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Does Using an AOL Email Address Suggest You're a Tech Dinosaur?
Nerval's Lobster writes: Despite years of layoffs and tumbling net worth, AOL seemed to get a new lease on life this week when Verizon bought it for $4.4 billion. But even if AOL's still alive, using an AOL email address has long been seen as a way of signaling that you're stuck in the 1990s. A recent analysis of Dice data found that a mere 1.8 percent of those registering for the site used an AOL address, versus 55 percent for Gmail. For the past several years, Websites from Gizmodo to Lifehacker have all declared that still using an AOL email address is counterproductive, to put it mildly. But is that actually true? Do the people in your life and work actually care whether you use AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, or a custom address, or is the idea of 'email bias' an overblown myth?
I've done a lot of side work for folks needing computer repair and every...single...one of them that had an AOL email were elderly and not technologically savvy. Personally, I don't care if they have an AOL address or not, but professional businesses not having the @mybusiness.com type of domain and having AOL - I personally find it a little harder to take them seriously and, for the most part, they didn't seem to have as much genuine care for the quality of their work. This should be seen as pure conjecture because I'm sure there are those that don't fit this mold. Just talking about personal experience.
Nothing on the internet says 'I'm a blithering idiot, please abuse me.' as quickly and concisely as @aol.com.
It used to be worse. Now you are just a dinosaur. Before you were king of the chumps.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I had my Yahoo email address from the beginning ("Look, ma, no numbers!"), haven't changed my password since then, and still have recruiters calling me for tech jobs in Silicon Valley. Only stupid people discriminate, especially on the basis of email addresses.
In my role as a professional phisherman and spammer, I find that using AOL and Yahoo e-mails enhances my target audience responses by 90%.
Besides, it's free and I can create hundreds every hour.
While I'm at it would you be interested in Penis Pills? I have a special on them two bottles for $19.99
Also please click on this link because I have important information about your Social Security benefits.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
It means you've had the same email address for 15+ years and don't want to change it.
The only reason I finally got a gmail address was I wanted to be able to keep it through moving, changing ISP providers, changing jobs, etc. Having a consistent email address is a handy thing to have.
The UIs in 1997 were often better than the latest text-free tablet-oriented junk. Not sure about AOL specifically, since I never used it, but everything from Google maps to Windows to Office to video games have had regressions in UI over the past decade.
Run their own email server.
HA! You dope. I just crafted an AOL address THIS YEAR so I could bypass the other email hosting entities idea that my cellphone number is needed to verify that I'm a human, just so I could create a fake Facebook account so I can play games with my daughter without having to stoop so low as to have a real Facebook account. Mailinator was not an option, this worked out great and now I have an old-school aol.com address. I fucking make websites, I don't consume them. AOL is great if you don't want some free email site hounding you for necessary bullshit info, like your fucking cell phone number.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
I have an AOL email I still use depending on the need, and use it as a barometer to judge folks I give it to. If someone balks and throws a douche-fit about an email address I really am not interested in dealing with them. It has not caused me to miss out on employment or side work, but the mild concern is there.
It's been my email for about two-dog ages, and I rather not run the issue of changing over everything that goes there.. monitor it for another few months for stragglers.. and then close it.
It's an email address people. I never had the cool Transformer's lunchbox, or nor the best Saved by the Bell TrapperKeeper and I survived.
This is so cool, I just went and got myself an aol email account based on this article!
The point is, sometimes you WANT to look like a non-techie. Great deception value.
It means:
you can't make your own blog, let alone own website
you can't master the concept of an email list to forward all your important news to all your friends
you can't find free games on the internet
you basically need to pay a ton of private personal information that you can never get back, just to participate in the internet - a task that technically literate people can easily do without paying that very high price.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
From 71234.56789@compuserve.com:
That reminds me, I must get one of those new v.92 mod^D
Or that they have had the same email address for 20 years. Have hundreds of clients that have that email address and that sending a spam email to 5000 people saying "here is my new email address" is stupid and likely to cause them to lose business.
But then you still have two email addresses you are giving out. Why bother? It's not like you wont get email if you use AOL.
Nothing I have seen gives a reason to change away from a service that is working for you. Gmail/other may be better at lots of things, but if you don't care about any other those things why change? This is especially true if your old email address is first.last@aol.com and the gmail suggestions are first793976.last63789534987435987@gmail.com