It's not silly at all. Until 1995 home internet access was too expensive and AOL didn't offer support for http or any kind of internet access - only services provided by them. If they had the foresight they could of crushed the early internet and prevented it from ever happening. A 100% firewalled and paid service that wouldn't look much different than the cable companies at the time. People don't realize how lucky we are that the potential the internet provided flew under the radar for so long.