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60% of AOL's Profits Come From Misinformed Customers
satuon writes "Ken Auletta's big New Yorker piece on AOL (subscription only) this week revealed an interesting detail about the company's inner workings. According to Auletta, 80% of AOL's profits come from subscribers, and 75% of those subscribers are paying for something they don't actually need. According to Auletta: "The company still gets eighty percent of its profits from subscribers, many of whom are older people who have cable or DSL service but don't realize that they need not pay an additional twenty-five dollars a month to get online and check their e-mail. 'The dirty little secret,' a former AOL executive says, 'is that seventy-five percent of the people who subscribe to AOL's dial-up service don't need it.'"
And particularly the person who actually NEEDS AOL?
I was also bit mystified by the 25% actually needing it.
It seems to be insurance.
Can you absolutely 100% guarantee that your hotel or conference center will have a phone line to dial up and check your email etc when business traveling? Yeah, pretty much. Thats right up there with "having sheets" or "has HVAC" or "has electricity".
Can you absolutely 100% guarantee that your hotel or conference center will have WORKING wifi? Well, err, ... um... Yeah maybe 90% but can you financially afford to take that chance for only $50/month to AOL?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
How to Cancel an AOL Dial-Up Service By Stacey Price, eHow Contributor
Canceling your AOL account is a simple task that can be done over the phone or online. With the integration of AOL's free web-based email service, you can cancel your dial-up service and still enjoy some of their features by converting to a free AOL account if you have an Internet connection.
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
Tips & Warnings
AOL Inc.
PO Box 65100
Sterling, VA 20165-8800
Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_5955872_cancel-aol-dial_up-service.html
Quack damn you!
Some people live in the boonies and can only get dial-up. Wireless ISPs are moving in to many places now, though. I have relatives that live in the middle of nowhere and have internet options now that are at least as fast as I do in the big city.
I found my mother was being billed $50/month by earthlink even though she had service through another ISP. The phone number earthlink claimed they were providing service to was not only in another area code but did not even exist in that area code. When I complained to earthlink that they had stolen thousands of dollars from her over the years they just said "Earrthlink is not a usage based service". Of course not, especially when they supply service to telephone numbers that don't exist.
It get's worse. actually. I had canceled her service. but it turns out they called her back aftrwards and asked if she was unsatisfied and would she like to continue the service. They then told her that given her usage patterns they reccomended she buy extra space! Extra space on an account that she could not even use if she wanted to.
Never got any money back. Thieves. Boycott Earthlink.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You must be kidding. If I sell you a screwdriver, am I under any sort of obligation to determine whether in fact you require a screwdriver, and if so, that the screwdriver you are considering purchasing is the appropriate one for your purposes??? And why "...especially elderly ones..."? Give your head a shake - adults can make their own decisions on how to spend their money, even when those decisions are not to your liking.
I've told them until I am blue in the face!
The AOLers cannot grasp the concept that they can retain their email addresses without paying for the unnecessary services. We've even downloaded their emails and contacts, opened IE and FF without AOL but they still don't believe. MSNers are no different. They are all the 60yo+ crowd who got online with the dial-up services and believe they still need these portals to get online with their Comcast/Cox/Qwest hi-speed. It doesn't help that the AOL operators outright lie to them about the necessity of the service.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Don't forget that the people who you call to disconnect your service get payed a commission on every customer they get to stay and those people will say anything to get you to reconsider even if it's completely untrue. You might also want to keep in mind that their disconnection process was actually the subject of a lawsuit that involved the Attorney Generals of 48 states.
He'll be okay.
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
Yeah! You tell whom!
Who are the other two? And particularly the person who actually NEEDS AOL?
There's plenty of reason people would intentionally subscribe to AOL
-Convinced that they are supporting America by paying to AOL
-Own stock in Time Warner and want to make sure stories like these aren't "100% of people subscribing to AOL are doing so on accident"
-Only buy newspapers 10 years too late and don't realize AOL isn't the current hottest thing
-Collected 2 tons of the free subscription discs and are still coasting off of free trials
-Like chatting online with other people who are equally dumb
-Perfected a keylogger that spreads through AOL 12 years ago, too lazy to make a new one
-One of the only online services that still supports windows 98, and why would I upgrade from windows 98?
-Doing it "ironically"
-Nostalgia
-Free subscription to Time or some other magazine/news service that for some reason is still associated with AOL
-Hipsters convinced it will eventually cycle back through to being the next big thing again, want to be able to say they were there before it was cool again
-Schizophrenia