Tales from the Birth of Internet Commerce

From the first public use of the World Wide Web in 1993, online commerce has been at the top of the minds of consumers, businesses, and software developers. This was before Twitter or Facebook, prior to the iPhone, pre-Google, and ahead of eBay or Amazon. In those days, the dominant provider of consumer online services was America Online (AOL). AOL was initially a closed system, mediating every online interaction by every user, including payment transactions. When AOL began offering Internet access to its users, it almost immediately became the largest consumer Internet service provider.