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  • Ernie Smithernie
    Aug 9, 2025, 12:46 AM

    Who's still rolling on POTS?

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  • ThomasAPowellthomasapowell@fosstodon.org
    Aug 9, 2025, 1:52 AM

    @lauren @ernie not surprising they suck. Also in CA so I’ll share my fun story that ~ 8 years ago I attempted to put a pots line back in my rebuilt house as a backup. AT&T simply couldn’t figure out how to do it. I had the wires to the house, they couldn’t place the order & didn’t have people who know even what to do. Yet most of my elderly neighbors have working lines. Post Pacbell the system rots like a Dharma Initiative station from Lost still working somehow but mostly abandoned.

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  • SerenusSerenus@mas.to
    Aug 9, 2025, 1:25 AM

    @ernie Me, though just for actual phone service and not for internet.

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  • MarkDmarkd@hachyderm.io
    Aug 9, 2025, 2:26 AM

    @ernie I was going to say that theworld.com (aka world.std.com aka home of "Kibo") still advertises a whole bunch of dialup numbers with a controversial marketing claim that it was the first dial-up ISP in "the world", but...

    Just checking my facts by visiting their website and it seems to be in terminal decline with most links returning 404s or responding *very* slowly.

    Maybe with AOL dialup disappearing Barry S will achieved his goal of being known as the first and last dialup service.

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  • Jeri Danskyjeridansky@sfba.social
    Aug 9, 2025, 2:44 AM

    @ernie I've kept my POTS telephone line in case of emergencies. I'm not using POTS for internet access.

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  • LisPilispi314@udongein.xyz
    Aug 9, 2025, 6:30 AM
    @ernie Probably plenty of rural folks that'll have to deal with somehow even more expensive options instead.
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  • LisPilispi314@udongein.xyz
    Aug 9, 2025, 7:08 AM
    @Reiddragon @ernie Hm, maybe they've moved them to ADSL.

    But for some reason I expect them to just drop the lines entirely, fuck the users.
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  • TrimTab 🇺🇦TrimTab@mastodon.social
    Aug 9, 2025, 9:36 AM

    @ernie
    POTS internet = People living in remote sparse regions, who are morally opposed to Musk. It is an admittedly small demographic but not zero.

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  • George Liquor, Americanliquor_american@universeodon.com
    Aug 9, 2025, 1:33 AM

    @mattl @ernie That's not the name I recall. Maybe there were sysops out there making that claim for clout? I think I confirmed my guy's story independently at the time, but I was pretty young so not necessarily. The dude I'm thinking of could have been a bullshitter, but I'd never considered the possibility because he ran a pretty big and successful board that itself became an ISP early on. I'll have to see if I can verify now after the fact, should be a fun project

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  • Callistocallisto@disabled.social
    Aug 9, 2025, 3:05 AM

    @coffeemug Not even necessarily really rural, just exurban and hilly. I'm two miles from interstate 70 in Ohio. My only options are cellular and satellite. Most of my precinct doesn't have cell signal. @mattl @Tooden @ernie

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  • Callistocallisto@disabled.social
    Aug 9, 2025, 3:07 AM

    @coffeemug (I had good internet when it was 4G, but after they "upgraded" the towers to 5G, now I have great internet in the wintertime, and not much at all when there are leaves on the trees.) @mattl @Tooden @ernie

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 3:34 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Yes. I have a friend whose only option is landline internet. In     California of all states. I wish I was joking, but I grew up on that very same horrible internet, but at least MY house is served by local cable, HughesNet, and cellular. My neighbors aren't quite so lucky. Some have to go outside to make or receive phone calls. Some are not able to get cable. Some have too many trees to get HughesNet. Some people in my area can ONLY get internet via landlines, period. It still happens to find dialup there if you're not able to afford DSL and it (T/E-Carriers and ISDN count too, the latter being closer to dialup unless you pay even more, and the former being more-expensive still and capping out at around half-gigabit if you go for a T/E5, of which only the E carrier goes above 500Mbps, getting to 565Mbps, unless you're on Japan's T-carriers that go to 565Mbps. American T5 lines go to around 400Mbps on the dot. Getting a T5/E5 requires paying your local Central Office of the telephone company enough to make their eyes bulge, but it IS more fault-tolerant in an emergency than other methods because it is, at its heart, still a fuckton of phone lines, 5760 in the United States or 8192 in Japan and Europe, and so it may even handle a power failure at your house so you could literally go online if you have a UPS and you lose power, or if you are connected on a laptop, depending on factors with how everything is set up and receives signal) or dialup are your only options. So yes, people still use dialup when there is literally nothing else. Modern Windows and dialup as late as 2017 was a mess due to Win10 telemetry hogging everything even after many tasks were stopped via Task Manager. Believe me, those USB modems probably work best on XP machines unless you use them for fax or PBX purposes, or to feed game console modems via line simulator shenanigans. But their internet source use ain't exactly easy unless you are REALLY savvy with tech and have LITERALLY no other way of getting online. And good luck doing YouTube, even at 144p. Actually, most sites will trip you up, and some servers may see your speed and just not even bother with serving you the page, without even meaning to by the site owner. And the 2017 Internet was simpler and still unusable for dialup unless on the simplest news sites which after 8 years are SURELY more complex. But I guess the garbage will do when you have no other options. If you can't even afford to do laundry, then anything but NetZero or Freeola is what you're stuck with. So yeah, this news DOES affect the people making minimum wage in a rural Southern fast-food restaurant still using BellSouth. People who can't even retire on that money, and still drive a clunker they can't afford to fuel up that passes zero smog checks. Yeah, people still use dialup, so ironically this change fucks over people including their most loyal users who literally have no other choice. Even Ham Radio or Iridium GO satellite internet would cost too much for people in such a situation. Keep 56K!

    Oh and     https://stgiga.github.io/stgiga.xface and https://stgiga.github.io/QuadFace.gif load on dialup in a second each, but the added pride banner in https://stgiga.github.io/stgiga2.xface and https://stgiga.github.io/TallFace.gif will load in in around an extra fraction of that. By the point of the banner you end up being the reason I hold the record for most-complex X-Face, and that is that the largest ones with the most extensions like RGB color, 8bpp grayscale, animation, and image sizes larger than 48x48 created walls of headers that were terrible for the dialup used then that 56K didn't exist during the first part of, and thus AIO headers were nuisances, even though mine isn't that bad. Either way, I hold this impressive but shitty record that in the modern day requires a revival involving repurposing to be useful, of which Fediverse and other decentralized platforms would be a big use. So that's how things stand. My grandmother to this day e-mails friends still on AOL, and they still get internet from the same Pacific Bell e-mail server, that under the hood still gets pacbell.net. They also still have two e-mails tied to fucking SBC that they got locked out of and I'm trying to stop them from them getting hacked and they are so insistent on doing things the simple way on their iPhone that they never use their computer but don't want ME using it either. You know, this type of thing is why I'd tack an unkindness fee onto my tech support based on how resistant someone is to my help. Not that I would tack it on to people with specialized shit on their computers just trying to keep it safe. But it's the full-on conspiracy technophobia that I have NO respect for, or the energy to deal with. Or if someone is being all prissy or harassing me. Or if I'm being called a liar or whatever. I know my shit. I may be a hacker, but not of computers, only game consoles. I'm no threat to your computer. Please do not accuse me of being one. I may be well-versed in what the Internet is like, but don't think I will bring any of that shit to a fucking computer repair job.

    Anyways, I ain't exactly happy but at least Fedi these days isn't as shit as Reddit subs are these days, even ones that are supposed to be "safe" spaces, when these days they are definitely NOT that. Too much radioactive waste is there.

    I'm too tired and a bit indisposed to do creative shit right now, so sorry for delaying shit again, but things got wack.

    I'm a bit too prone to turning topics into unrelated vents rn so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead, end digging, touch lawn and get the fuck off the Internet, Logging Off and getting a life for tonight. I need to chill from social at this point.

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 6:20 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Devastating for the poorest and/or most remote people. Yet another large company choosing to harm the vulnerable people in society.

    If they really cared about technological advancements, they might try and enter into the rural ISP market in underserved areas and given THOSE people DSL that is mostly transmitted as fiber (barring national parks, and California already has decent WiFi even at remote state parks without cell service, so next time you say WiFi Calling is useless, it isn't, and it can literally save lives), and at a rate FAR, FAR cheaper than a T/E-carrier, rather than literally cutting the phone lines. It's better to get America     Online rather than America Offline. Another popular user of dialup is farmers. Especially the organic grass-fed beef farmers, because you need to be secluded enough to have enough land to feed cows.

    Another chilling effect this change may have is that with a popular dialup provider gone, sites may start caring even less about bandwidth, and this is a problem because it of course can mean more ads, but even if it doesn't, there are still other types of last-line Internet options which have users and are still limited to dial-up speeds.

    Iridium GO satellite modems are basically satellite phones that do dial-up internet, and they are 2400bps since they emulate doing pre-Circuit-Switched-Data on a satellite phone back in the 1990s. These are used for emergencies (use FrogFind if you will) and if you are hiking or on a boat you can, statistically, afford. It's often boats that have some form of living on them where you start to see better options than an Iridium GO and a modest laptop or smartphone, but again, not everyone is capable of affording something like Starlink. Of note is that even though Dish/DirecTV DO support use of their network for internet via Dishnet and whatever DirecTV currently calls theirs (especially after the recent merger), my local telephone company ran by a criminal at one point banned them from serving us. Not to mention, while using their portable camping RV dishes or something like a VuCube with their satellite modems IS possible, satellite TV requires that the receiver be stationary due to how the orbit works. So satellite     TV modems on a boat don't work, and HughesNet uses that type of dish to do broadband at home. Iridium's higher-tier satellites used by industry and government hit similar speeds but are usually out of vans. Many boats don't quite reach the electrical power of a van because unless solar is involved, regeneration isn't an option unless the boat has a motor and an alternator, which is also costly. At some point, your tricked-out sailboat starts heading into proto-yacht territory, the point at which a Linux HTPC on board starts seeming possible. And yes, the relevant distro accounts for local storage more than it does actual internet use, even though Linux isn't nearly as unfriendly to modems or other legacy stuff as Windows and Macs are. Basically, if you're on a boat and can't afford Starlink or the hardware needed to power it, you have satellite dialup at 2400bps using acoustic coupler max speed despite one not being involved.

    Dialup over amateur radio IS real, and it IS used in locales where an amateur radio license is something you use when even a CB radio doesn't cut it and you're very secluded and already have the license, and every provider around you is shit. If anything, this cut may make people around my level of rural get a license if desperate. It is a method used as a last-line measure. And it shows.

    Basically, you can still run into situations where dialup speeds are involved with internet that doesn't even involve POTS. The rustic areas of the world can bring you wonders.

    Remember how I mentioned Circuit-Switched Data, the oldest form of 2G other than acoustic couplers? Well, the fastest that went was 33.6kbps, and Japan, a tech hub, only got rid of it in 2020. Modern cell phones still support 2G. And there are MANY nations FAR less developed and rich than even the cheapest and most rural areas of Japan. Somewhere like India, Africa, or rural China, among other Eurasian nations. As well as the Outback in the Southern Hemisphere, or anywhere in Central and South America that isn't part of a major city.

    Circuit-Switched Data, mobile 9600/14400 baud up to 33.6kbps dial-up Internet will be with us for several more decades, in areas that people DO travel to. So even in the future, phones will still be emulating a below-56K dialup call as a last-ditch method of mobile internet, and this COULD save a life.

    Not to mention that, to borrow Cathode Ray Dude's analogy, if you're a paper mill in rural Ohio, the only way you can phone home data to your headquarters in another state is liable to be a phone line not maintained since the 1910s that has seen better days and may have existed since before the Panel Switch or dial service. Theoretically if it hasn't been maintained that long, it may even have glass insulators. Basically, that phone line is going to sound like a Wind Tunnel Power Mac G4 full of dust. So 56K is just the maximum.

    And now the modern Internet is a sea or firehose of excessive bandwidth, no matter how much Zopfli-Krzymod and other pre-optimization and minification you throw at it unless you're clever. And we have sites actively serving ads.

    ALSO, interlaced images may be larger, but they are often used by charity websites since images that load downwards show an incomplete scene. Meanwhile interlaced images load in full size but come into focus as more data is received. This is also handy if what the images are of is something that is better to know exists in frame from the start. Not to mention that if the images you send are entertaining, people on slow or unreliable connections can start to get the picture better.

    My original internet connection was 2Mbps DSL through our awful local telephone company until 2015, when we got 24Mbps through our previously-flaky cable company my family used in my youngest years during the days in which DOCSIS sucked. Our ISP got bought out and we now have a gigabit with 2Gbps about a few dollars more. But for context, the maximum Minecraft server player count at 2Mbps is 10. I also had to deal with files over 200MiB taking the entire evening to download. My underfunded schools had frequent Internet issues. And of note is that our area is     best served by AT&T for cell service but they were banned from offering home Internet. I know unlocked phones of either type work for us with our AT&T SIM cards, meanwhile the people on other carriers have previously had issues with our region's internet. And even AT&T doesn't work at some of our neighbors. Of note is that our DSL would randomly and frequently go out, and at 9 years old I was frequently resetting our modem and routers, both of which we went through often. My grandparents on their AT&T landline DSL also had horrible Internet, and to this day the fiber they get from them in their new city house is still shit.
    We are talking like 2011 when I was 9 btw (and I since 6 had been doing amazing tech feats). Some computers at my school then even ran Win9x. But they got iPads at the last year I was there before bullies drove me out. Basically, DSL is horrible at reliability, and so all the people in my county stuck with it are irate, and under the people they, statistically, went for, they won't get any help. Meanwhile I as President would mass-develop ALL non-protected rural areas in the United States to ensure no kid grows up without good, solid infrastructure or StreetPass ever again. I resent the fact I grew up in an unincorporated high-fire-danger area of rural California full to the brim of Confederates and N@zs with horrible infrastructure, internet included, with frequent blackouts and only volunteer fire departments, but at least our HOA government isn't scum. /?

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 7:28 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Another thing is that sites like     https://stopdelaying.com/demoscene/nanoscopic.svgz (a 3081-byte JavaScript demoscene work I did that I moved to someone's host due to my last one) can still look good AND be safe for 56K. This one only loads in less than half a second.

    TVTropes mentions a     Not Safe For 56K warning which means something like https://stgiga.sourceforge.io/8KstgigaAssetsGalaxyBrain.png or https://stgiga.sourceforge.io/sgigapfp.gif will take inordinately-long to load on 56K, considering X-Face load times. And yes, the Australian Outback, as well as neighboring areas like rural New Zealand also have the same need for dialup. If you go to Northern Canada which is very snowy and very rural, a la Alaska, you find this too. Island regions like rural Hawaii may also have shoddy Internet. Go to the deep tropics or close to the poles, and you start to get into bad Internet territory. So yes, ad blockers actually make the Internet usable for the most rural and/or poor of people. AOL cutting off dial-up service could very well impede job hunting for some given how many jobs have online access, and given how even my nearest library at my town hall lacks computers. It's literally one modest room that had been cut down in 2013 in front of my eyes in the same building as the operations center for my town/HOA and an actual restaurant on the opposite side, AND it's also our only local polling place. Yeah, it doesn't get more rural than that, but at least I'm not in a region of only 500 people. That being said, some family friends of ours who are Native Hawaiian are literally the ONLY members of their demographic on my region's census. That's how rural we are. You'd think you were in Texas if you visited my area of California. My family used to live in the city before having kids but they thought they would have a better rustic life. Yeah that didn't age so well. Rural living was one of the worst things to ever happen to me. It still is, in fact. Very few upsides, MANY fucking downsides. It's not worth it. Like, seriously, it's not.

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 7:32 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Also this is just California. You go to somewhere like Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio, Alaska, Maine, or Texas, and your Internet is even worse. Like, if you think Australian Internet is bad, you haven't seen how bad rural Internet in some US states can get. 56K has its purpose in the United States, and now AOL has become America     Offline for a chunk of the poorest or most-secluded people in the United States, in a way that is actively bad. I think that not being able to go online, even if 56K, could be a VERY bad thing for people just looking for a job, especially if they work minimum wage and can ONLY afford dialup. This shutoff can literally keep people IN poverty. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. The people doing 56K due to financial reasons now have even less available job prospects, especially in Southern states that also have a high cost of living, such as, say, Florida. And then there are outright cities in Texas with horrible Internet bad enough to end up on TV, such as Pelican Bay, and then there''s Joplin, Missouri in those same HughesNet ads with bad Internet. Harrison, Michigan and Evergreen, Colorado too. Really, the United States in a LOT of the least-rich and least-happy states is a place where the effects of dialup removal will cause problems that could include ruining people's lives by virtue of making it even harder for them to find work.

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 7:50 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Remember, there are PLENTY of government communications or even outright bills that go paperless even in regions where doing so requires an Internet connection that isn't the fast speeds you find in certain places. Imagine not being able to get a notice from your county because AOL goes out. You could face legal issues there. Or not being able to contact your boss at McDonald's to tell them you're sick/hurt and am taking medical leave. Imagine not being able to reply to job emails because AOL is gone. No, this shutoff WILL fuck the absolute most desperate and secluded Americans over, even if it sounds like progress eliminating dialup, it's NOT. Take it from me, someone who grew up on painfully-slow Internet. Also a LOT of people born in shitty rural areas DO move out, but a job kerfluffle like this type is just going to make the act of even getting out a LOT harder than it needs to be. No, AOL was absolutely in the wrong to do this, even though the techbros would say otherwise. Legacy technology still has its purposes, and getting rid of legacy tech that isn't dangerous WILL hurt SO many people. I get not using shit like DES. But when you actively try to get rid of something like dialup, it is a different matter entirely. Some dialup ISPs even did stuff like Modem-On-Hold (call waiting to let you pause a download to talk, not to mention Cathode Ray Dude did a video on modem voice chat) with outright Caller ID, and even compress traffic to slow down load times. NetZero for example does this. And you can approach DSL or at least ISDN speeds with this given how bloated web code can get. So 56K is NOT a hard limit with a nice-enough ISP. You could reasonably use the modern bloated web with an ISP that compresses everything before sending it down the line. One that for instance upgrades all GZip server page compression to Brotli. Like, we CAN have HTML5 and dialup, with the right mix. SVG is cool because it is fairly dialup-safe with compression compared to equivalent-quality logos in many raster formats. I mean even gradients are possible. Icon fonts with Zopfli or Brotli work too. But yeah, the idea of heavy page bandwidth didn't have to work this way, but the resourceful like myself and many of New York's impoverished who use landfilled material to build a home inside disused areas with even electricity and media I think is admirable. You can do so much with so little if you have literally no other options. But we shouldn't have to be this way. As President I'd give the whole nation fast Web. I don't want people to have to go through the things I have.

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 8:48 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Internet SHOULD be an outright public utility, but at present it isn't, even though communications of a sensitive nature are being relegated to it. I get and support going paperless also for environmental reasons (though trees are renewable, but not all plastics are, and paper and plastic both recycle, some forms of plastic do so better than others, and bioplastic exists, though PLA may still make microplastics, but at least lactic acid is better than forever chemicals), but like with how plastic straws are cherished by people with disabilities in spite of their effects on the environment, people without good access to Internet should be able to do paper and telephone stuff until their areas advance in time.

    Not to mention, if you know you will have an outage, workplaces should be willing to do some form of exemption for paperless to be done on paper when there is no help for it and you need to do something during a time where a planned outage is, or if your Internet bill will bounce. Or, say, if you're living out of your car or a shelter, your access to Internet may be spotty. Also this is why van life family channels suck, because their kids will have shittier online school than I already have to deal with, and they can't game like everyone does, not to mention there is no social media privacy. But even then, I met campsite camp hosts who brought a 3G adapter for their computers to their site with the minivan, that site being a State Park before California added WiFi in the late 2010s. I get taking vacations from the web. But at the same time, their existence can fuck over people in the modern work world for the same reason they fuck over people with shit Internet. Also all those software things that require webcams unnecessarily fuck over dialup users. The rural community college in the same district as the one I went to from 2020-2023 has a LOT fewer courses than its siblings because it runs on shitty rural Internet. So all that proctoring and productivity monitoring, and some forms of verification and authentication suddenly become equity issues when dealing with people who literally cannot get good Internet or any good Internet they can get is pricey metered, or even just filtered like school or corporate Internet. Like, those take-home hotspots some places give, IF they work for you. I get security/integrity and all, but they feed into the problem with internet access. Plus the very program my unis did to give certain students technology loaners was slashed. I may not need these, but others DO, and this fund covered poor, disabled, and veteran students. Now these people can't even get dialup, not that it would even be usable given the mandatory 2FA that makes the disability testing center have an outright bone to pick with admin. None of this situation is happy. There are better ways to go about things than cutting funding or cutting dialup. It's straight-up equity fuckovers for the most vulnerable. I know defending dialup in the age of 8K YouTube sounds ridiculous, but it, like it or not, has purposes, and by removing it in the name of technological advances, you're fucking people over. Analog TV under poor reception was still a picture, albeit snowy. Digital ATSC now has cut off SD devices but even before it did, the signal was either working or it wasn't working, no partial signals. So people in areas like mine were completely unable to use anything besides cable or satellite after June 12th, 2009 when the analog shutoff happened. Basically, as of June 12th, 2009, free TV stopped working for us. Then again even AM/FM doesn't reach us here, it's just static. But at least to a point you can hear stuff when driving to us, but I know a digital signal would have a low duty cycle when hitting us. Sometimes the simplest solution IS the best or even only solution. We may be corner cases, but forgetting about us is bad. Oh and why not factor in diversity and inclusion too: My county has a LOT of Native Americans in it, and Natives in the United States earn less. They are disproportionately affected, and yes, they were victims of interracial marriage bans. Now, the Native Americans in my region largely live in a protected area you can't easily develop due to Protected status on the level of payphones still being in use, so they have to use slow Internet. Why shouldn't they be able to go online? Like, basically, at this point, dialup removal is a DEI issue. If you go to the less-rich part of my nearest city, students at the schools there frequently use school hotspots so they don't have to pay extra for online schooling. And I think the reason why POC on the Internet have it worse off can be partially a result of their very Internet access being harder to get, particularly the type that isn't as conducive for hardcore gaming or content creation. If you gave everyone in the United States free high-speed Internet, I wager there would be a LOT more POC content creators, ones who previously could never have afforded the means to show the Internet what they have to bring to society. Internet access, even 56K, IS a DEI issue, and by doing what they're doing, AOL has in fact pulled a DOGE. In the name of "efficiency", they have fucked over the less-fortunate in the United States. It doesn't get more clear-cut than that. If you use AOL, see if you can find stuff like NetZero or Freeola in your region. Many pay-as-you-go dialup places bill to your phone bill based on the length of the call. Also dialup is why many e-mail clients have "Get Mail" in them, and the reason nobody but me combined X-Face types was because it increased call duration.
    Basically, an always-on, high-bandwidth e-mail system is a fairly-new thing and still isn't universal. NetZero and Freeola have other services besides dial-up Internet, including broadband and e-mail. NetZero is USA and Freeola is UK, and as an American I don't know what other regions have. But to anyone reading Fedi on 56K (people have written lightweight clients that allow this), if you HAVE AOL dialup, consider NetZero or do further research while you still can.
    Find a dialup provider that suits your needs. Tell your neighbors, especially elderly ones, as well as anyone from marginalized backgrounds you feel should know, as well as any people you know who are low-income. This is also a time for mutual aid to be factored in if you know that someone you are caring for or caring about is going to be negatively affected by this. Support the people in your orbit who will be harmed by this, and see if you can help them find a solution if you can safely do so. If you can't afford any providers, making a mutual aid request as a stopgap is wise while you are still online. If you do end up hosed, call someone trusted, and explain, and ask them what your options are. Even libraries (other than mine of course), public computers (if you can find any), and coffee shops (if possible, also Starbucks isn't the only cafe with WiFi, also see places like Panera and McDonald's if you're truly desperate and they are nearby. Also if at McDonald's, go for a 24-hour one if needed) would work. Remember, I'm saying this as a recommendation. Your situation may call for other things to be done, and that's OK because you may need more help, or you may be only partially or minorly affected. These are just tips on what to do before September ends. It's the end of old-school AOL. I hadn't known it was still around because I was     just fortunate enough to not have dialup. Some of my neighbors still might. Also, if they are elderly, DO check in on them and help them find options. You could save a life or more. The Internet as a research tool as intended can and has saved many lives. If you keep the AOL changes from stranding someone offline, you can potentially prevent a tragedy beyond just job or DEI effects. Never be afraid to do the right thing. Save 56K!

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  • stgiga (they/them) :polygender_verify:stgiga@blahaj.zone
    Aug 9, 2025, 9:03 AM

    @Tooden@aus.social @ernie@writing.exchange @mattl@social.coop

    Also, if your financial institution or work or local government branch is trying to go paperless, and you can't, and you can safely tell them without being fired or detained, tell them that you are having problems with accessing the Web and that paper options and/or phone calls, and potentially in-person visits are needed in order to prevent problems. Of course, do ask them if they have any recommendations on how to remain connected. They might be able to give you an option Google didn't disclose. Also, on dial-up, if you want to search stuff up, PLEASE use     http://frogfind.com because it simplifies pages, though obviously it ain't perfect. If you can, use a computer running something that won't waste your traffic with telemetry unless there is something at your work or school requiring Win10/Win11 or Macs. Choose the closest dial-up provider possible to avoid excessive long-distance callers, and in the United States, 1-800 numbers are toll-free (excluding providers that bill your phone bill), and 1-9xx numbers are toll calls that cost money even without dialup involved, so if it's asking you to call one of those, it's probably worth seeing if any other options exist. ALSO, be VERY wary of scammers, and tell your fellows about that, especially those who are older. Scammers may be more inclined to pretend to be AOL when someone calls them saying their Web Browser no longer connects. Even if people may not be as affected, tell them that AOL scams may happen regardless of how affected they would be. Unless AOL changes course, scams will likely go on for a while that claim they can prevent it, even though they may not be able to, and almost certainly are capable of guzzling your money via support fees or any of the usual tricks that may or may not work over dialup. Protect those you care about, and support the victims. That's how to respond to this crisis. It's the least you can do in a world where we rely on the Internet for everything, even though we do not all have the needed infrastructure to deal with it. Also, I have a degree in Networking and a Cybersecurity certificate through my first university, so I DO know what I am talking about despite being a college student, and a geeky one at that. Just this last semester at my current university we touched on Circuit Switching as part of the historical air to the class. I brought up a bunch of the points I made here.

    If you have any more questions, let me know, and I will see what I can do and if I can answer any of them or point you to somewhere that may be helpful. School IS about to start soon though, and I'm in some tough classes so keep that in mind.

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