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AOL Not Alone In Subscriber Decline
E-Rock-23 writes "Our registration-hungry friends at the New York Times are running this article with a few more details on the AOL Subscriber Decline, covered in a recent /. post. And it looks like they aren't alone, as Earthlink and MSN are experiencing similar troubles. The article cites a major reason being that users "are buying broadband services offered by cable and telephone companies." Looks like broadband is finally gaining some significant ground with home users..."
Yeah, broadband is a nice upgrade. But I bet more people disconnected due to money than the need for speed.
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Although I was with a local ISP, the cost of the 2nd phone line was $25.00 and my ISP was $15.00. Broadband through the cable company was $40.00 so it was a complete wash for a huge increase over 56k, why would I want to stay on dialup? They can thank all the baby bells for not wanting to go the "last mile" to give people a choice of providers.
As a former AOL employee, I still have an AOL account even though I find the service has ticked me off more than a few times but my wife can't really change her email address at this tmie. So we are like so many who just are waiting for the right time.
You can't stop the future, you can only simulate it by stopping progress
Thats why I bought a domain. My email address is permanent regardless of my provider. Changing emails is a real pain. ISPs rely on that - so they give great introductory offers, but raise the rates once they have you sucked in. With my own domain, I can changes ISPs painlessly.
I think the broadband push is one determining factor in changing from the powerhouse ISP's, but I also think users are *growing up* from AOL/MSN to using only their preferred browser. I consider AOL/MSN users to be novice and prefer to use these ISP's because of ease and simplicity. Now these users are gaining knowledge of the "internet" and have the ability to *surf* themselves without AOL/MSN pushing content to them directly.
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isn't what is used to be.
.swf files via E-Mail to 20 different friends and the like.
Here in Germany you can get a 128kBit up / 768 kBit down async line. The best a normal household can aford is 192 kBit up / 1536 kBit down async.
The problem is that as bandwidth goes up, quality of the net goes down.
I heard people saying: "Why should I not place these 2MB images on my website? It's downloaded with my DSL line in seconds."
And don't even try to tell these people what a thumbnail is.
It's just one example but you can find more of these. People sending 15 MB
SQL Slammer won't have had the effect of broadband coming to every home.
See my blog for my free opinions.
With the coming of wireless internet, it even becomes simpler to share the net (you don't even have to dig or drill a line in the ground or wall for your ethernet cable). I think this also has some impact on the decline of dial-up subscriptions.
You're right on every count, except that it wont keep aol in business. AOL's business model depends on the fact that they will always be getting more subscribers. Even in AOL managed to keep everyone from leaving they would begin to lose money. The fact that people are leaving means big trouble for AOL. Mainly because they have a giant useless dial up ISP infrastructure. That infrastructure costs money, and if nobody uses it that's all loss. Sure there are a lot of idiots who keep paying for AOL after they get broadband. But unless AOL has a constant increase in membership they will have diminishing returns and eventually go bankrupt. They're still huge, so it wont happen soon, and they've still got a chance to save themselves.
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Since I work alot with the public and their computers let me tell you what I think the biggest reason for the decline is.
90% of the houses I go to are for people who are upgrading and now want two computers. (Their old one + their new one) AOL requires a $20 subscription fee + more money for multiple screens and though you can have broadband and still use AOL they still charge an aol usage fee.... *yawn*
So they upgrade to broadband because that 56k stuff has to go and because it can easily service two computers, they buy a router, they leave AOL but download the messenger to stay in touch with their buddies. They migrate to using Outlook Express (cringe) But they also have norton so I guess thats ok... sort of.
Then they also cancel AOL + Second Phone Line and broadband is about the same price. Some even cancel their phone and do VoIP. (Its rare but there are some really good offers out there that even offer wireless phonejacks that you can sticky to your wall or plug into an outlet...)
You can't say boradband via cable companies has a doomed future based on your singular personal experience, it just seemed ludicrous.
Ultimately, I think both technologies have about equal potential, with one beating the other depending on where you are.
DSL is offered by companies that typically have more experience in offering high-bandiwdth internet connections, so service and reliability I think is indeed, mostly better with DSL on average. However, as Cable companies have learned their lessons, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the two. DSL still seems to typically offer better latency (around my area, at least), but cable services offer better throughput.
To home consumers, the fine details don't make much of a difference. Availability makes all the difference. I can't get DSL at any decent rate. None of my family can get it at all. I do, and my family could, all have cable modem at 2 megabit downstream, 768k up. In addition to that, a sort of unintended benefit of cable modem service is that there is a good chance the installer won't bother with a video filter and you get free cable with the net connection. I know, not a fair comparison because cable companies hate this, but realistically speaking, it must be considered.
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