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Netscape-Branded ISP Launching February 2004
Guppy06 writes "I'm too lazy to change my homepage in Netscape 7 to something else, and that's where I discovered an ad leading towards what appears to be a trial run of a new Netscape-branded ISP. While this isn't as momentous as, say, Netscape bundled with AOL would be, they seem to be aiming at Juno and NetZero with their price of $9.95/month ($1.00/month to participate in the trial run ending in February). This may just end up being a fizzle, or it could be part of a two-pronged attack on MSN by AOL."
It just cheapens the Netscape name, one for which many of us still have fond memories. I would guess some of the key original Netscape programmers are pretty sad too.
I already posted a comment about this once, but I'll never forget how sad jwz's resignation letters were.
This one predates the recently slashdotted article about myths in open source by many years, and probably was the first one to call attention to the fact that (his own words) "you cannot just take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source' and make it magically work".
And this one made me so sad when it came out I threw away all plans of making a career in computer engineering. Again his own words, "sometimes the only way to win is to not play".
Yes, he's kinda dramatic in a mexican soap opera way, but then I was 17, and was deeply struck.
Given the outright incompetence in the overall strategic vision at AOL/TW, there's no telling if this new plan is an act of foresight or of desperation.
Still, I have to say that it makes sense to leverage both the Netscape and AOL brands. They're obviously positioning Netscape as the low-cost bare-bones option for dialup ISP service, and I bet that subscribers will be incessantly prompted to upgrade to the features found on AOL.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
More likely like Juno Premium Service, compression of the HTML and the pictures are redone to a lower bit depth.
Do you ready need 32 bits to see a 8 bit picture?
Nothing?
Dial-up ISP's are a dime a dozen, and if the customer base isn't shrinking already it probably will be soon. Rather than competing against MSN, it's likely to canabalize people that are looking for a low cost alternative to their AOL account.
AOL is getting hit from the top and the bottom. High Speed Access is erroding their customer base from the top, and Low Cost Dialups are attracting customers from the bottom. Having their own low cost Dial Up will allow them to at least get some money from people who are leaving them for a cheaper alternitive. Using the AOL brand name for the cheaper service would cause confusion (Why am I being billed 23.95? I saw an ad for 9.95!) so they needed a different name for it. They already own the rights to a well known name associated with the Internet, Netscape, so it was a natural choice.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
AOL is losing money to companies that are offering a cheaper service so now when a customer calls and wants to cancel they can offer them a cheaper service and still keep their customer.
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Nobody seems to have pointed this out yet, so I will.
Imagine for a moment that you're a phone-support tech working at, say, Dell or some other consumer PC manufacturer. You get a call from a customer who says they can't "get on the Internet".
You ask this customer, "What Internet service are you using?" and the customer responds "Netscape".
Until now, anyone hearing such a response could immediately recognize that the user was talking about their browser, not their ISP (which is what the question referred to). Now, that conclusion can't be made.
With the introduction of this service, someone who is "using Netscape" is either:
Needless to say, this makes it difficult to ascertain which is the case when talking to a user who doesn't know the difference.