for a while I tried to start a collection of those "free install!" discs from various ISPs. it got too depressing.
AOL? Is that some sort of mass-market related startup?
Not a startup, more a winding-down.
By the way, is AOL still doing that? I used to get a couple every year, but I haven't received one in several years now.
The joke is that AOL is so out of the game and so irrelevant to the modern internet that people might not have even heard of them at this point, mistaking them for some sort of startup that focused on mass-mailings. Though, as far as I can tell, they don't do that anymore.