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AOL Reports Its First Drop In Subscribers
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.'"
They have a nicely written, in-depth piece on AOL's new head master, Dick Parsons, as he deals with the trials and tribulations of running such a large, well-known company as AOL.
Non-registration, direct link version: Tests Keep Coming for AOL Time Warner's Well-Tested Chief
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Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Well anyone who is paying attention could tell you that dialup is slowing down in the US. The PC market is saturated, fewer new users every year. (my perception). People are moving from modems to broadband and arent being replaced at the same rate... this really should be a suprise to no one.
"apparently due to users becoming more comfortable with broadband connections."
That's such a great euphamism for users....
"...getting sick of uncontrollable spam"
"...growing tired of a 56k line moving at 33.6k"
"...finding out that instant messaging can be done outside of AOL"
"...discovering that $23.90 per month is a ripoff for a dial-up service"
"...learning that you can get on and off line without clicking 'no thanks' to advertising"
"...finally realizing that they can hookup up to high speed access for another 5 bucks a month without having to deal with bulky client software"
"...trying to set up 'parental controls' to monitor their children, only to find out that it's not a replacement for watching what you kids do"
"...finally getting sick of a TOS policy that amounts to nothing more than idiotic bullshit (I CAN TYPE IN CAPS AND NOT GET KICKED OFFLINE!!)"
I could go on. sadly.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Also lots of people used AOL because they had more dialup numbers than anyone including Compu$erve (The original use of $ in spoofing tech company names based on their formerly multiple-dollars-per-hour billing schemes, for those too young or oblivious to know) but that hasn't been true for a long time, so they'll lose customers there.
Third is the internet with training wheels. Users eventually feel confident enough to take them off, and save ten bucks a month in the bargain.
Finally, AOL is moving away from developing their own internal content, and becoming just another ISP. I guess they feel the internet has reached a critical mass of material which makes it useless to develop subscribers-only content. I disagree entirely, I think that this is the time for MORE subscribers-only content, but whatever.
The point is, AOL is losing everything that it was, as they transition toward being just another ISP. At their prices and with the annoyance of having to use their software to get connected, why would people use AOL>
P.S. It's bullshit that they claim they're not signing people up just to claim they have more members. As long as they are still sending out AOL CDs in the mail willy-nilly, and putting them on counters at the post office (USPS-Flavored AOL, could anything be worse? That's like head cheese flavored SPAM) then clearly they are trying to inflate their numbers to artificial levels; They HAVE to know that more people use and discard those things than use and renew. That might not have been true once, I'm sure they had a pretty good retention rate back in the day, but they can't possibly now.
AOL is dragging TW down. It should be cannibalized for its hardware and its customer base and something entirely different done with both.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"