Another former AOLer here. They tried to make a run at the broadband market in the early aughts by partnering with various telcos (I know; I was part of the team that built the back-end interface with the ISPs), but it was too little, too late. I never understood how AOL thought that would be sustainable in the long term.

A few months after I left the entire billing department saw deep cuts after AOL nixed their monthly subscription fees for dial-up.