I had no idea ICQ was even still operational. Good on them for making it as long as they did.

I was never an ICQ user, but it's always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.

it’s always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.

A reminder of how much fun Web 1.0 was, not the walled-gardened, enshittified, corporatized, ad-riddled rage baiter it is now.

The early version of what’s now Microsoft’s game suite in Windows was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the Internet. It was a virtual gaming village where you could go sit at tables and play chess or checkers or cards with people from around the world. It worked 100% fine on 14.4k dialup.

Microsoft bought whatever that was and completely ruined it, just like they ruin everything else they buy.

That just reminded me of something I tried that was similar, I think it was called Visual Chat? It looked like a 2D cartoon, but each person controlled an avatar and could move around and talk to each other, go to other rooms, change expression, gesture, etc.

Microsoft bought whatever that was and completely ruined it, just like they ruin everything else they buy.

It’s like the Midas touch: they make it shiny, expensive, and of little use.