Which is hardly an insignificant bit of AOL after all!

Whether it's worth any money is another matter.

I can't believe that the Time Warner / AOL merger ever happened - AOL's plans to conquer the broadband market (in the same way in conquered the dial-up market) never really seemed to exist - and a rock-solid plan of how to survive and prosper in the broadband age was definitely needed.

AOL is only ever going to be a niche product - for all its infinite faults, it got lots of people used to being online, but the public at large just don't need to have their hand held in the same way they did when the internets was new to consumers (though there's certainly still room for a bit of guidance given the murky depths of the net, what with phishing and the like).

As everyone has said since, AOL was massively over-valued at the time of the merger (which was in fact ludicrously technically speaking an AOL takeover of Time Warner). Why anyone bought into this at the time still defeats me - it sounded like a shit deal even back then.

the only that comes to mind with is theyre patheticly crap and childish browser they force you to use, then a isp is just a isp

When TW paid so much for AOL they probably never thought of AOL's future potential, they just looked at how well it was doing at the time and assumed it would continue that way forever in the typically myopic way companies seem to operate these days.

AOL is dependent on clueless newbies. There were lots of these back when the merger happened, but it's a finite pool, and the newbies eventually realized they could get dial-up internets for about 1/3 the cost of AOL. Or broadband for a little less than AOL dialup. The younger generation is accustomed to normal, non-AOL internet access through school, libraries, etc. so no need for the awful AOL suite and overpriced dial-up.

The newbie supply is almost exhausted, and when it's gone, AOL are done.

Now that some of the business is concentrating on selling adverts to other websites they may start making money again.

If you read the book "Stealing Time" it describes the growth of AOL from inception until its ill-fated takeover of TW. It's a good read, but definitely not a recommendation for AOL as a consumer!

Just before Win95/MSN launch M$ did indeed sniff around the 'new kid on the block' that was AOL. The management team at AOL were so aggressive to any proposals then, I doubt M$ would return without their baseball bats....

It's hard to blame TW; they were an old dinosaur during the takeover days, and it was definitely AOL pushing the merger.