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.'"

Comments

Hm... for the sake of counting them?

[Neophytus]

It should be noted though that AOL has said it has stopped simply signing up new customers for the sake of counting them.
Is this an admission that the hundreds of CDs each and everyone here will have recieved were just a stunt to get the numbers up?

Yea, well.....

[mao che minh]

Times are changing. A good number of casual, novice computer users are beginning to become comfortable enough to use other ISPs that lack the complete solution of AOL. I still don't see AOL ever losing a substantial userbase any time soon though.

I think that a few of you can relate to this: I don't make a heck of alot of money off my single, constant IT job. This forces me to do alot of consulting for everyone from small businesses to "Joe User". Joe User still doesn't have or need much understanding about computers, and still prefers the simplistic experience that is AOL. Until another major ISP can offer the ease of use that AOL can for a significantly lower cost (unlike MSN), then most AOL userrs have no incentive to switch.

Why This Has Happened

[E-Rock-23]

AOL's recent ad campaign for their AOL 8.0 service has to be the direct reason for the drop in subscribers. Let's do the math:

In one scene, where a "dad" talks about setting up the parental controls for his "kids," a shot of the screen is shown with three users listed. The first user in the list (name unknown, and doesn't matter) is shown as having Adult access. The second user on this list is the key. First of all, the user name is HappyAOLUser, and is shown as having Older Teen access. First of all, what Teenager in their right(?) mind would use HappyAOLUser as their screen name? None. And secondly, is there such a thing as a Happy AOL User? I haven't met any...

Here's the big detractor. Their offer boasts 1,025 hours free for the first 45 days. Let's do the math. There are 24 hours in a day, right? OK. So, let's multiply that by 45. The answer is 1,080 hours. Now, we subtract from that the 1,025 hours offered for free. We get 55 hours. Divide those 55 hours by the original 45 days, and you get 1.2222222r. So, in order to use up all of the 1,025 hours in 45 days, a single AOL user would only be able to get 1.22222r hours of sleep per day in the 45 day period.

Simply put, either the user doesn't get to use all of the free hours, or they die from sleep deprivation trying to get them all in.

Couple this with the slowly growing demand for broadband, AOL's lack of local servers (resulting in long distance bills for some users), and the frequent busy signals encountered, you have your reason for people migrating away from AOL.