EarthLink
More info
- Creator
- Sky Dayton
- Released
- 1994
- Type
- Internet service provider
The American ISP that sold plain internet to people who didn't want AOL's walled garden.
Sky Dayton was 23 when he started EarthLink in Pasadena in 1994, after spending days of his own trying to get a connection working. The company sold dial-up access over a modem with an install disk that actually worked, aimed at people who wanted the web rather than AOL's own portal. In 2000 it merged with rival MindSpring and became the second-largest ISP in the US.
Dial-up was a gold mine while it lasted. Broadband, however, belonged to the phone and cable companies, and EarthLink was reduced to reselling access over other people's lines. Windstream bought it in 2017, and it carries on at a smaller scale.