Chapter 11. Using AOL 6.0

You can hardly turn on the television anymore without hearing something about America Online. If it’s not a commercial for the service itself, then you’ll hear it mentioned at the end of a commercial for something else, such as, “Visit us at www.microsoft.com; AOL keyword ‘Microsoft.’”

AOL was once a part of a three-way national online service war with CompuServe and Prodigy. Today, however, AOL is the undisputed king. It seems like a hundred years ago when AOL struck the key blow in that war when it offered unlimited access to its customers for $19.99/month. Before that, all the services were offering “packages” such as 40 hours for this price, with additional charges for additional hours.

When AOL made its bold move, ...

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