Comment by nebula8804

OMG Erol's internet was my first ISP as a kid in elementary school here in NJ. It provided my first experiences into the web and I remember it fondly because of that.

One of the first tech based mistakes I ever made was to convince my parents to switch from Erols(which had decent ping times on online gaming) to AOL (which had horrendously bad ping times) all because I thought I was missing out on the exclusive content that AOL provided. I do recall fun memories living in AOL's walled garden but giving up that ping time was horrendously bad. I once ripped out the phone wire from the jack in extreme frustration (first time tech made me angry lol!)

We eventually switched to Earthlink(and then I think Juno?) once the AOL 1 year contract was up. Excellent ping times but man Erols will always have that spot in my memories.

I miss all the excitement and innovation happening back then. I wish we still had mom and pop stores providing things like internet services. Even startups today don't feel like they could be done as simple "mom n pop" enterprises although im sure there are plenty hiding in places we dont often look.