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An old prediction of mine...
Flash back to 2002.
Online decline
"October 1989 The America Online service is launched on Macintosh and Apple machines
March 1992 AOL lists on Nasdaq
August 1994 AOL announces its millionth US subscriber
November 1997 AOL passes 10 million US subscribers
January 2000 AOL and Time Warner announce plans to merge, one month after AOL hits 20 million US subscribers. The $160bn deal is completed a year later
April 2002 AOL Time Warner acknowledges that the new group is struggling as it announces a $45bn write-down, in the same year that AOL passes 35 million subscribers worldwide
August 2002 - Alienq states that AOL will ultimatly fail as a business in the long term, within the next 10 years in threads on veritable boards.
December 2002 Subscriber numbers fall for the first time
January 2003 Steve Case, pictured, the AOL executive who engineered the Time Warner merger, resigns as company chairman. By the year end the group says it will revert to its Time Warner title
December 2005 Google takes a minority stake in AOL as Case says AOL and Time Warner should split"
I predicted the fall of AOL in 2002 on the basis of them unable to compete with broadband. Needless to say people laughed as it was expected that AOL would adapt to broadband competition and the thought that Dial UP was going to always be "The standard" along with TimeWarner it seemed inevitable to many that AOL would truly succeed.
However with no need of AOL, Cable Provider's and DSL provider's gained ground over dial up easily, while having no interest with AOL as a content provider to DSL/Cable subscribers.
It's starting to seem the pieces of the once mighty AOL are slowly drying up on the very basis I predicted. Now its "Free"! LOL!
Nice!
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