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AOL To Be Free For Broadband Users?
mikesd81 writes "AOL may give away more services including its AOL.com accounts reserved for paying customers. They have a proposal under consideration which calls for Time Warner's online unit to stop charging subscription fees to users who have high-speed Internet access or even dial-up service from a rival provider. Under the plan the company would continue to charge the fees for those needing dial-up access through AOL. The AOL software also would allow subscribers to continue using instant messaging, Web journals and other services without having to download separate software or figure out Web-based options. That would ease the transition and encourage them to keep using AOL services, the person familiar with the matter said."
My mother (in spite of my protestations) has used AOL for years.
She's stopping now though, because even though she pays a high monthly subscription, she gets bombarded with adverts from AOL, even while their addware and spyware 'zapper' is running.
There are even usually two adverts on the logoff screen.
I can't beleive it, but they've actually managed to suck more.
I dont understand why anyone would do this.
Everyone I know that's gone to broadband from AOL did it as much to escape the confines/ads/annoyances of the AOL software as for the speed. Why would you voluntarily restrict yourself to using their browser when you could be using Firefox?
Furthermore, the people that have broadband (granted, not as much today, but still) are the people that are a bit more technically savvy and want more out of their internet connection/experience. Why on earth would any of these people want AOL?
Got me. AOL is one of those things that, even free, still isn't worth it.
At one point, my company had a "strategic business partnership" with AOL to provide personal Internet service for its employees. Everyone got free AOL accounts for a year. Most of the IT group didn't use them, we knew better. The people I know who did had nothing but trouble, and I don't know anyone who renewed their subscription when the free year ran out. The company didn't do it again. I think that the plan got nixed when all the employess started calling our help desk asking why their Internet at home wasn't working.
Oh well, lesson learned, I suppose.
This is the sort of turnaround that everybody wishes monolithic corporations could make. Well, now AOL / Time Warner is making one. It's pretty easy to recognize that charging people for access to AOL's information services alone is not a viable business model. We constantly make fun of them for it, or at least I did. AOL for Broadband?
AOL's brand has started to really hurt lately. Ma and pa are beginning to dislike them, and so this is AOL doing the best move they can: Cut the crap, scale down the profit drive, and return to services. AOL is still a very valuable brand name, and it can still be salvaged for future use. If they immediately stop aggravating customers and do their best to play nice while Time Warner scales them down, the brand can once again have value.
We always blast away at companies for driving themselves into the ground by refusing to change. And yeah, AOL has been and still is a pretty dark beast in some spots. But despite this, AOL is doing the hardest thing a mega-corporation can do: admit their blunder, and try to change. In addition to mocking their shameful past, some positive, if exasperated, attention should be spent to note this move toward the right direction.
I have to post a disclaimer to ward off the astroturf melters, though. No, I am not an AOL employee. No, I do not own AOL stock. No, I have no personal or professional stake in AOL at all. Yes, I -am- thoroughly intoxicated.
to accept the praise of personal wisdom is an affront to the very ideal i hold dear.
Long, long ago, in a millenium far, far away, my partner and I wrote Upside Magazine's cover story "AOL Doesn't Suck". The title came because editor Richard Brandt emailed me saying "Everybody knows AOL sucks" and I wrote back "No it doesn't!"
But that was then, in the brief period when AOL shone as a dial-up ISP, when the chat rooms beat most alternatives, when alternate IM systems weren't widespread, when there were few good forums anywhere (Usenet had already been wrecked and the software for the alternatives wasn't there yet), when some of its content was competitive, and so on.
Now -- well, it's sucked for a long time now. What a waste.
That said, I've been meaning to do a piece on how net-nonneutrality would turn the whole internet into AOL. This throws a monkeywrench into that plan ...
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.