Compuserve shuts down

[David Baxter PhD]

Compuserve shuts down
by Cory Doctorow
July 3, 2009

After 30 years, Compuserve is finally, totally, mostly dead (the email addresses still work). I was always a local BBS and GEnie guy, but there's no doubting the power and influence of Compuserve in introducing the idea of networked communications to a generation, and proving the business-case for commercial online activity:

The original CompuServe service, first offered in 1979, was shut down this past week by its current owner, AOL. The service, which provided its users with addresses such as 73402,3633 and was the first major online service, had seen the number of users dwindle in recent years. At its height, the service boasted about having over half a million users simultaneously on line. Many innovations we now take for granted, from online travel (Eaasy Sabre), online shopping, online stock quotations, and global weather forecasts, just to name a few, were standard fare on CompuServe in the 1980s.

CompuServe users will be able to use their existing CompuServe Classic (as the service was renamed) addresses at no charge via a new e-mail system, but the software that the service was built on, along with all the features supported by that software, from forums for virtually every topic and profession known to man to members' Ourworld Web pages, has been shut down. Indeed, the current version of the service's client software, CompuServe for Windows NT 4.0.2, dates back to 1999.​

CompuServe Requiem (via Beyond the Beyond)

 

[Retired]

Regrettably Compuserve, which was at one time the premier online interactive service, was killed a decade ago when the mismanagement of H.R. Block, the owners at the time, was the first nail in the coffin.

Once AOl gor their hands on the service, they proceeded to AOLize the service by removing offline reading capability, replaced by realtime access. The only justification for that move was to count key clicks and to bombard forum users with rotating, animated and even audio ads, the majority of which were sleazy in nature advertising risque lingerie, questionable dating services and other services intended to take advantage of the naive user.

Several family oriented forums moved out of Compuserve, as did all the major software manufacturers, opting to set up their own websites in the fledgeling internet.

The name Compuserve was replaced by Netscape three years ago, and the struggling Netscape forums are now a shadow of their former selves.

As an alumnus of the once proud and thriving Compuserve service in its hey day, I mourn its final demise.