🤯 ”Beta-test users were generally disappointed that the new service did not give them access to the ‘real’ AppleLink, and eventually the service was released instead as #AmericaOnline. Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. […] working closely with #Apple's software engineers, designed the icons, dialogue boxes and screen layout for AppleLink Personal Edition. These icons and some dialogue boxes were incorporated into the first graphical user-interface design of America Online.”
"30 years ago this week…something called the World Wide Web launched into the public domain…#CERN owned Berners-Lee's invention and…had the option to license [it] out…for profit. But Berners-Lee believed that keeping the web as open as possible would help it grow…[He] eventually convinced CERN to release the World Wide Web into the #PublicDomain without any #patents or fees."
@petersuber I vividly remember the early days of the web when it was unclear whether it would matter to average people compared to walled-garden services like #AOL (then #AmericaOnline), #Prodigy, or #CompuServe.
IMHO the web’s early rise depended on two other factors:
• Graphical #browsers like #NCSA#Mosaic on mainstream computer operating systems (1993)
• Decommissioning of the US government-funded #NSFNET backbone, effectively ending restrictions on commercial Internet traffic (1995)