Amazing but true: AOL’s dial up business still makes over $150 million in quarterly operating income

[Corey]

We were surprised last summer when we learned that there were still 3 million lost souls who were trapped in AOL dial-up hell, since we figured that dial-up Internet service had gone the way of POGs and Beanie Babies as '90s trends that had been mercifully relegated to the dustbin of history. But as Business Insider's Henry Blodget points out, AOL's (AOL) dial-up subscription service is still the company's major money maker and produced an operating income before depreciation and amortization of $158.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. Blodget notes that even though AOL's dial-up business is still shrinking, it's still producing "about $500 million a year... that AOL can use and is using to invest in other cool businesses (content and an ad network)." So take comfort, AOL dial-up subscribers: Your willingness to wait 45 minutes to watch a three-minute YouTube video is powering AOL's other businesses to new and exciting heights.

 

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[UAdave]

I'm sure this is mostly old people or non-tech people who still think you can't have the interwebz without AOL.

[Ol Smoke]

Here in Oregon, 25% of the people are still on dial-up because of the rural area we have.

[NoGooD]

I'm sure this is mostly old people or non-tech people who still think you can't have the interwebz without AOL.

 

lol. Ironically my grandparents were on AOL dialup for the simple reason that they cannot get anything better where they live in California. Similar to what Smoke said, there are quite a few people to live in rual areas that the phone/cable companies won't push broadband too. The only alternative is satellite which is horrendously expensive for sub par internet speeds. This is especially true for parts of Eastern Oregon, Nevada, and Eastern California.

[Chameleon]

That is amazing! I didn't think you could even load a web page on dial-up anymore to be honest.. Not that I am dissing it, I used to connect through bbs and still remember how amazed I was when I got my first 14.4 dial up modem! Wonder how long a loaded page takes to load on dial-up?

[parrot]

ya my first computer had a sexy 14.4 modem...

 

tried playing quake arena on that connection, didn't work very well.

 

at all :/

[Chameleon]

ya my first computer had a sexy 14.4 modem...

 

tried playing quake arena on that connection, didn't work very well.

 

at all :/

 

Haha those were the days.. I remember my brother and I would play Unreal Tournament when we got up to the 28.8 modems, one would host and the other joined.. Needless to say the one who hosted would always win lol