aol-pretends-to-be-the-internet

AOL, the online service that began as Quantum Computer Services, expanded from a closed network into a gateway to the wider Internet in the mid-1990s, and by 1997 about half of Internet users were accessing it through AOL. The article says Ted Leonsis, who joined AOL after its 1994 acquisition of his firm Redgate Communications, initially aimed to make AOL a content portal competing with Disney and television. In 1994, after subscriber requests, AOL added support for Gopher and WAIS, and Steve Case told the press, "AOL is the Internet and a whole lot more." AOL acquired the BookLink browser in 1995 and added Microsoft's Internet Explorer in 1996, and in 1998 it bought Netscape for $4.2 billion.