Over 2,270,000 people still use dial-up AOL to access the world wide web. Do you know any of them?
Or… are you one of them, patiently waiting for Gizmodo to refresh and getting irate when your mom drops the connection by picking up the landline? Dammit mom! If so, I remember your struggle. I also abandoned your struggle back in, oh, 2003, when my parents switched to DSL. Broadband had already usurped dial-up by 2005, which means we’ve had almost a decade with dial-up users in the minority.
If you’ve made the switch (I’m assuming you did if you’re a Gizmodo reader not located in a wilderness haven), when did you abandon this sound?
I’m guessing that most people using dial-up are in a rural area with limited connectivity options. Or they’re just completely uninterested in the internet (or, like my dial-up loyal grandparents, they’re just the type of old person who doesn’t want to adopt any new tech, but there are plenty of tech-savvy elderly so I’m not gonna generalize there).
Is there a category of dial-up die-hards I’m missing? And why haven’t you staged an intervention yet?
