Jeff Jarvis waves Steve Case off with good riddance.
Back in 1993 when the Internet itself was the top item on their hype list, Wired decided that ISPs would wipe out AOL/Compuserve etc. It seemed plausible – why would you pay for access to a walled garden, largely private, non-Intenet service with a crappy interface.
What is amazing is that AOL ever became big in the first place when ten years ago they were already an anachronism. AOL actually pulled off something incredible, clearly their marketing, however tacky, worked and they were doing something right. But with a bad product, service and customer support one does wonder what exactly. The depressing thought is that several million of us behaved like Gollum, seduced by a free disk – look, me have shiny, shiny, pretty CD thing.