it work.......ummm dude you are the support system as CEO. Stop blaming others for your faults!

[@MrAndrewFlame]

Steve Jobs has a similar situation on apples visionaries and communication, no?

[@flavf2494]

Don’t entirely agree with this. Board of directors and majority shareholders especially in public companies can override a CEO. Checks and balances exist for a reason.

[@mrbear1302]

@@flavf2494 You do have a valid point; however, the CEO is still pretty much the one held most accountable. I don't like hearing them whine and complain....especially when they are making millions and millions and millions of dollars.

[@flavf2494]

@@mrbear1302 agreed. I do think often they are held accountable as the figure head of a company even if it's their fault or not. Maybe in this case they just wanted to get rid of him so they didn't support him. Seems like Aol and time Warner were a clash of cultures and didn't agree on a vision. Doomed from the start.

[@virgenfj]

I got tired of logging in to aol to be on the internet. Which is why i switched to broadband.

[@CarlDillynson]

Idk why but it feels like this video goes on for twenty years instead of thirteen minutes...

[@AMGBVG1369]

"You got mail"-Aol

[@postnick]

My local phone company had dialup so I never needed to have AOL. I never even meet someone who used AOL until college in 2006 when I meet people from Minneapolis. They wanted to AIM and my friends were all on MSN Messenger.. Nobody ever used Yahoo.

[@TheRobinRedbreast]

We got the AOL CD's even though we were AOL subscribers. We used the CD's as coasters. I used to love, love, love AOL.

[@mho...]

AOL was great back then, when we had dualchannel ISDN (265kbit) here in germany with flatrate! but one day we go a bill over like 300 DM(yes before euro) because they switched from flatrate to pay by minute without telling us...... in the end we didnt have to pay it, but that made us leave, switch to 1gbit broadband & never look back!

[@AwkwardYet]

Bro wtf are u talking about, i still use AOL Mail

[@victormorgado5318]

true i know someone who still uses AOL, dont even know how they function

[@pabloarvelo5969]

I still can't figure out how to uninstall AOL from one of my older PC's :(

[@hecticerectic9588]

Control+Alt+Delete.

[@victormorgado5318]

that happened to me when a friend signe his name on my new pc in 1998, so I went back to comp usa and told them that the pc was used before i bought it because there was a useer name for AOL on the browser, and they exchanged the pc for a new one taht is how i got rid of that

[@victormorgado5318]

@@hecticerectic9588 not back then

[@themanwithnoname4385]

In the next few years we will be watching videos about the rise and fall of cable. It's on it's last leg and won't live another 5 years, cable now is basically one big long unskipable KZbin ad

[@mcwolf4255]

Wow this is bringing it back for real. Netscape, Hotmail, AIM Express, flip phones with indigo blue screen texting was a luxury with Motorola 2 way LOL. Then Sidekick was the “it” mobile phone to have with the AIM app already installed.

[@FletcherFinance]

I loved the AOL diskette. They saved me so much money from having to buy blanks at the store.

[@Hard31337]

Russell Buck Fletcher I did the same, still can remember the hard clicking sound my old Mac with a 570ish Megabyte Hard Drive made when formatting the free AOL Floppies.

[@Not2day-Satan]

Who remembers driving around to different k Marts to find those free AOL trial CDs because you ran out on a Friday. ✋

[@Caleb_Mandrake872]

I would drive to EggHead

[@kaistockman6443]

I still use my AOL email. 😜 Of course I also have Gmail. But I went to a store recently and told the cashier my AOL email and they had no clue what I was talking about. 😂 I let all my junk mail go to AOL. 😜

[@trawlins396]

I'll never give up my AOL email!!!

[@Cocoatreat]

I still have aol! I’m old! I was paying & I knew I shouldn’t... I would have still been paying.. but they got too greedy! I wasn’t even using them for access.. just simply email.. they went up to $29/mo! That’s crazy! Wow! They had some good chat rooms back in the day! No- I don’t pay any more....

[@ChrisGilliamOffGrid]

How old are ya?

[@Cocoatreat]

I’m 59... but still feeling like 45... ! 😆

[@ChrisGilliamOffGrid]

That's ok, I'm a 48 yr old teenager. :)

[@Cocoatreat]

Chris Gilliam Man Stuff - I understand, teen! I’m like an aunt to ya! 😆

[@ChrisGilliamOffGrid]

@@Cocoatreat Come hang out on my channel, it's a fun place.😁

[@djfremen]

My friend got me kicked off AOL for trolling chatrooms. They actually read the transcript to my mom when she called about why AOL wouldn't connect. I was grounded. Thanks Brent!

[@NaturalElicia]

Do one on Gateway that was a big thing as well in the 90s I had one!

[@CocoTaveras8975]

Or on MySpace, like others are suggesting.

[@TheFourthWinchester]

They will only do what company man has done. They don't wanna waste time researching when someone else already has done the job.

[@mred8002]

We live so far in the sticks that folks get their sticks from us. A phone call just a couple miles away was ‘long distance’, and ALL AOL links were not a local call. Our phone carrier didn’t have sufficient customers, and would not sell a local number to AOL. So, we would just use the modem and hook to the closest city that had an access number, get the mail, and sign off, to keep the phone bill down.

[@ct5951]

The AOL chatrooms used to be lit!

[@Melo7849]

I remember trying to cancel my AOL service, and they wouldn’t let me. So, I changed my debit card info to stop AOL

[@TeddyStrongBear]

I had a customized “You Got Mail” soundbite using Laurence Fishburne’s voice from the Matrix! I loved and miss AOL during its glory days....

[@djlawlz4041]

I definitely remember AOL. My username was 51EMERGENCY (I was obsessed with the show *EMERGENCY!* at the time)

[@Jfromes1]

I remember trying to repeatedly log on during evenings only to be met by a busy signal. Sometimes it would take an hour just to get though!

[@haokieto0]

Aol was expensive. we were using Netzero and Jupiter and other cheaper dial up.

[@Nicholas-f5]

And there were hacker codes

[@cpufreak101]

If I remember right there's even a company out in California that just gives away free dial up access. Sure it's uselessly slow, but it exists

[@ignazs.5816]

I still have my netzero email address. I'm surprised they're still around.

[@emotionscomeandgo]

Netzero yeah... Finally remembered the name. Yeah we never had aol.... We had net zero at home which was pathetically slow lol.

[@ritzkola2302]

90s babies wya!! This was our introduction to the internet. Nostalgia talking- the best time for the internet was post AOL but Pre-Iphone. That 2004-2006 era. I know AOL was still around but it wasn’t as relied on and diminishing from public eye. Internet Explorer, club penguin, pinball, ask jeeves, yahoo, RuneScape, man the good days

[@amandamc6569]

Ask jeeves! Omgg

[@ritzkola2302]

Amanda Mc throwback

[@patrickangeloamable7784]

AOL-Time Warner merger destroyed WCW. This is why pro wrestling right now sucks because WWE have no one to compete with.

[@dreamchaser5758]

Domino effect. What do you think of AEW?

[@shadowfiend3142]

Oh yeah I agree AOL-Time Warner killed WCW big time AOL didn't understand pro wrestling like Time Warner did but in the end they were force to pay WCW's top key players since they were under contract with AOL-Time Warner and not WCW itself who Vince McMahon couldn't acquire they're contracts from them (some say he should have used that money to acquire those contracts instead of forming the XFL) but in the end the merger is gone and now AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite has taken WCW Monday Nitro's place on TNT

[@Chu3505]

AOL should of start their own Broad Band Networks.Instead of Monopolizing other commutation companies competition to uses as their own products.

[@ignazs.5816]

It's too late.

[@what_ever1971]

AOL was my first internet, I had the computer and room mate paid the aol account and he still had that account well into the 21st century. His brother was on line gaming so much that he had 1,000 dollar aol bill and a 1,000 phone bill.

[@lobecosc]

Never had it. I got Netzero and never looked back until I DSL and now cable.

[@becooool010]

CNBC online video content is gr8 👍 hats to you sir

[@donincognito9006]

I remember when they added the celebrity voices for "You got Mail". I chose Madonna as it was the best voice, I wish I could find it.

[@Smartkid2387]

AOL was my life in my teenage years. I still remember my AIM screen name. Funny enough my mom still uses it and I know older people who still faithful users of AOL

[@tdot34]

Just got to say thank you CNBC for this high quality content.

[@NOCDIB]

Let us not forget how AOL's own community service drove it into the ground. AOL had become so cocky with its large user base that it did not care about quality standards. People could have accounts terminated through false reports, password stealing with trojan horse programs was prevalent, etc, and AOL just didn't care until the users declined and they felt like they were forced to. Also, AOL as a web browser just sucked compared to Internet Explorer and Netscape. Once instant messenger become a free product there was no need to for the full service.

[@vvvspqr]

You've got mail How about unexpected - GOOD BY- just as I was in the midle of doing something? Now I had to repower the computer

[@JohnLee-fr6pi]

I remember when cable modem came out. I didn't want to pay for cable AND aol. So I cancelled my aol subscription and still kept aim. Haha suckers!

[@ronalcasid3844]

I was never an AOL customer but I’m pretty sure AOL didn’t offer access to the internet at least in the beginning. They eventually offered a gateway to the internet for their customers but by then it was too late for them.

[@bbygrlpt2]

The chatroom were soo funny!! I rember everyone askin A/S/L and Id lie and say I was 18 when I was 14😂😂 and I used AIM on my comp and sidekick.. If anything they shouldve saved AIM.😭

[@D1amondeyes]

That dial up noise though. I currently get 400 mbps for $45.99 for the first year at Spectrum. Never looking back

[@stephenromanyk267]

I enjoyed you I enjoyed and that was my first uses of a computer on the internet and in no way I'm sad that it's gone I wish it was still around and thank you for making the video about AOL

[@Jellyrollrider]

I remember playing eddys match em all basketball on Disney and having my mom yell at me to get offline so she could call my grandmother. Ah, to be young again.

[@dansears9204]

Started using AOL in 95, I had a few screen names the last one I remember was ItsJusDan , State of the art PC , IBM Aptiva Intel 133 megahertz ,4mb ram ,2.1gb HDD , and a blazing 28,800 MWave modem. All packed with bloatware.

[@AneudiD78]

All those AOL CD's that people tossed aside or used as coasters are now worth money on eBay! The earlier unopened versions have more valuable.

[@gr8god4u]

I first got on AOL back in 1997 and I am still on AOL today. I currently get it for free but I would have continued pain had they continued the style of chat room access that they had in the 90s.

[@gr8god4u]

Paying not pain

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Good short documentary. I enjoyed seeing something, I knew all about in the 90's and then wondered what happened to them. This is business right? Some companies will survive some will fall by the way side.

[@FrenchyHalloween]

Used AIM everyday growing up to talk to friends before my parents allowed me to have a cell phone. Username was Jessehalloween12

[@DarknessFalls29]

Jesse Seibert I don't even remember my screen name.

[@sicilianotoronto]

I’m laughing at Special Ed yelling ‘you’ve got mail!’ On Crank Yankers Lol

[@Alex-zp5ft]

VzMedia has potential but nobody has any freaking idea what the f is happening around them. Especially the management. signed: an insider

[@uthmanbaksh3530]

Signing up for AOL back in 2003 was super simple. Cancelling in 2006 was a pain in the ass. I remember getting broadband from Time Warner [RoadRunner back then] but still paying for AOL. It took me nearly 2 hours on the phone to cancel AOL. No wonder why people hated them and fled once they got broadband.

[@sdmurphy20]

I'm not surprised. This has Comcast vibes written all over it.

[@frisbooo]

aol walked so facebook could run

[@jcngokai-76]

The BIGGEST mistake that AOL has made was the f***ing merger with Time Warner, add on to the first dot com burst, and advent of cable broadband took a huge toll on AOL

[@spark300c]

it as not Biggest mistake. They could transfer to broad band.

[@mechajay3358]

Oh man, I remember all the time my parents nagging at me to get off the internet so they can use the phone and that sound makes when you turn it on, those were some good/annoying times to have with AOL.

[@victormorgado5318]

In 1997, someone from texas shared with me some sort of underground program to be used in aol , called MIB ( men in black) one would upload , it began with the theme music of the film and a custom made-aol browser that no other users had. there was a feature with which one could totally freezze someone elses browser in chat room, like a virus, blinking the image at fast speed on and off that lasted like 10 seconds each time we hit enter on it with someone's screen name in the box , no one else could do that, so that may had been the beginning of troll life. My favorite feature of the MIB underground "program" was the "elite chat", an original letter font in the form of chinese characters but could be read as english. Standard AOL chat rooms did not have such feature, so one would be truly "elite" in chat rooms. the MIB program also had a hyper private chatroom with followers of the author of that program, that was really weird, it was the cream of the cream of cyber pirates aware of their technological high skills at that early stage of internet history. I don't know what happened to that, no one I have known ever heard of that program.

[@racheysdad]

I worked for Warner Bros when AOL took over and it was horrible. AOL insisted we use AOL mail instead of MS Outlook. Every time we printed an email a pop up message would come up asking us if we wanted to buy printer supplies. That lasted for about 5 months until were able to switch back to Outlook. Just because you built a successful internet company, doesn't mean you suddenly can run a Media Conglomerate. One of the worst mergers in history!!!

[@Raez_XL]

Great content guys. One thing though, could you please turn up the volume a bit?

[@MynameIsnotforsell]

just saw an old Netflix ad, man how times have changed.

[@CocoTaveras8975]

Yep. And I was born in '02 so.....

[@davidcopeland5450]

How many early to mid-20s adults out there still remember AOL at its height and after besides me lol? Gosh I feel old.

[@Shwalker07]

Late 20's here, now I feel old too ;) but I still remember. AOL even used trial floppy discs and I had all different .0 versions back in the day.

[@itsaaronlolz]

I used to collect all of those CDs lol 😂

[@sallydavies9253]

I am early 30s so definitely remember it your not old it just moved so fast.

[@carlosk8103]

Man this just reminds me how old I'm getting... To have used this you'd have to be around 30 years today ( 2021)...... Kids today will never understand what a pain dial-up was..

[@petecoventry6858]

I was a Guide on AOL for 10 years - Happy days :)

[@FortyTwoAnswerToEverything]

I still have all my backed up emails and IM's from the 90's.

[@dannnyyang]

“YOU GOT MAIL”

[@TheCeman777]

my primary email is still under AOL😬

[@PatrickBaptist]

You noob.

[@andreas.9175]

Guy at Verizon: I have a great idea, let's buy sinking ships!

[@elysium76]

Maybe whoever buys the AOL brand, turn it to a social media company, Facebook needs to go down

[@energeez]

elysium76 facebook got their claws in with that sign in feature on other sites