End of an era. (Well, OK, the era ended long ago, this is just the long-delayed tombstone I guess). Those of us coming out of the pre-boom internet always sneered, but those floppies they'd pack into every magazine were the gateway for the rest of the world.

Even though we all complained (perhaps not in so many words) about the eternal September and the damage done by opening things up to a larger number of people, the early AOLers were paradigms of intellectual curiosity and urbanity compared to what came later.