AOL’s dial up internet takes its last bow, marking the end of an era

File this under "things that I assumed happened decades ago."

SDF.org has dial-up. And a Lemmy instance. I think it's lemmy.sdf.org

I’d rather go back to using the internet that dial up was used for than this high speed cesspool we have now.

Idk.
It was hard to find things even with a search engine, and it was full of scams and spyware, and obnoxious designs that got in the way of the real content, and the most popular chat rooms were run by power-tripping nerds with too much free time and an endless interest in CSAM and Nazi ideology.
Not like today, where… uh… well…
- I never had too much trouble finding my way around, and it was the real wild West. You could find all kinds of cool shit. Could just visit Jon Does website with a list of game roms and download them with no bs.
The old internet is still out there, you just have to find it.
Nah, I don't miss forums and chat rooms enough to go back to those days again. I need my comments to be sorted by uovote count to preserve my sanity. I can't go back. People are assholes.
♥️

It's 2025 and dial up still exists

Mind = dial up sounds

So... AOL now EOL

the end of an era

Lol that era ended decades ago

I'll never forgive them for what they did to usenet! Also, I assumed this happened like 20 years ago. Color me surprised.

In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide.

Are these households in rural areas without many alternatives?

Starlink is available in the vast majority of the US. What is the cost difference though?

edit: i dont like elon musk or starlink

F starlink
- True
Mashable did an article on it, saying it wasn’t easy to find but $9.99/mo appeared to be the cost, still, after all this time. But it would only run on windows PCs.
- No way. Kind of awesome of them maybe unless ulterior motives
Starlink actually sucks fat dick unless it's literally your only option.
Even in rural America, you still have access to Visible's unlimited data for $25/month. They use Verizon's network, which covers just about everywhere people live in the US.
- I didn't realize Visible has unlimited hotspotting. ATT/TMO block/paywall that, though it's possible to bypass using custom ROMs or non carrier firmware in some cases
Starlink is $120 a month
- You can get the roam plan for $50 a month. If you were doing fine with dial-up, then the 50GB data cap shouldn't be an issue. You could even use the standby mode for $5 a month for 11 months out of the year and will still be an order of magnitude faster than the dial-up connection.
There are other legacy satellite providers like hughesnet that are somehow still hanging on. They don't really hold a candle to starlink performance-wise, and they shit the bed in bad weather, but at least they're not Elon. There's going to be a lot of latency, but it'll feel blazing fast if you're coming from dialup.
There are other dialup providers still remaining as well, besides AOL. I know msn is still kicking at least. It's kind of funny to think about receiving dialup service when almost all POTS lines have gone away, and much of the modern web will be borderline unusable without lots of tweaking, but at least grandma who lives out in the sticks can check her email, use chat clients, download articles and books, etc.
Probably about 1 year's worth of dial-up per month of Starlink, if not more…
Its not perfect to replace for all those rural households, but a 5G based internet 'gateway' is an affordable and viable option for people at least somewhere near a 5G tower.
Unlike that national fiber build out that never really happened to anywhere near the extent that was promised, its not that expensive to set up a 5G cell tower, and for users its eaaay cheaper than any satellite internet, including Starlink.
- Okay but about the fiber shit, they covered 99.7% of my city and didn't cover my street and I'm within walking distance of city hall. I really wish there was a way I could compel them to give me fiber. One of the few things I dislike about my location.
New retirement gig: Fill the gap in the market for super-rural dialup.
It’d be like the new version of a rural post office. I could actually be a lineman for the county!
- There's no market. Fixed wireless is the current thing.

Really? I use my phone for internet full-time now.

It looks like we've come full circle.

Now to hook two modems to two computers and get them to 'talk' over WhatsApp...

Would that be a VPN tunnel of sorts?

That's just a direct connection. It used to be common for 2 player games to connect that way.
- So much Warcraft 2 with my cousin over direct connect. Those were good times