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AOLization of America
PanchoNB wrote to us with a feature that C|Net is currently running about the AOLization of America. I think it's been called the "McWorld" concept before, but the feature does a good job of looking at how powerful Time-Warner-AOL really is, as well as talking about the history and prospects.
Remember the infamous "Please send me pics of Sheryl Crow naked. Thank you" messages plastered all over USENET in summer '95? And there's countless other examples.
ME TOO!
:)
- Poor Customer Service (especially by telephone)
- Mediocre software (don't get me started!)
- Spam (spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam and spam...)
What scares me more than the monopoly idea (which I don't really buy) is the fact that AOL's overall mediocrity (spelling?) inures the newcomers of netizenry to universally bad design and crappy service. I mean, if Windows and AOL are what 90% of newbies are "trained" on, then how the hell are they supposed to know any better, or believe one of us when they are told about Linux or BSD or even Macintosh?AOL's software design habits are especially scary. Their programmers seem to intentionally ignore previous art, to the point where they reinvent every wheel, and seem to have a preference for square ones at that. Every new feature is hard to use, learns no lessons from existing public domain designs, and then they just leave it there, and don't fix it until it becomes a marketing tactic again. Mon dieu, their 1993 newsreader was the worst, and they left it that way for years before updating it, and it's still nowhere near as useable as any newsreader you or I would tolerate.
OK, ok... rant mode off.
I can see the fnords!
When Netscape became popular, I enjoyed downloading the latest preview releases and I reported my share of bugs. The whole idea of Netscape thrashing Microsoft in the browser war was thrilling! Microsoft was a giant, and as a rule I always root for the underdog (which reminds me... vote for Alan Keyes!!!). When Nullsoft released WinAmp, I found my entrance into the world of MP3s, listening to the latest in controversial technology.
For me, Nullsoft and Netscape represented a change in the way the world worked... a departure from a centralized computer world. It was a world full of grey areas of privacy and copyright that I hoped would be worked out by a global consortium as opposed to the restrictive political regimes of any single nation.
When Netscape and Nullsoft were purchased by AOL, a company that represented "the enemy" for me, I realized that everything I had hoped for and believed in had crumbled to the power of the dollar.
To this very day, that's precisely what AOL represents... that enough money will overcome even the highest of principles, and that at some point, everyone sells out.
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The large companies does the same as was done in the former soviet union. Except saying it's for the sake of the people. And you call your country a free country?
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
if aol succeeds in commercializing the internet, there is a good choice that will actually **increase** the so-called "digital divide" separating power users (like many but not all /. readers) from the great unwashed.
how so? easy. most of the internet will become less useful, but more entertaining.
the result will be more and more of the web being converted to pure entertainment plays, not even pretending to provide information (unbiased or not). and rife with marketing. in other words, most of the web will start to look like television. to be honest, this doesnt bother me much. i dont watch tv, and we all knew it would happen eventually. but not all of the internet can be whitewashed.
the reason you can get 5000 channels and still be bored with all of them is that you dont have many people setting up tv stations in their homes for fun. it doesnt cost as much to set up web content as it does to broadcast stuff. so we will always have a certain subgroup of people publishing on the web whatever the hell they want.
i suppose there is a possibility of infrastructure control that could hurt this, but i doubt it will happen. at&t, at the very least, certainly wont let aol/time-warner control the pipes- so we have at least two giants trying to prevent each other from controlling all bandwidth.
in other words, the ability to produce quality, unbiased content is still there.
but most of the people entering through aol will not be interested in investing the time or energy in finding that. so they will see all the marketing and electronic billboards set up for them, the custom-built ads created as "informative" sites pushing one product or another, and they will think that is all there is to the web.
meanwhile, more saavy users will shun commercial areas (in part) to frequent more obscure websites with informative but more importantly LESS BIASED content.
to those who argue that aol will buy out any site thats getting big enough, it is a consideration. but i for one think the great buyout of content is over, because (1) its hard to justify large sums for niche audiences and (2) it may not actually be worth aol's time or money to hit these small markets. they want to dominate larger audiences remember- and more particularly those willing to spend money, not cynical libertarian communist mp3-stealing hippie 3l337 h4xxx0rs like slashdot readers. (yes i know that was a self-contradictory exaggeration. but many people lump these groups together- and in any case they all represent people that are a pain-in-the-ass for aol or any company to deal with)
i think more and more people will self-segregate based in part on their technical knowledge and the ability to really think for themselves. its already happening, has happened since the internet began- like various IRC channels, for instance, which have vastly greater reservoirs of technical knowledge than others. in some ways, thats probably a good thing.
unc_
Take my father. Very bright guy -- scored around 1550 on his SAT, wrote programs in assembly on punch cards in the 60s, eventual fine arts major, very well-read, does cryptograms in his head.
AOL user.
Why? The only thing he uses his computer for is to receive and distribute email, with the occassional scanned-in JPEG of his granddaughter. I have no doubt he could set up an ISP account, but he'd rather be reading or coaching youth soccer or gardening or so on. For his purposes, AOL is just fine. (So is Windows, but that's another can of worms.)
Moral of the story: Usage of AOL does not imply a lack of intelligence -- just a lack of energy used in getting online.
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..!!in an intastella burst i am back to save the universe!!
"Not true! Who is more impressed by graphics-heavy web sites, and who is just as happy reading text with minimal formatting? Who sends email attachements as uncompressed .bmp because he can't figure out WinZip, and who religiously gzips every outgoing file? Who watches streaming video? Who listens to steaming audio? Who actually likes shocked and/or flashed websites?"
And who religiously downloads the latest Linux minor revisions or does FTP installs? Who actually run and patronize the sites with the most hits? Who is running Napster and Gnutella? Who is running Freenet? Who is watching streaming audio and video? Well, Slashdot Radio fans and audiophile geeks at least. If AOLers are driving up bandwidth it is only because of the NUMBER of them. Bandwidth desire and usage per capita is much higher in the geek population, I'd say: witness geeks who run and patronize sites on T1's and then go home to cable modems and personal internet servers and do even more stuff on the net. How about geeks with portables, cell phones, etc? AOLers all thought the internet was AOL's network. It was only when the web and other internet applications became big and ubiquitous did AOL open up to the whizbang stuff.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Now, as part of Time Warner we do have something to worry about. This should prove a test of their character. Did they really want to give us choices, or were they merely leveraging themselves into the last mile.
If we want to keep our backbone and protocols free, we really need to fight the consolidation of the Internet giants. Both backbone AND last mile.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes "Who Keeps the Keepers Themselves" ~ Juvenal
And the famous spammers. They were based in Phoenix. I'm from AZ and remember them too. But your point is?
Mine was that not everyone is an expert. Everyone starts out. And they're usually stupid. Back when I got online with my awesome dialup (remember Archie, WAIS, gopher?), I sounded like a moron ("What's this 'Online Oracle' that everyone listens to?"), but there were people to help me. Now, it's just more noise among the (rapidly diminishing) signal. Do I care? Yeah, sure. Would I like everyone to know what "RFC" stands for? You bet. Do I want the old days back? No way.
I once tried using my brand spankin' new PPP account to look up Western Digital HDD specs in 1994. Couldn't do it: They didn't even have a www site; I had to a call (and pay for) a support line. There was no other way. And to think that just yesterday I got the specs for my brand new Quantum U2W SCSI HDD off the web and was up and running in minutes. (Seriously: How many of you would like to set up a new machine with old hardware, no hardware manuals/docs, and no Net connection whatsoever? I thought so.)
Do I want to go back to the "elites only", "PHB wants to know what's the point to this 'web' thing?" ways? Not a chance. Would you want to?
It's largely because of AOL that the web is so incredibly useful. More power to them, I say. Keep getting companies to put their stuff on the Web. I can't tell you how much I appreciate living in the age of the Biggest, Easiest Encyclopedia Ever Made.
I never want the Internet to go away. Ever. If it takes AOL to assure that, then that's the way it is and there's no point in worrying about it. Just keep doin' what you're doin' and preaching what you're preaching. It's good for you and good for me. And who knows? Maybe a few AOLers will see the light and join us in making their Net experience possible? Things could be worse, you know.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I've seen your arguement before. AOL fosters newbies who will eventually see the pure shit they are using and eventually 'grow up' to a 'real' ISP. I agree with it, but at the same time I think you're wrong.
Think about the average AOL user, ie: your mom, your grandparents, someone who's been enticed by the latest TV commercial. These are the people who use the computer only for word processing or for faxing. They don't need much else. They take this same "If it's got what I need, I'm happy" stance towards internet access. If AOL can give them stock quotes, e-mail, weather, shopping, IM's... why should they bother growing up?
This is the stance of the Common Everday Non-Techy Person, which is AOL's prime market. So they see a couple ads? They don't see a bunch of weird techy configuration stuff (my parents description of window's dial-up networking configs :P), they only see what they need and some minor hindrances.
My point is, more technical users (ie: those interested in computers, coders, gamers, etc.) will grow up to ISP's. However, this is a small fraction of AOL's user base, and that is why we will continue to have headaches like I've seen described here.
The AOL'ization of America was inevitable. If it wasn't AOL who came to fill the huge market gap that ISP's frankly can't deal with (while satisfying techies like us), someone else would. It's called business. All you elitist people out there are just going to have to realize that getting everyone online means getting everyone online, idiots and ignorants included. I'm reminded of a Dennis Miller quote: "Think of the average person in America. Now realize that 50% of America is dumber than that."
It's a pain, but we will have to deal
Why should users "grow up"?
If they are getting something which seems to them to be a good deal -- largely because they aren't allowed to know there are better deals -- why would they strike out from the warm, cozy nest of AOL?
Furthermore, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who want their world to be orderly and safe and tidy -- at any cost. The attitudes of /. (e.g. "He who would trade liberty for safety deserves neither") are NOT those of the rest of the world.
The so called "AOLization of America" is actually the "small-towning of America". It is an America where there is no privacy (everyone's in everyone else's business) and behavior is controlled by moral censure and there can be no dissent.
I feel confident that whoever came up with the unfortunately accurate expression "Global Village" never had the misfortune of living in an actual village.
Most people are never going leave AOL. Most people will never take the red pill. They like the safe blandness of AOL just as it is. These are people who live in suburbs, after all.
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-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
I would even go so far as to say that there's a number of productive /.ers (myself not included) who got started with AOL. Aye. I had AOHell for quite awhile back in '92-'94, back in the day of BBSes. I switched for two reasons: First, I grew up (that was when I was in h.s.), got smarter, and realized that AOL severely limited my choices as well as my liberties in using not just the web but the Internet. Second, and most importantly, I realized I was being abused as a client. There is no greater insult, in my opinion, than being abused as a PAYING CLIENT. It's for the same reason that I really hate MS. Another reason to not get too scared just yet: ADSL. Remember gang, there is competition out there in the form of a competing technology. I advised my parents to go for ADSL in their hometown because it was cheaper. AOL will always have the local TelCo's to compete with. The one thing that does scare me is AOL's potential to force Time-Warner subscribers who don't have any choice in cable providers (such as my parents) to also get AOL's cablemodem/webTV service or get no service at all. Sounds very familiar to the browswer/OS packaging that has caused everyone's favorite ongoing antitrust trial to me... and keep in mind AOL has a longer history of client abuse than MS did. ciao.
At the same time, users can 'grow up'. They can outgrow AOL and eventually move to a real ISP. So that hand-holding can be useful, just like for a child, many of whom are quite annoying at first, then get much more pleasant. (Then there's adolescence -- script kiddies? :)
So all in all, I would say that in hindsight, AOL has actually been good for the Net by bringing on lots of users who eventually became good Netizens. (I can't believe I just wrote that.) I would even go so far as to say that there's a number of productive /.ers (myself not included) who got started with AOL. Then there's the trolls, so two sides to every piece of bread...
The question remains, what will happen now that they dominate content? I suggest that just maybe, they'll generate content to bring people online and interest them in the rest of the Net, and these users will eventually move on to better, more lively stuff. Even if they control 20% of Web content (a HUGE proportion), that means that there's four times as much stuff out there that they don't control. If you build it, they will come.
It'll be annoying, but it'll be good in the long run.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
...it's business. Capitalism. We villify these megacorporations and laud smaller companies like Red Hat. But the only way for a small company to become a big one is by doing exactly the sort of stuff that AOL and Microsoft do--cater to the idiots of the world, every blessed one of them. It's the same in every industry. Did anyone else raise an eyebrow a few years back when Sun and Oracle et al. formed a group called "Anyone But Microsoft"? Does anyone think a world ruled by Larry Ellison would be better than one ruled by Bill Gates? It's important to recognize that the same ideal is present at ALL levels of business: make money, lots of it. Anyone who follows this ideal is as much of a bastard as Gates. Hell, Bill got his start by being one of the very first to claim that he could actually own the software he (or people in his company) wrote, back in the days of Apple I's. He wasn't a billionaire then. It's not an issue of magnitude. It's an issue of purpose.
I don't see AOL having very much power. The only effect AOL has in my house is as coasters...
The media has WAY too much power. The Time-Warner merger with AOL gives them MORE power.
Imagine what it would be like if the media was controlled by a single organization. Ever read 1984? If not, do it. It's a really good read.
Slashdot-terminal has a quote in his sig. "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
For those of you who haven't read the book, that quote refers to Winston Smith's job. His job was to 'update' old newspapers. If a paper made a 'mistake' in one of their articles. For instance, last quarter, the ministry of plenty could've said "There will be a surplus of goods next quarter. Everyone will get their boots and coats!" Which made the people happy, when actually the next quarter was a poor quarter. Nobody got their boots and coats. Smith's job was to update the article to show that the ministry 'didn't actually say' what it reported they said. When people tried to look up the article, they would realize that the ministry of truth actually did not say ANYTHING about boots and coats.
Anyway, my point is that the media is not trustworthy, and the general public are sheep. Look at Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast. People killed themselves because they thought aliens were coming. (If you don't know anything about the WOTW broadcast, read up on it.. it's pretty interesting).
We need to start thinking on our own, and stop letting the little glass-fronted boxes in our livingroom and computerroom do it for us.
(side note: Rob, slashdot's eating HTML on the preview.)