In its primitive way, AOL had proven decisively that the surest means of getting people to spend more time with their computers was to promise some kind of social experience. Since the 1980s, the geeks and nerds had embraced the online world as a safe space in which to socialize; AOL's signal achievement was proving that with a much wider range of social milieus, a great many other types could be lured online as well to visit "cyberspace."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 983