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

Re:Does this mean?

[hab136]

That the September finally ended?

Since there's two replies already that don't get it, parent is referring to the September that never ended

Re:Nah

[Southpaw018]

Not so true. AOL is the internet for complete morons - they do everything for you from virus protection to including non-standards-compliant hacked web browsers (mostly versions of ie now) so that you get it all in one application. They also have the insufferable "keywords" so that you don't have to use something that takes a little effort. Like Google.

Local cable and telephone companies expect you to do these things yourself because you're a human being that deserves to have choice (and a normal internet access program that doesn't permanently destroy your computer's tcp/ip settings).

As someone who works regularly with people who know little to nothing about computers and technology, I've found that AOL users have absolutely no safe browsing habits to speak of, normally aren't aware that they need a firewall or sometimes even virus protection, and pretty much depend on AOL to do everything for them. I know that's a sweeping generalization, but it's what I've found. On the other hand, even folks who aren't very tech savvy but use a "normal" ISP have at the very least nominal safe browsing habits, and many are quite good at detecting viruses and phishing scams in email and knowing when they shouldn't click on the "yes to install this java package" button.