Allot of Internet people I talk with hate AOL. They hate them for selling non-existant web access (they were finally sued for that one) and for a general lack of local access numbers when they were one of the only games in town. They hate them for their propritary software and they hate them for the per-minute fees that astounded many users (rightly or wrongly) when they got the bill.
Internet savy people seem to have long memories when it comes to companies screwing them (or companies they perceive to be screwing them) and they remain bitter. I've never seen anything like the hate for AOL and MS anywhere but on the web. You can almost taste it.
It's no wonder that AOL only has 35 million users the world over. They were hated from day one and, as far as I can tell never were anything more than just another ISP.
I do know allot of people who began with AOL though, practically everyone who I know who uses the internet started out with it... but then they chucked it for the reasons described above.
So it seems they got what they wanted, they got people to try their product. It just wasn't good enough to stand up to the competition.