Eventually the replication of free versions of AOL's services on the broader Internet devalued its offering to the point that once standalone Internet connections were cheaper and more broadly available (especially things like NetZero) people simply dumped their AOL subscriptions or never subscribed in the first place.

What this has to do with Facebook I do not know -- for what Facebook does, centralization is a feature and not a bug.

I do wish the author had at least read the Wikipedia page on AOL before writing their piece though, although it probably would have invalidated their premise.