AOL’s seedy reputation probably accelerated rather than slowed its growth

Evidence

Unsurprisingly, having so many sex-charged ones gave the service something of a seedy reputation. In a 1995 headline, the Philadelphia Inquirer called the service “A Tawdry Back Alley, Just Off the Information Superhighway.” Perhaps just as unsurprising, that reputation hardly slowed AOL’s growth and probably enhanced it, especially when the content of some chats was revealed in congressional committee, managing to scandalize members. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 713

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general pattern from earlier chapters that scandal and moral panic drive attention to a medium — see the broadcast-era chapters. — connects to: Anonymous sexual titillation drove AOL’s early chat room popularity — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 709; AOL overtook both rivals by rejecting censorship and the ad-based model — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 722; Internet virality can reward despised content as strongly as admired content — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 294 (+1 more)
• SEED: Angles: a counter-history of SaaS growth arguing that ‘bad press’ is a growth channel, or how moral-panic publicity plugs young platforms.

Broader Connections

• AOL overtook both rivals by rejecting censorship and the ad-based model #complicates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 722
• Internet virality can reward despised content as strongly as admired content #corroborates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 294
• Web metrics incentivized traffic and clickbait over prestige and quality #corroborates (0.72)