AOL will cut off third-party app access to AIM

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https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/02/aol-will-cut-off-third-party-app-access-to-aim/

On Tuesday, AOL (yes, it’s still around) suddenly announced to users of AOL Instant Messenger (including yours truly) that it would be disabling access to its network through at least one third-party messaging app (Adium) as of March 28. Third-party chat apps like Adium, Trillian, or Pidgin use the company's OSCAR chat protocol to handle AIM messages.

The service will continue to live on through AOL’s proprietary standalone chat app, which exists for MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.

One Ars editor reported no such message when using the Trillian app, while another editor reported that her AIM account would not connect via Adium at all.

Since the advent of Gmail and Gchat in 2009, AIM’s user base had been declining. In 2012, AOL gutted the AOL Instant Messenger group, essentially halting its development.

A former AOL employee who wished to stay anonymous told Ars that he guessed that part of the reason that AOL was making this move had to do with low AIM usage—he estimated that it had fallen to "single digit millions" and that maintaining OSCAR had become prohibitively expensive.

"In the years since, the frail network of old backend code was likely never rewritten and as people retired from the company or were forced out they had to let functionality go," he continued.

AOL did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.