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One Million AOL discs to be returned to AOL
nicedream writes "Two guys from California are trying to give AOL a taste of its own medicine. They're asking people to send them AOL discs, and they're going to drop them off at the company's doorstep once they collect 1 million discs. My favorite quote: "We're going to AOL and say, 'You've got mail"." seems like a better taste would be to dial out and use all 1000 free hours. A million people do *that* and I bet they'd stop filling our mailboxes with the landfill of tomorrow.
Any by doing this, you help keep down the cost of future postage as you just gave the US Post Office $370,000.
Look, they are asking 1 million people to spend upwards of 40 cents each to send a useless CD to them, then they are going to spend how much to deliver the truckload to AOL?
Think about it, that's at least $400,000 dollars down the drain! Why not ask people to contribute $0.40 towards infrastructure costs in their area for public 802.11b hotspots. Tell them to mark any and all AOL mail "RETURN TO SENDER" and AOL will bear even greater costs, at no cost to the consumer.
Egad, people, use your brains.
Besides, AOL is going down the toilet anyway. Their shiny discs aren't going to be very useful to them after a few years as dialup dwindles, especially since broadband doesn't net them nearly as much profit as dialup once did. They're going to change their business model significantly over the next few years - it'll be interesting.
But seriously, put your effort into providing free net access for everyone.
-Adam
Actually, that's what they ARE trying to do! They are constantly in the search for re-use of the packaging, when it something other than shrinkwrap.
The trouble with the DVD style cases is that the stickers can be hard to uniformly strip off, making it hard to convince people to take them/reuse them.
IIRC, they've talked with movie rental places, used DVD/CD stores, and schools about giving them the cases, since they're just interested in the CDs themselves...
All in all very pleasant fellows, looking for a creative way to apply the clue stick to a corporation that does'nt seem to get that sending multiple CDs to someone week after week is unlikely to make them sign up multiple times.
I tried AOL for awhile back in 1995. Dropped it in 1996 and went to Earthlink because I realized I didn't need AOL--just access to the Internet. (Been on cable for the last couple of years.)
At last count I had approaching 25 "come back to AOL disks." They do make good coasters, but I don't need 25 coasters...;) I continue to receive them on a regular basis.
I've often wondered how much money AOL spends to send out these disks. Assuming a cost of $1 per disk, including postage (which might be low), AOL could be spending anywhere from $10M a year to $100M a year just sending out these disks and doing nothing else. Remarkable.
I'd love to know the percentage of "hits" AOL gets on a mail-out like this. The company must certainly consider them successful as they've made no effort to cease and desist--just got another one a couple of weeks ago.
AOL used to send me floppy disks - I got so many that I hardly ever had to actually buy blank disks.
Unfortunately, the labels were really difficult to get off neatly, so I ended up just sticking address labels over them instead.
Ahhh, good old days. Pity you can't do anything really useful with the CDs. Why don't they put the latest Linux kernel or some GNU programs on them as well, because the discs usually have loads of free space on them. That way, people would keep them around instead of throwing them away - and if they keep them, then there is more chance that they might actually use them...
The 1000 hour deal only lasts for 45 days. Actually 1000 hours, if used 24 hours a day every day, would run out in under 42 days. Since most people don't tie up their phone line for 24 hours a day, you can bet most people aren't going to approach anywhere *near* 1000 hours before the 45 days is up, and they are quietly billed at the normal rate.
Thats BS.
Mail was never much more expensive *before* AOL CDs started soming in. If anything it causes more overhead. An increase in volume through the mail system with mail that very vey few people would actually want.
There would be less overhead if AOL would stop sending out so many CDs. The post office would have that much less to worry about.
You know what I do everytime I go to the mailbox and there is spam mail in my slot - I stick it in the Outgoing mail slot.
One time I walked up to the mailbox when the mailman was busy stuffing it full of crap. I asked him if he would please just not put that stuff in my mail box. He said that there is only one way for him to stop putting such mail that is addressed to "So & So OR Current Resident" and other spammings such as the coupon newspapers and pizza offers - get a P.O. Box.
PMBs are apparently the only thing where there is regulation limiting the unsolicited mailings that are allowed.
The orignal poster is correct. Bulk mail is about the only thing keeping the price of a First Class stamp under $2.00.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Yeah... you wouldn't want to pay a few cents more for your mail to get rid of all this garbage.
After all, there's probably a spot somewhere that isnt a landfill yet.
How long does it take for a cd to dissolve anyway?
I'll wager AOL gives up the CD campaign before they reach their mark, leaving these guys with a really big pile of CDs, and no campaign to protest.
Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a neat idea, I just think they set their sights a couple orders of magnitude higher than is practical.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Something tells me this plan will fall through without anything being done...
Not to mention, okay, collect AOL discs, send them back to AOL... hmm now, AOL now has 1 million discs which didn't reach new users. Hmmm... LET'S SEND THOSE PONIES RIGHT BACK UP! THANK YOU GENTS FOR THE SURPLUS!
The entire thing just seems a bit pointless at best, counter productive at worst.
Just my $0.02
Irony or insane! I'd say both if that is his personal address, because he'll still get CDs long after he has moved onto some other cause. He should have acquired a PO box or mailbox at something like Mailboxes, Etc, so that it could be returned.
Regardless, I admire his intention, his intent to make a point. Sure, AOL will dismiss it and have the 1,000,000 hauled off in a blink of an eye. It's the principal of the matter! What ever happen to principals!
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
I don't know if this is still true (the last time I used AOL was about '94), but once you started using the free hours, AOL needed a credit card number. Just in case you, uh, go over the limit. What they didn't tell you is that if you did go over the limit, you wouldn't be notified; they just quietly started billing you.
Ah, gees, I feel so sorry for you. C'mon! This company is giving you free internet access and now you expect/demand them to send you a curtousy message when you're approaching the magic 1000 hours? I don't see why they are under any obligation to provide this warning service to you. Sure, it would be awfully sweet of them to do so. But, seriously, you should be able to determine after A FEW HOURS if you like the service or not! If you're trying to play some kind of game of getting as close to 1000 hours without going over then I would argue you're really taking advantage of them. Go ahead and do that if you want to 'stick it to the man' but don't be upset when the company doesn't provide warning services to allow you to screw them over more effectively. Gees, how hard is it to write down a log of how many hours on a piece of paper by the computer so you can keep track of this yourself? Accept some responsibility for your actions.
Looking through the comments here I see a lot of "heh-heh, let's stick it to AOL" messages. Why do people hate AOL? Does anyone have a LEGITIMATE REASON for hating them? And I mean something more important than "I don't like getting those disks in the mail". There are lots of evil entities out there in the tech world. Does AOL really deserve to be place side by side with Microsoft et. al in the Technology Hall of Shame? AOL has been responsible for helping millions of people discover the internet.
GMD
watch this
AOL has been responsible for helping millions of people discover the internet.
Just like Microsoft was responsible for helping millions of people discover PCs. In my opinion, AOL's product sucks, and those millions of people are dumber because of it. There are some good things about their service, but overall I think the internet as a community would be better off if AOL was simply an ISP rather than a content/software/advertising provider.
Evil is the money of root.
Find a mailing address for AOL and have people mail them to that address instead. Skip the middle-man. Have it on some significant date and make it a national holiday, preferably a Monday. I really hate Mondays.
"But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
*koff* Tom Lehrer *koff*rippoff*koff*.
You know, if you're going to quote Tom Lehrer, you can at least say you're quoting Tom Lehrer.
Documentation please? I've done some google searching and have found no references to real cost analysis numbers regarding this issue.
I've also heard that the DMA's pet senators have forbidden the Post Office from doing this sort of audit. But, I have been unable to find a reference for this claim too.
My gut feeling is that the lack of easily available hard numbers means the general public wouldn't like the current situation.
I've asked this question before in some spam discussions here. Surely someone out there can drive google better than I, or find another resource to get some hard numbers rather than just parroting what they've heard...?
1,000,000 CD's is such an abundance that it will really piss off the multinational corporation...but this jackass has a nice, convenient place to store them in the meantime? Does he realize he has to have the million CD's sitting around annoying him, before giving them back to the company who is going to send them back out to us?
Jackass..
Think about it....
---
Destiny-land.
The happiest blog on earth.
No, 15,000kg = 15 Tonnes = ~16.5Tons.
If you're going to bitch about metricity, the least you can do is not to confuse the two systems.
- undoware.ca
I got my latest AOL coaster (CD) yesterday. It acually came in a metal container. Think of the tins that mints (such as penguin mints or Altoids) come in, but CD sized. I'm not an AOL user. Never have been. Why would they use such a wasteful container? It had to cost 3 times what the CD did - probably more.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
>>>It is illegal to publish plans for making weapons of mass destruction under the US Patriot Act. Please report to your local police station for incarceration.>>> don't you mean incineration?
The moderation system needs a "+1 Scarily Appropriate".
-Puk
If you go past the guard shacks without permission, I'm pretty sure you get arrested.
-BK
Chemical Blog