The Long Goodbye to the Internet

Image: TSD / ChatGPT

Goodnight, farewell. See you on the other side. You’ve been sunset. 

No, I’m not talking about GPT-4o’s removal.

This is the end. Every AOL CD is now useless even if you have a CD drive and party like it’s 1999. AOL is pulling the plug on its dial-up service.

Goodnight, modem

We are going to say goodbye to 34 years of service. On September 30th, the last few thousand Americans still clinging to that slow hiss of connectivity will find themselves disconnected. Era over.

Each sunset like this makes a certain cohort of developer feel old. Yet this isn’t so much a shutdown as it was a mercy killing.

“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet”

Your business with us is no longer profitable enough. So bye.

But in their defense we need to say goodbye to the old to say hello to the new. That applies to your code as well as the hair-brained ideas of your product owner.

The Last Holdouts

Just like that, the original gateway drug to the World Wide Web joins the scrapheap of tech nostalgia. Right next to MySpace, RealPlayer, and your ICQ number you’ve mercifully forgotten.

Yes, there were still users. Around 265,000 Americans in 2019 were still connecting to the internet via dial-up, according to the US Census. 

A quarter of a million people still tolerated the horror of someone picking up the phone while you downloaded a JPEG slllloooowwwwwlllyyyy.

You’d think those in rural America would have some protection from losing this essential service. Checking bank statements, or logging into healthcare portals with a service that they could (eventually) rely on. Those free CDs, the training wheels for the digital world and those adverts are all gone. Forever. Like last year’s code.

Sunset is Essential

There’s something poetic about AOL finally calling time on dial-up. It’s not just a product ending.

 In the tech world, nothing truly lasts. Not the shiny startups, not the web 2.0 unicorns, not even the monopolies that once seemed invincible. Your code is the beginning and end of this idea too.

I’ve seen so many people addicted to keeping their code even when it’s well out of date. Classes get so big that nobody wants to change them in case they introduce a regression. Huge pyramids of doom with cases that no longer apply to the code.

I know people who don’t delete stale branches (annoying) or keep draft PRs up for 18 months. It’s annoying, it’s not helpful and it’s a real issue for those who want to keep their codebase up to date.

And TBH, that an analogue to the use of a dial up AOL in 2025. It’s something that has to be got rid of and other solutions found for people who need this type of service. I mean, there has to be a better way of getting the web into everyone’s home (even if it has to be mobile).

Conclusion

Pour one out for the hiss of the modem. For AIM away messages. For the chat rooms where you definitely claimed to be older than 14. For the forums where fandoms were born and trolls were just slightly more subtle.

This is the end of the innocence of the internet.

Can it also be the end of your stale code?