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Comments on news posted 2004-11-12 13:23:55: AOL was the king of dial-up connectivity, and with a captive audience of millions, was set to dominate broadband; also to compete with Google and Microsoft as the premiere Internet portal and webmail provider. ..
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staticx57
join:2002-01-24
Toms River, NJ
clubs: | Good Now these people will be force to find a REAL ISP. | |
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StillNotRegistered
@navy.mil
| 'Bout Time From what I could see, AOL has always been a house-of-cards waiting to collapse. From their early days of advertising heavily and signing on boatloads of new subscribers without upgrading their infrastructure (read modem banks) sufficiently to their empty claims of being so "easy" (how many friends and relatives have you ended up helping get "their AOL" going, especially after a version upgrade), to their current desperate efforts to hold onto subscribers by convincing them to spend good money on features (such as parental control, pop-up blocker, anti-virus, etc.) that can be obtained elsewhere for less money, or even for free, or with far superior functionality at the same price. Eventually the uninformed do catch on! It just amazes and dismays me that it took this long for the scheme to collapse.
I, too, once signed up with AOL with a free trial to find out just what everyone was going ga-ga over. I really disliked the service, as it was too dopey and over-priced. And I, too, went through that most nerve-wracking of rituals known as trying to quite AOL. And after all the time lost and "emotional suffering" I experienced trying to help friends and family deal with AOL and all the nasty things its software did to their computers, I can only say on the day that the company (or T-W division) folds completely, "good riddance!" | |
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Googled
Yay, I have FIOS
join:2001-08-13
Orchard Park, NY | They did that last year too. This time last year they told all their satellite broadband customers to go away. | |
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dodgeboyz
Premium
join:2001-01-19
Flint, MI
clubs: | AOL I have friends who spend $21.95 a month for AOL and on top of that have cable or DSL connections,I never could understand that. | |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Survey -- focused on AOL I got a phone survey this morning--it focused relatively quickly on the fact that I subscribe to both AOL and cable modem. (My answers were mostly honest, though I declined all the personal stuff.) Lots of repetitive questions (really lousy scripting) on why I have both AOL and cable modem. (I keep my AOL for use on the road and for my oldest e-mail address, though I'm not sure the poor questions ever developed that info.)
The survey then wrapped up with a weird set of questions on sports teams--determining what my preferred tradeoff point was between my favorite team frequently making the playoffs but not winning the championship and making the playoffs rarely, but winning it all when they do.
Any idea what these last questions were about? Some sort of risk aversion profile or something? Based on their detailed questions about AOL, I have to think it was an AOL focused study--either for AOL or a competitor (or buyer?)
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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catseyenu
Ack Pfft
Premium
join:2001-11-17
Fix East | You Gotta Love It... When the "marketing geniuses" take it up the keister.
I can't wait to see more of the dollar eyed AOL wanna-bes get bent over.  | |
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Nightshade
sic semper tyrannis
Premium
join:2002-05-26
Salem, OR
| Slow Death The bigger they are the harder they fall, also the longer they bleed as well.
AOL is gonna fall very hard and eventually, bleed to death. Oh well, they will not be missed.:D
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Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidy | |
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Corehhi
join:2002-01-28
Bluffton, SC
| AOL really served a great purpose AOL was really a large part of the internet being widely available. They did a great job at that but their time is over. RIP but don't rip on what they have done. Just like Netscape. They made IE so to speak and started the whole browser wars. They too were over powered. New timers to the internet won't understand the companies that made the internet what it is today but the old timers should. I remember having a cassette tape as my hard drive. | |
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npln
Us Army
join:2000-07-17
San Francisco, CA | bye NANA-NANANANA-HEYHEYYY-GOOD BYE!!!! | |
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DrTCP
Yours truly
Premium,ExMod 1999-04
join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX
| AOL is really a side show now! AOL-Time Warner formed when mightly old AOL bought Time Warner. At that time for the pecularity of dotcom area AOL was more valued than all of Time Warner. After some time as AOL operation lost ground AOL-Time Warner renamed itself back to Time Warner.
Currently, the corportation consists of the following business units.
America Online, Time Inc., Time Warner Cable, Home Box Office, New Line Cinema, Turner Broadcasting System (CNN etc) and Warner Bros.
If you look at what each company does AOL is really a side show. My bet is that they will keep it some more time as long as there are some paying customers. They will lay off more as time goes to keep it income positive and when it cannot do that anymore, dial-up business will be divested and AOL will be rolled into a subscription content portal for other content businesses under Time Warner (Time, HBO, New Line Cinema, Turner Broadcasting and Warner Bros. | |
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frog_foot
join:2003-07-31
Adrian, MI | don't know what to do with all those aol cd's... »nomoreaolcds.com/
When they get 1 million, they're going to VA, and give them back to them. | |
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atuarre
Here come the drums
Premium
join:2004-02-14
Lake Charles, LA
clubs: 
| AOL is just out of time. The only reason I still use AOL BYOA is because of the chatrooms. That is the only reason.
I have been with AOL since I was 13-i think, could have been 14, or 15 (i am 24 now) and the service has gone down hill since.
Compuserve used to be nice too, until they bought it up and dressed it up like AOL. All Compuserve is now is another copy of AOL dressed up a different, tacky look. Kinda like that lil girl they found stuffed in the Pinata that was trying to get smuggled across the U.S. border a few days ago.
AOL does need to go, or they need to completely change their strategy. | |
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random post
@az.frontiern |  AOL disks everywhere!
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Derch
Premium
join:2004-10-16
Tulsa, OK | Firings Ok AOL, you fire 700 employees in DC just because you don't have a clear strategy?
JUST DIE, stop screwing with people. | |
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BubbaJoo
@rr.com
| AOL I remember when AOL used to be DOS based - with the GEOS desktop GUI.
Help me out here, prior to that, was it the SAME company that was PC-LINK? And Quantuum-Link (for the Commodore-64 before that?)
Hah! I remember those 200+ fone bills! HAH! I never paid for them! I had a little system for getting it free. Guilt set in and I've been a regular paying customer for the past 10 1/2 years.
I quit when they raised their BYOA to $14.99. I called to quit and they put it back down to $9.99. They said the price would go back up in 6 months. I call back to cancel when it goes back up again. I'm going to have to check and make sure I'm not paying $14.95 for it. It's just not worth it.
I've had fun watching AOL grow into the behemoth that it is today. Fun watching it evolve. Also entertainging watching them screw up and make the general population hate them.
I also remember when Compuserve was the MAC DADDY online service. Boy was I shocked when they were bought out by AOL. Amazing. Compu-AOL sucks nowadays. Looks like AOL ver 7.0. Chat rooms are even worse than AOL.
I think I'm going to call up AOL and tell them I'm quitting just for the fun of it. I love listening to the reps convince me to stay. I usually get a month or 2 free just to stay onboard, because I'm an "alumni" member.
AOL, I love to dislike you, and crack on you. But I'll probably shed a tear when you fold. LOL! | |
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