A free trial disc that arrived in every magazine, cereal box and letterbox on Earth. At one point roughly half the CDs manufactured worldwide had AOL's logo on them.
The one thing missing from the headnote: AOL CD landed differently on people who had been online since the 1990s than on anyone who arrived later, and the later arrivals were the ones who spread it.
In 1998 I could not have imagined explaining AOL CD to anyone. It did not need explaining. Now I have a note on my phone with the explanation ready, for when the young ask, and they do not ask.
There was a version of AOL CD that went round my family group chat about a decade late, presented as new. I did not correct anyone. It was, for them, new, and that has to count for something.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
