AOL's "Dirty Secret"

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There is an article posted today that claims 75% of the people that subscribe to AOL's dial-up service don't actually need it. I think the bigger surprise here is that anyone still subscribes to AOL. :eek: Thanks to Lethal for the link.

A former AOL exec explains that this is AOL's "dirty little secret" – "that 75% of the people who subscribe to AOL's dial-up service don't need it." AOL's subscriber revenues during Q3 2010 were $244 million on 4 million customers.
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I've actually had a customer that was still paying for AOL dial up as well as the DSL he was using because he thought he needed it to keep his email address. :eek:
 
JL6speed said:
LOL@Dialup. It's still around?
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Yes it is, not everyone is fortunate enough to have broadband services in their area, and do not want to pay the high cost of satellite or an aircard just to get online for what could be to just pay bills and or do e-mail.
 
Most people will put up with the bill due to them not having to deal with their customer service. It isn't hard to call up, get irate, make empty threats if your demands aren't met. It took my mom 45 minutes to move to a manager when she was trying to get her old dial up service cancled. She only had it for back up means for when cox was down. The funniest part is even though it was "officially" cancled and no bill would be issued or money returned they still billed her?! Wow you should of seen the next phone call, she still had her note pad with every persons name that she talked to on it, with the number of her lawyer.
 
Wow. The day's of dial up.

We were watching a movie (the Proposal) the other day and Sandra Bullock was on a computer with a modem and the "noise" when it made the connection spooked her. My wife and I were laughing our asses off and my 16 year old son was like "What's so funny?" We were like "she doesn't know what dial up is!" And then, no lie, my son says "what's dial up?"
 
Steve said:
Wow. The day's of dial up.

We were watching a movie (the Proposal) the other day and Sandra Bullock was on a computer with a modem and the "noise" when it made the connection spooked her. My wife and I were laughing our asses off and my 16 year old son was like "What's so funny?" We were like "she doesn't know what dial up is!" And then, no lie, my son says "what's dial up?"
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I used to love that noise! It kind of signalled going into the new frointeer to look up stuff using yahoo search (never liked alta vista or lycos). It was like the quake entrance music too. (untill it cut off 2 hours later :() then I got cable and then a few years later those social networking sites started and geocities closed down :eek: Damnit lets start an internet 3.0 wheres it's like the early 2000s web. Notepad only made sites are soo much more hardcore than all this flash/java!
 
They made 244 million off 4 million customers? That's $61 each! Must be other revenue sources...otherwise those 4 million people are even dumber that I thought.
 
I don't care how elitist it makes me anyone that says the use AOL or gives me an AOL address I automatically look down on them from a computing standpoint. If they ask me how to get their AOL Email on their iPad I draw a pretty picture for all the braincells that just died.
 
I know someone currently paying AOL like $15 a month and they only use email. I believe AOL's email is free to everyone. I told them to cancel but I don't think they did.
 
Back when I worked at Comp USSR and Best Buy back in the day, I'd get strange looks from people when I'd tell them "AOL is not the internet."
 
I actaully worked on a friend of my wifes PC and she was using AOL.She wasn't using it for email or anything.
I tried so hard to explain that she did not need it. But I could hear my words echoing off the back of her head. That blank stare...the stammering....I gave up.
 
My parents still have aol (i think) just for the email i told them to cancel it many times still dont think they have told them the email was free now and same thing. they have had it since the late 90s so late say 97- today and its lover 2k they paid aol :( and yes any oen that uses aol just for email is dumb
 
Steve said:
Wow. The day's of dial up.

We were watching a movie (the Proposal) the other day and Sandra Bullock was on a computer with a modem and the "noise" when it made the connection spooked her.
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Years ago I used to be able to tell what speed my modem connected at just by listening to the sound.
 
My parents almost fell into this trap. They thought that if they cancelled their AOL internet service, that they would lose email. It took some work for them to figure out that you could use a web browser besides AOL and check your email by using that same web browser. That was some 5-10 years ago though.
 
DonInKansas said:
I've actually had a customer that was still paying for AOL dial up as well as the DSL he was using because he thought he needed it to keep his email address. :eek:
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I once supported four high rise offices with a couple thousand users and found this to be case with alarming frequency. It has been my personal vendetta to divest AOL of as many subscribers as possible. Most are happy when you tell them how to save money. And still, a small few wouldn't cancel! Yes, there are people who would rather pay AOL for EMAIL. Even when I explain they keep their AOL email address and can access it via webpage. I guess it's too mystical to believe?

I remember one older lady who got fighting mad when I explained AOL was basically robbing her. Man she was PISSED at them! I don't remember what she said to them but I'm sure they got an earful!
 
I have a family member who won't get rid of it no matter how much I prove its horrible, slower, and clunky.... its complete trash, even the most up to date AOL today on broadband. At least they added tabs, but I still would rather use internet explorer on the computer and that is saying a lot.
 
I have had several clients who thought they'd lose their aol address is they quit dial up. Amazing, but true.
 
I understand the knee-jerk reaction of "omg AOL you're an idiot!" but I think we're forgetting how in touch we are with technology. The persons utilizing AOL don't understand the alternatives. It's massively foreign and confusing to them. And it's not willful ignorance. No one has told them there is an alternative out there.
 
Steve said:
And then, no lie, my son says "what's dial up?"
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I had the "you've got mail" clip as the email alert on my phone. It went off during a family gathering. Everyone but my niece thought it was funny. My niece had no clue why anyone thought it was funny.

She's 15 years younger than me. That was the first time she made me feel old :(

:mad:
 
Pianomahnn said:
I understand the knee-jerk reaction of "omg AOL you're an idiot!" but I think we're forgetting how in touch we are with technology. The persons utilizing AOL don't understand the alternatives. It's massively foreign and confusing to them. And it's not willful ignorance. No one has told them there is an alternative out there.
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This.

AOL is like Apple's old Mac OS (I will leave OSX out of this since it's made massive improvements, but it still suffers from this in places) it's sole purpose is to enable idiots access to technology. Any buck-toothed fool without even 2 braincells can walk upto Mac OS and use it, and that same fool can walk up to AOL and use it. The question is whether we really want these people on our internet...

and I'll admit there was once a time I used AOL (and played hell canceling it) but those were the days when there were hardly any alternatives, and it's essentially "childproofing" of the internet is sickening. (though to their credit, in the >10 years I've had an AOL email, I've only gotten 1 spam, which is saying a lot)

In short, it really doesn't surprise me, considering their typical clientele, that most AOL members think they have to pay to keep their email... saddens me, but doesn't surprise me.
 
I know lots of people who have DSL/Cable who still subscribe to AOL. Mostly a confidence issue, try to explain someone from older generations that you can get "free" email.
 
Lol I had a roommate who used AOL dial-up DESPITE HAVING A 100 Megabit Ethernet Port active next to it.
 
bfellow said:
Lol I had a roommate who used AOL dial-up DESPITE HAVING A 100 Megabit Ethernet Port active next to it.
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By active you mean hooked up and getting an IP address with it?

If not, then that ethernet port isn't doing squat.
 
yeah I remember that tone by heart. The sad part is I know in Michigan you can qualify for free dial up internet for less fortunate people. I have used it at some ones house and it is a lot better than AOL by far.
 
The only thing I hate about AOL is this.

I work for a fairly large web hosting company, between all of our brands we have about 1200 servers. We have a TON of customers who STILL use AOL apparently. These customers set up their hosted e-mail to forward to their AOL mailbox, this is all fine and good until they start flagging stuff as spam in their AOL mailbox. Since it is forwarded from our servers AOL thinks our servers are sending spam so the customer essentially ends up blacklisting themselves.

No matter how many times you explain this to them they just dont get it.
 
It's because a lot of "older" people are so used to AOL that they don't know how to use anything else - and also either don't know about AOL's free mail accounts, or don't know how to change it. It took me forever to get a 60ish woman to change her AOL to a free account - she was paying Comcast for broadband, and paying AOL for their access too.

She just couldn't get how to just open IE and goto the website "oh, I don't know how to do that, it's not the same".:rolleyes:

When today's older generation dies - AOL will finally be completely gone. Thank God.
 
SilverSliver said:
My parents almost fell into this trap. They thought that if they cancelled their AOL internet service, that they would lose email. It took some work for them to figure out that you could use a web browser besides AOL and check your email by using that same web browser. That was some 5-10 years ago though.
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My parents are the same way with our DSL, they have to use the SBC DSL web browser, and then things will not work for them or they get viruses and I tell them to use Firefox. Then two days later they come to me and say a webpage will not load and they are using the SBC browser.

Maybe next time I will use a car analogy. Our DSL is like a road, it is always there, and will always work the same. A web browser is like a car, they can use the SBC browser which is like a broke down Pinto, or they can be rolling in an Escalade (Firefox)
 
My DSL account comes with an unlimited dial up account. B-)
 
All the AOL hate.........

Although I was never a fan of AOL and all the ever increasing "Free Hours" discs that were everywhere, it did serve to open up the internet and web to a new market segment and incredible number of people. It was easy to use. Sure some people didn't understand that AOL wasn't the Internet. But it did help to push web development at incredible paces; driven by the the all mighty dollar. More People = More Money. More tech jobs, tech boom, tech bubble, tech bust........

Of course this must have pissed some people off:
AIM WHAT?!?!?!
Now they can't get their chat on..........
 
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