Worth noting: - Microsoft thought it was A-OK to push daily updates to its software because an iterative, reactive patch strategy beat paying AOL a license fee - AOL thought it was A-OK to exploit their own shitty software's shittyness rather than bring some resources to bear that weren't shitty. AOL market cap at the time: $222 billion M$ market cap at the time: $400 billion That's Google and Apple's market cap right fucking now. M$ was at an equivalent of $550 billion fucking dollars and this was their approach. AOL was so fucking rich they bought Time Warner the next year. And what did they do? Fuck with their users over nickels.
Fuck with their users over nickels. Not over nickles. AOL as an ISP was already in decline then. AIM had plenty of users whose eyeballs they could sell to advertisers. This was before they bought Time Warner (in 2000), but around the time they were buying Netscape and turning it into a portal site. They were already moving from an ISP with padded edges to selling eyeballs to advertisers.AOL was so fucking rich they bought Time Warner the next year. And what did they do?