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AOL Reports Its First Drop In Subscribers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you've-got-broadband dept.

Flamesplash writes "Yahoo! is running this AP story about AOL's first drop in subscribers. 170,000 US subscribers have left AOL in their fourth quarter of 2002, apparently due to users becoming more comfortable with broadband connections. It should be noted though that 'AOL has said it has stopped simply signing up new customers for the sake of counting them.'"

20 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Drop in Subsribers! by saskboy · · Score: 1, Funny

    Oh no! How are we going to easily identify the scum of the Internet without @aol.com on the email address!

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
    1. Re:Drop in Subsribers! by miu · · Score: 5, Funny
      Oh no! How are we going to easily identify the scum of the Internet without @aol.com on the email address!

      "Assholes always advertise."
      Days of Atonement, Walter John Williams

      No worries, this will hold true for the forseeable future.

      --

      [Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
    2. Re:Drop in Subsribers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      How are we going to easily identify the scum of the Internet without @aol.com on the email address!

      Or those who live in a country without freephone internet access apart from AOL.

      Or those who signed on in 1994 and only stick with it because of their email address is widely distributed.

      Or those who have 200 mb of email in their Personal Filing Cabinets and don't want to lose it. (The file format changes every release, the "converter" programs hardly work at all.)

      Or those who find it convienient to be able to either dial up from just about anywhere internationally, or check their webmail without having to use Yahoo or Hotmail?

      Or those who just find it convenient?

  2. Does this mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    We won't get as many free coasters anymore?

    1. Re:Does this mean... by DAldredge · · Score: 4, Funny

      Remember when you could request up to 99 of them?

      That was fun. Kept me in 3 1/2 floppies for years :->

    2. Re:Does this mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      Remember when you could request up to 99 of them?

      That was fun. Kept me in 3 1/2 floppies for years :->
      Ah, the memories. I wonder if I'm the only geek who wrote a KeyQuencer macro to fill out the Sign-On-A-Friend (aka free floppy disk) form? There were times when I was getting literally 2 or 3 AOL floppies per day in the mail. I still have lots of old files backed up on trusty "America Online 2.6" floppies. The best part was, they came pre-Mac-formatted :)
  3. Evil Empires by TheSam · · Score: 5, Funny

    One Evil Empire beginning to crumble, one more to go....

    1. Re:Evil Empires by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      ME TOO!!

  4. Hopefully this will stop them.. by happyhippy · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...carpet bombing the world with their '100 HOURS FREE TRIAL!!!' CD

    1. Re:Hopefully this will stop them.. by GimmeFuel · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, they're now up to 1025 free hours in your first 45 days. This leaves you 1 hour, 14 minutes, 40 seconds of non-online time each day. However, you'll spend at least an hour a day trying to dial in to their servers, so in reality you'll be connected 24/7.

      --
      live(free) || die;
  5. somewhere, over the..... by GePS · · Score: 2, Funny

    "ding-dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch! the witch is dead!" (define dead declining)

  6. "The book, 'To Serve Webpages' - It's a COOKBOOK!" by Tsar · · Score: 5, Funny
    It's all a trick! AOL is actually involved in a conspiracy with RMS, Linus Torvalds and Lawrence Lessig to cover the dumps of the world with enough aluminized plastic discs to increase the continent's average reflectivity, causing a new Ice Age. Once temperatures drop to below freezing all over the globe...

    Penguins will rule the Earth!
    Of course, I could be wrong...
  7. Wow by long_john_stewart_mi · · Score: 4, Funny

    For its part, AOL has said it has stopped simply signing up new customers for the sake of counting them.

    Well, this disproves the "To them, you are not just a number" Theory.

    Signed,

    24783

    --
    ...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
    1. Re:Wow by bradkittenbrink · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, your number is 549153.

      Signed,

      608877

  8. Re:Stopped signing up customers just to count them by C0D3X · · Score: 2, Funny

    Isn't that like saying you made X number of dollars, when you only made Y?

    The accountants from Enron had to find a job somewhere, you know?
    I think it is rude of you to insult them like that

  9. "for the sake of counting them" ?!?! by sdmartin101 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Umm... Maybe my grip on English is slipping, but I have no idea what the line "[they have] stopped simply signing up new customers for the sake of counting them" is supposed to mean. Anyone care to parse this for me? Best I can make out of is their saying "we aren't clever enough to get a current membership count at the same time as we are adding new subscribers." Am I missing something?

    (30 seconds later)Jeebus! I finally got it to parse: "AOL used to sign up new members, not because it would increase revenue, but because it would increase their total number of subscribers (which presumably had some marketing value on its own). They have stopped this, and now expect to make money from their users." Someone, please explain the concept of scope ambiguity to the author of that article!!!

  10. Where oh where have you gone? by zonker · · Score: 2, Funny

    So are they all moving to the butterfly, or to popup blocker land, or have they wised up and are (doubtful) speaking easy? At the very least we know they aren't finishing the internet...

    --

    Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

  11. Why leave? by AnonymousCowheard · · Score: 2, Funny

    AOL is a national-available service for crying-out-loud!

    Sure, many people may complain about some time of the day when access is 20% to 50% slower, but AOL lets its users roam!

    Broadband is a local service that you can't get up and get access to in another territory! I would subscribe to AOL, but they built their network using Linux and did not create a Linux-client for their PROPRIETARY networking protocol. AOL could be better, like Netzero or Juno, but perhaps they should be a little lighter on the FREEWARE subscriptions because my calculator shows they are passing-on-the-cost-of-freeware to its subscribers.

    AOL *gasp*

    --

    But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
  12. Re:$15 for BYOA by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 5, Funny


    $15 a month for all the sex you can get is TOO MUCH?

    Oh, wait, this has got to be a /. nerd...

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  13. An insight by superspoon · · Score: 3, Funny

    A rather old cartoon, but it makes scence
    Dad vs. AOL

    --


    YarrRrr