AOL outages and service status in Universal City, Texas

Problems in the last 24 hours in Universal City, Texas

The chart below shows the number of AOL reports we have received in the last 24 hours from users in Universal City, Texas and surrounding areas. An outage is declared when the number of reports exceeds the baseline, represented by the red line.

Community Discussion

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AOL Issues Reports Near Universal City, Texas

Latest outage, problems and issue reports in Universal City and nearby locations:

• 
  Scott Erickson (@xkot) reported 3 minutes ago from Schertz, Texas

  Companies dragging their feet on deplatforming bigoted harassment is deja vu. I worked at AOL when they were slow to act on child porn trading. It took @crimmins testifying to Congress about their negligence to get them to act. Let me tell you what that was like.

• 
  Rob in the 21O (@Robinthe21Ou) reported 7 minutes ago from Converse, Texas

  @BlaiseInKC ... IF you got reports, that ponderosa is still operating in those areas, they must’ve used a dial up service like AOL or EarthLink

AOL Issues Reports

Latest outage, problems and issue reports in social media:

• 
  Roughneck (@Roughneck4795) reported 3 minutes ago

  Yeah I still use an AOL email from 20 years ago… got a problem with that??

• 
  Methodical (@objectextinct) reported 8 minutes ago

  @hthieblot apps didn't exist but Gamestorm. AOL was running a $2 an hour game service for a few early MMOs like Starship Troopers battlespace. Even Spades cost $1/hr. Eventually a game service called "Gamestorm" had a bunch of games like multiplayer Warcraft 2, Godzilla Online, Starship Troopers, Aliens, Silent Death, Legends of Kesmai, board games ..etc for $15 a month. So everyone from AOL could play Starship Troopers or Silent Death (Both top down space shooters) unlimited and we would regularly take breaks on the other games. There wasn't anything else like it at the time. Then all the games got deleted and rights issues means they all disappeared forever, rip.

• 
  Wile E Coyote - Super Genius (@BadScientryst) reported 11 minutes ago

  @Primrose771646 Write detailed instructions to invest in Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, and a few others. Then I'd write as much advice as I could to help everyone I know. Id be too late to save John Lennon, but in plenty of time to stop 9/11.

• 
  Shittalking_Pod (@Shittalking_Pod) reported 12 minutes ago

  We have been doing things on the internet since back when the internet first became a thing. We operated telnet systems for several years out of our Spare bedroom. Long before AOL even. It takes a special type of fool to think someone in Africa is going to help us grow.

• 
  BrINg ME ThE tOKeN (@annieelsa2) reported 13 minutes ago

  @chrishansen @RealSchlep There is this sick narrative going around because of this stupid new movie. When TCAP came out it was a much needed awareness as a victim of AOL predators I know your show raised much needed awareness. All these sick comments going on show that your work is still needed.

• 
  Calvin (tyler loop enthusiast) (@FlockCwood) reported 14 minutes ago

  Sometimes I think of the days of aol instant messenger, and how the tech would be to put up an away message and say something like “god my parents will never get me don’t text me. Don’t messsge me” Then proceed to sit there wondering why no one has texted me. Simple times

• 
  A Thoughtful Man (@r_walles) reported 19 minutes ago

  @nobleisawinner Never got an AOL account.

• 
  kurkosdr (@kurkosdr) reported 21 minutes ago

  @heyraven_io @WildComputers How much does the creation of a single tiny hat cost you in USD? How many of your users are paying for the service? You are the equivalent of AOL giving dial-up minutes at a loss in the name of "growth" or non-viable dot-coms burning tons of VC capital in the name of "growth".

• 
  p19k (@peteralexbizjak) reported 22 minutes ago

  Bending Spoons is the most interesting acquisition machine in tech right now, and the more you dig into it... The weirder it becomes. They buy aging digital brands that still have users and brand recognition but have lost their edge, think Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, Meetup, AOL, Eventbrite, and a pile of others. Then they do the thing almost nobody else has the stomach for: they gut the headcount hard, move operations onto their own centralized platform, raise prices, tighten free tiers, and run the products with a much smaller team of their own people (“Spooners”). The original staff is mostly gone. In some cases the entire original team was shown the door. Imagine... Entire staff gone! Mosaic: 330 people out because only the assets were bought. WeTransfer: 75%. Evernote: from hundreds down to a fraction. Vimeo: most of the workforce, including the video team. The list goes on. They are transparent about it in filings as they call the workforce reductions part of the “transformation.” Does it work financially? At the operating level, yes. Revenue went from $387M in 2023 to $1.31B in 2025, with Q1 2026 already at $601M. Operating income is healthy (around 20-21% margins recently) and adjusted operating margins are even better, climbing toward 50%. GAAP net income is messier because of debt interest and acquisition-related costs, but the core engine is printing cash once the cuts land. They target aggressive IRRs on deals and hold everything forever with no exit plan. Compare that to the usual suspects. Constellation Software is the cleanest public parallel. Same “buy and never sell” philosophy, same focus on capital allocation. But Constellation is decentralized: hundreds of small vertical B2B software companies that mostly run themselves. Sticky, mission-critical products, low churn, funded largely from internal cash flow, modest leverage. Steady compounding over two decades. Bending Spoons is the opposite operating model: hyper-centralized platform, consumer and legacy digital brands (higher churn risk), heavy debt, and much more aggressive restructuring. Higher targeted returns, higher variance. Private equity shops like Thoma Bravo or Vista do the cost-cutting and leverage part. The difference is they buy to sell in a few years. Bending Spoons has no intention of flipping anything. They want the portfolio to compound indefinitely. That permanent-capital mindset is closer to Berkshire than classic PE, even if the day-to-day execution looks more like a ruthless turnaround team with a shared AI-heavy tech stack. The model has clear strengths: speed of integration, willingness to make hard decisions, ability to extract margin from businesses that previous owners treated as lifestyle companies or growth stories. It also has obvious risks; consumer products are less sticky than vertical software, debt service is real, and the long-term durability of heavily optimized legacy brands under continuous price pressure is still being tested. Newer big acquisitions (Vimeo, Eventbrite, AOL) are still in the middle of the transformation. Whether you like the approach or find it cold is secondary. The numbers and the consistency of the playbook are hard to ignore. Bending Spoons is running a specialized version of the software roll-up with more aggression on costs and more centralization than the classic players. It is working so far. The interesting question is how far the model scales before the easy targets dry up or the leverage becomes a problem.

• 
  Valphrex (@Valphrex) reported 23 minutes ago

  @oldmedia I know that this is kind of dumb, but I actually miss the AOL dial-up. It was annoying, and it kept my parents from being able to call anyone, but it was a very specific time we'll never get back. I was a young teenager experiencing online freedom for the first time.