AOL should stay a dinosaur A reader wrote in commenting on my AOL post saying

"the only way for AOL to convert from being the worlds largest dinosaur ISP would be for them to figure out how to offer a conversion to Broadband to all of their current subscribers, and figure out the business model to pay for it second."

I think this is a common position, both within the tech industry and without, but it's not one I agree with. AOL is a public company, and its job is to make money for shareholders, not inject cool new technology into the market. It's widely supposed that tech companies make money by injecting cool new technology into the market, but the fate of Apple, Be, NeXT, and the enormous number of cool tech companies that struggle go to show that's just not true. AOL should focus on making money and leave public works to the government.