Farewell to CompuServe

It's turning out to be quite a year for major names in technology heading to that big digital graveyard in the cloud. The latest monster name to fold: CompuServe, which is at long last folding its CompuServe Classic online service.

Frankly, until the news bubbled up this weekend, I had no idea CompuServe was actually still around. But my, what a history: The venerable name dates back to 1979, when it became (debatably) the first online computer service designed for consumer use. A staple of tech magazine advertisements in the '80s, the text-only CompuServe made online look impossibly cool -- only noobs used Prodigy! -- with its geekiest feature being the numerical ID all users were given instead of a user name. Instead of bobsmith, you'd be 78463,1045. That's some serious nerd cred right there.

CompuServe eventually wound up in a pitched battle for business against that juggernaut of the 1990s, America Online. The company changed hands several times, eventually ending up as a division of its arch-rival after several complicated mergers were concluded.

Of course, by then (2003), it was too late for either company. Broadband services and the web had largely made private Internet services obsolete, particularly those that relied on a big base of dial-up users for business. The walled garden model based on by-the-hour billing (CIS cost an astounding $10 an hour at one point) gave way to all-you-can-eat access, and the CompuServe brand faded as AOL desperately tried to keep itself in the limelight.

Who cries for CompuServe? Probably not a terribly large number of people. No official figures are available, but the number of people willing to pay $10 to $20 a month for a few chat rooms and material that's otherwise available for free via any web browser has probably become extremely small. Most of the service's remaining users have probably held on to it simply as a lifeline for dialup access for when broadband isn't available.

CompuServe -- the name -- lives on however. The company will continue to operate something called CompuServe 2000, though frankly I can't really figure out what that actually is.

Meanwhile, speculation must naturally turn to the final big name in dialup services: America Online. Will AOL eventually give up on the private online service business? How long will it take for the last man standing to finally fall?