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It’s official: AOL‘s dial-up internet has taken its last bow. AOL previously confirmed it would be pulling the plug on Tuesday (Sept. 30) writing in a brief update on its support site last month that it routinely evaluates” its offerings and had decided to discontinue dial-up, as well as associated software optimized for older operating systems, from its plans. Dial-up is now no longer advertised on AOL’s website. As of Wednesday, former company help pages like connect to the internet with AOL Dialer appeared unavailable and nostalgic social media users took to the internet to say their final goodbyes. AOL, formerly America Online, introduced many households to the World Wide Web for the first time when its dial-up service launched decades ago, rising to prominence particularly in the 90s and early 2000s. The creaky door to the internet was characterized by a once-ubiquitous series of beeps and buzzes heard over the phone line used to connect your computer online along with frustrations of being kicked off the web if anyone else at home needed the landline for another call, and an endless bombardment of CDs mailed out by AOL to advertise free trials. Eventually, broadband and wireless offerings emerged and rose to dominance, doing away with dial-up’s quirks for most people accessing the internet today but not everyone. A handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet services connected over telephone lines. In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide. While AOL was the largest dial-up internet provider for some time, it wasn’t the only one to emerge over the years. Some smaller internet providers continue to offer dial-up today. Regardless, the decline of dial-up has been a long time coming. And AOL shutting down its service arrives as other relics of the internet’s earlier days continue to disappear. Microsoft retired video calling service Skype just earlier this year as well as Internet Explorer back in 2022. And in 2017, AOL discontinued its Instant Messenger a chat platform that was once lauded as the biggest trend in online communication since email when it was founded in 1997, but later struggled to ward off rivals. AOL itself is far from the dominant internet player it was decades ago when, beyond dial-up and IMs, the company also became known for its Youve got mail catchphrase that greeted users who checked their inboxes, as famously displayed in the 1998 film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan by the same name. Before it was America Online, AOL was founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1985. It soon rebranded and hit the public market in 1991. Near the height of the dot-com boom, AOL’s market value reached nearly $164 billion in 2000. But tumultuous years followed, and that valuation plummeted as the once-tech pioneer bounced between multiple owners. After a disastrous merger with Time Warner Inc., Verizon acquired AOL which later sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to a private equity firm. AOL now operates under the larger Yahoo name. A spokesperson for Yahoo didn’t have any additional statements about the end of AOL’s dial-up when reached by The Associated Press on Wednesday, directing customers to its previous summer announcement. At the time, Verizon sold AOL in 2021, an anonymous source familiar with the transaction told CNBC that the number of AOL dial-up users was in the low thousands” down from 2.1 million when Verizon first moved to acquire AOL in 2015, and far below peak demand seen back in the 90s and early 2000s. But beyond dial-up, AOL continues to offer its free email services, as well as subscriptions that advertise identity protection and other tech support. Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP business writer
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E-Commerce
Amazon is pushing deeper into the grocery aisle with the launch of Amazon Grocery, a food brand that keeps most prices under $5. The idea of buying much of anything for $5 seems like a distant memory for most shoppers these days, as President Trumps tariffs and persistent inflation keep the price of everyday consumer goods high, with little relief in sight. Keenly aware of that, Amazon is looking to undercut the competitions prices with its own newly unified private-label brand featuring everything from eggs and premade salads to ground beef and olive oil. The company plans to expand its offerings to more grocery staples like frozen pasta, granola, and cakes in the coming months. The company says that its new Amazon Grocery brand will merge its existing Amazon Fresh and Happy Belly brands into a single storefront for essentials. In its online grocery store, many items have already been relabeled digitally away from the Happy Belly and Amazon Fresh brands and given a makeover with a modern, clean and distinctive new design so shoppers can spot the line of core items easily, much like Target does with its in-house Good & Gather line. The new, rebranded Amazon Grocery lineup of products is now available online and through the companys brick-and-mortar Amazon Fresh stores. “During a time when consumers are particularly price-conscious, Amazon Grocery delivers more than 1,000 quality grocery items across all categories that don’t compromise on quality or tastefrom fresh food items to crave-worthy snacks and pantry essentialsall at low, competitive prices that help customers stretch their grocery budgets further, Jason Buechel, Amazons vice president of worldwide grocery stores and Whole Foods Market CEO, said in a press release. Amazons big grocery push On paper, Amazon is trying to make its branding less confusing, differentiating its core grocery line from its other in-house brands like 365 from Whole Foods. But a year ago, Amazon made a similar announcement, hailing a value-minded new private-label brand called Amazon Saver. From crackers and cookies to canned fruit and condiments, Amazon Saver offers affordable grocery essentials at a great value both in-store and online, the company wrote in a press release at the time, highlighting that most Amazon Saver products would be priced under $5. Somewhat confusingly, the company claims that the new Amazon Grocery brand will complement its portfolio of private label products, including Amazon Saver, which apparently isnt going away. Its been almost a decade since Amazon bought Whole Foods in a then-shocking $13.7 billion deal that revealed the extent of the companys master plan to dominate even offline shopping. The companys commitment to push deeper into selling wallet-friendly fridge and pantry staples is a sign that Amazons ambitions in the space havent yet been fully realized. In August, Amazon introduced same-day delivery service for perishable foods in 1,000 additional U.S. cities, with plans to double that coverage by the end of the year. The companys ongoing aggressive expansion into on-demand grocery delivery puts the undisputed king of shopping on a collision course with grocery delivery competitors like Walmart, Target, and Instacart. Not all of Amazons grocery experiments have been successful. Last month, the company announced that it would close all of its Amazon Fresh stores in the U.K. after a thorough evaluation of business operations. At the same time, the company noted its plans to expand its online grocery sales, doubling down on the very substantial growth opportunities in online grocery delivery.
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E-Commerce
On Tuesday, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek announced he will step down from his leadership role after nearly two decades. Ek will serve as the company’s executive chairman, and two former co-presidentsGustav Söderström and Alex Norströmwill share the role as co-CEOs. Over the last few years, Ive turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustavwho have shaped the company from our earliest days and are now more than ready to guide our next phase,” Ek said in a news release. Ek continued: “This change simply matches titles to how we already operate. In my role as Executive Chairman, I will focus on the long arc of the company and keep the Board and our co-CEOs deeply connected through my engagement. Sharing the top position at a major company is still a relatively uncommon practice. But more corporations are testing the arrangement. This week, Comcast announced that a second CEO, Mike Cavanagh, will be stepping in come January to share the role with Brian Roberts. Oracle recently made a similar announcement. (Despite that back in 2020, Oracle had actually pivoted away from a co-CEO model. Salesforce and SAP similarly ditched co-CEO setups.) Meanwhile, Netflix has been led by two CEOs for more than five years, the current partnership being Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. Deciding who becomes the CEO is an incredibly involved, high-stakes process. And nowadays, more seems to be riding on CEOs than ever: Shareholders and customers alike expect more from them, their brand is the organizations brand and their decisions can make or break a company. So do things get muddled when theres two people splitting authority and responsibilities at the highest, most visible level? Why firms do it The co-CEO trend hasn’t been studied extensively. But a 2022 Harvard Business Review report found that from 1996 to 2020, out of 2,200 companies listed in the S&P 1200 and the Russell 1000, fewer than 100 had dual leaders. Some say the arrangement is a surefire way to stay focused on the company’s mission, rather than personal accolades. Chip Kaye, a former co-CEO of Warburg Pincus, told HBR it forces leaders to keep their egos in check. Likewise, the research pointed to some promising findings, like a greater annual shareholder return. Companies led by joint CEOs generated 9.5% compared to 6.9% for solo led companies. In fact, around 60% of the joint CEO-led companies outperformed the ones with solo leaders. But some co-leaders argue its a positive arrangement. Netflixs Sarandos told Fast Companys Amy Wallace last September: Having someone to talk to who is not an employee or a board member who is your peer is so helpful. He also said having a partner to share authority with is a relief: It is that lonely-at-the-top thing. The saying came from somewhere. Still, the offbeat arrangement requires careful consideration. A delicate balance Partnerships like these need to be executed carefully, as sole CEOs tend to remain in power longer than co-CEO partnerships do, an analysis from the Wall Street Journal found. Don Yaeger, executive coach, author, and host of the Corporate Competitor podcast, tells Fast Company that co-CEOs have to put their egos aside for the setup to work and ideally, have “opposing skillsets” in order to best serve the company. “You need two people who do not feel less than when someone else is the focal point of interviews or stage time,” Yaeger explains. “The second one starts resenting the other, the wall comes crumbling down.” Likewise, Yaeger says that companies need to have a “clear delineation” of the responsibilities of each CEO. He cites the Netflix example as one company that is paving the way for how to put that into practice. “Sarandos is outward-facing with marketing, while Greg Peters is more inwardly focussed on product and operations.” Still, Yaeger presses that the relationship is a “delicate balance” that requires trust between co-CEOs. “If companies arent careful, the dual CEO arrangement can become somewhat like parenting,” Yaeger says. “When your child doesnt like your answer, they immediately go looking for the other parent. Thats messy at home and really messy at a Fortune 500.” In some cases, that messiness shows itself in public ways. Chipotle, which had co-CEOs from 2009 through 2016, returned to the more mainstream arrangement after a number of food safety incidents plagued the chain, and foot traffic failed to recover. Steve Ells, who stepped into the role solely told AP News at the time that it was vital for the brand to have “one CEO, one voice, and a very focused approach.” Of course, quite simply, there’s no denying that two heads are often better than one. Yaeger says that’s especially true as companies grow and become “more complex.” The job becomes too big for just one leader, who may not have all of the knowledge and skills to make the company thrive. But, if co-CEOs are able to put their egos aside, communicate effectively, and “respect the space of each other,” Yaeger says, the company and the CEOs themselves might be able reap the rewards.
Category:
E-Commerce
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