AOL Subscribers Finding Greener Pastures

Mitch writes "The Register is reporting that America Online has lost close to 2 million customers since September 2003. At the end of September they had 22.7 million customers in the US which was down more than 500,000 since the beginning of the quarter. This news comes one day after it was announced that more than 700 jobs would be cut from Virginia offices by the end of this year."

Comments

Does this mean?

[Evangelion]

That the September finally ended?

Re:Does this mean?

[slothbait]

Maybe~
I would go check on the newsgroups, but I am still afraid.

Now excuse me while I reminisce by idling on an IRC server that has no services.

Re:Does this mean?

[anticypher]

Nope. Today is the 4082nd day of September, 1993. It still hasn't ended. It may never end. There will always be AOLers fucking things up for the rest of us.

the AC

Re:Maybe if they stopped...

[MindDelay]

i hope they go bankrupt from sending out coasters, i could use a few more!!! i don't know where i would be in life without aol coasters.

AOLers getting smarter?

[Elminst]

What?!
Is the collective internet IQ average actually rising? People are realizing that paying $27 for a dialup account is a rip off?!

who r u gon make fun of on teh intarwebs nemore?? omgwtfbbq!!!11one

It IS down, I have PROOF!

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Compared to past years, my MTA logs for my company have shown a HUGE decline in inbound chain letters, and nested FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of FWDs of ...

Re:And the burning questions remain

[Herschel Cohen]

Why do they stay with AOL???

I thought it's a Law of physics: inertia.

Re:And the burning questions remain

[Orgazmus]

Friends dont let friends do AOL!

Layoffs might be a good thing

[scottennis]

Please let them fire the person who keeps sending me those $%*# disks.

Re:Yes of course

[SansTinfoilHat]

Can I mod this +1 Bitter?

Re:And the burning questions remain

[aacool]

I must confess - I am not a novice at the net - I've been on the Net for many years - I'm on a broadband connection, with all the protection one needs, and my own blog. But I subscribe to AOL for Broadband. Mostly for the content - Newspass, music, video. I had it free for 6 months - I'm paying 14.99 now. Ok! I surrender! Tt makes no sense! I'm gonna call and cancel! - if they let me.

Re:And the burning questions remain

[Total_Wimp]

Why do the remaining 20 million stay?

What?!?! I can't believe anyone would ask such a dumbass question! People stay with AOL because:

1. They like phone lines. Ethernet cables are bad and complicated, unlike phone-lines thate are simple and ubiquitus.

2. Broadband is TOO FAST! Have you seen those crazy kids with their suped-up thingmajigs just zooming by you at every web site? It's just plain scary.

3. Ads are comforting. I get advertisements on my TV so I deserve to get advertisements on my internet too. Why would I want a substandard internet that's not even good enough for advertising? Since I get AOL ads, AND the ads for the web sites I visit, my comfort level is at least doubled.

4. Credit card debit is the way to go. Why get a monthly bill and write a monthly check like you would for your phone service or cable service? That's so 20th century. I trust my ISP so I want them to just take my money.

5. You just can't use AIM without AOL service, can you?

6. Kids love it! Theres no danger or smut available from AOL and there never was. It's 100% safe and wholesome.

DUH!

Back in the Day There were Three Circles...

[Greyfox]

Of network Hell.

The first circle was Compuserve. There were a lot of fairly clueful people on Compuserve who just hadn't discovered flat-rate PPP hosting.

The second circle was AOL. Compuserve users tended to view AOL as a cartoon environment and AOL users as idiots. The more clueful AOL users occasionally moved to Compuserve but only rarely from AOL to PPP dialup hosting.

The bottom circle of Network Hell, from which there was no redemption, was Prodigy. Prodigy was like the short bus for AOL. If you couldn't handle AOL's cartoony complexity, you could go to Prodigy and quietly play with play-doh with the other Prodigy users. They say Prodigy went out of business, but I believe the service and their users were quietly ejected into another dimesion, where they remain TO THIS VERY DAY! No one's going to organize a search party though.

These days AOL's mostly just another Internet provider, though it sounds like they also still have some internal services they offer. CompuServe's still around but I believe they have all of about 3 subscribers left. And of course Prodigy's off in the dimension of cluelessness. It's really not to surprising that some AOL users are trying to escape, and I guess the new marketing campaign is an attempt to scare up some more newbies. AOL provides the Internet an invaluable service (Keeping most AOLers out of our hair over here on the seedy west side of the net) so I hope they manage to stay successful.

Re:And the burning questions remain

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Yes...yes I suppose I could have. Lettme hit you back with this. You can either conceive through artifical insemination, or dog your wife on a pool table. Both make babies, but one is infinitely more fun...