AOL-TimeWarner strangled itself to death

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Reading the BBC coverage on the AOL-TimeWarner demise would lead one to believe that the merger failed because of shrinking dial-up income. Now while that part has a ring of truth, it is only part of the problem, and indeed a small part.

What really happened is that AOL strangled its user-base to death. It imposed on its users an outmoded model of "we are your entire world and you jolly better well say thank you to us for allowing you to use our service". That philosophy underwrote everything AOL stood for, and noteworthy it is entirely at odds with successful companies such as Google.

That philosophy was embodied in its dial-up fat client which took over the desktop, literally and was widely known to take an expert to dispose of. "How to get yourself hated" by one and all, without exception was the arrogant morals that AOL-TimeWarner stood for. I know of not one person - not one person - who had anything good to say about the AOL desktop client.

In the world pre-broadband there was some justification for taking such a high stance. And certainly that was true in the days of bulletin boards. But in the new world of open-Internet AOL-TimeWarner simple had no business model and the cloak of death suits them well.

Let us hope that a new AOL totally separated from TimeWarner can start from the beginning and create new idiom. The old one has not served them well.