AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up internet service after 34 years

The company said it’ll be discontinued at the end of September.

8/11/25 10:43AM

Like Netflix sending DVDs in 2023, The Rolling Stones still touring six decades after they first formed, or Al Pacino bringing another child into the world at the age of 83, it seems hard to believe that AOL is still offering dial-up internet services in 2025. The latter of those feats is at last going offline, with the internet provider recently announcing that it will discontinue dial-up by the end of next month.

Ringing out

According to PC Gamer, the first publication to pick up the announcement from the murky depths of AOL’s online help pages, the company originally started providing dial-up internet to Americans in 1991. As recently as 2015, AOL counted as many as 1.5 million dialing customers willing to fight through shrill tones and a static wall of sound to get online, though those numbers have obviously dwindled further since.

Still, in the age of ultrafast broadband and 5G, just how many Americans are dialing up at home to listen to Benson Boone’s new album or watch Mr Beast?

Per PC Gamer’s reporting, AOL’s dial-up service subscribers were in the “low thousands” in 2021. But there are, of course, other providers: the most recent data from the NTIA estimated that there were more than 500,000 US households still using dial-up internet services in the same year.

With streaming, social media, and artificial intelligence at every turn, it’s hard to imagine going without internet access in America in the modern world, but it’s more common than you might imagine. Data from Pew Research Center showed that some 4% of Americans polled last year said they don’t use the internet — rough math suggests that’s more than 13 million people across the country.

Jon Keegan22h

OpenAI employees are cashing out their shares, dozens making $30 million each

OpenAI’s planned IPO later this year is expected to be one of the largest of all time. Employees who got equity early on are sure to reap a windfall when the company shares hit the public markets.

Often these pre-IPO shares can’t be cashed in until the company goes public, and many startups have longer lockup periods before employees can sell their shares.

But The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI has a relatively short two-year vesting period, and the company allowed employees to sell shares before the IPO via a tender offer, as long as they’ve reached the two-year mark.

According to the report, in October, more than 600 current and former OpenAI employees sold shares through this process, minting a cluster of new multimillionaires. The Journal said about 75 of those walked away with $30 million (the maximum sale amount for this offer).

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Apple’s pie

23h

How much Apple’s biggest contribution to the AI boom matters for its sales

Hint: it’s not Siri and it’s not much.

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Intel pops on reported Apple chip deal

Intel soared more than 14% on a Wall Street Journal report saying the company has reached a preliminary agreement with Apple to manufacture chips for the iPhone maker. Intel, already on a tear as of late, jumped earlier this week when Bloomberg first reported the two companies were in talks. It’s still unclear which chips Intel would manufacture for Apple, which has been facing supply constraints for its iPhone as well other products.

In any case, the deal could help Apple ease supply constraints that have hit some of its products and reduce its reliance on longtime partner TSMC, as it aims to bring more chip manufacturing stateside.