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Admin Moderator--please see my last paragraph here.

I terminated my AOL account because of their liberal bias. My friend who still works for them says that the company's leaders have given up on saving the company. They have committed Barbra Streisand's error of alienating half their customer base--and they don't have her safety net of established fiscal security.

They recently lost a million customers. Any huge company could well afford to lose a million customers IF they picked the right million to ditch--the ones who cost them more than they pay. Instead, they lost customers who had simple problems that couldn't be solved by overseas customer care representatives, customers who couldn't find a safe "place" to call home anywhere in their filth-ridden chat areas, and...customers who found that they could no longer endure having their conservative, patriotic, or Christian values scorned.

I hope this thread is moved to activism, rather than to chat. It is HIGH time that FReepers who have AOL thought about protesting AOL's actions with respect to our country, our economy, and our politics. AOL dying would not be a good thing for the USA, as a lot of jobs hinge on it and it IS a good way for technophobes to tiptoe into the 21st century. I think some serious activism is called for. I think AOL would respond to a serious, non-hostile but determined FReep. I would go back to AOL if its political bias was rebalanced. I would do so because that company has been good to my friend who works there.

I despise AOL, always have, always will.

Xena's Mom is an AOL user, and I refuse to help her with any aspect of her online experience as long as she stays with it.

That said, she's 61 and refuses to switch because "I'd lose my buddy lists." The woman does NOT EVEN IM. I have no idea why she'd stay, except sheer muleheadedness.

I've offered to set her up with Southwestern Bell, which will bill to her phone number - easy as can be. Nothing doing.

Not even my explanations of the dire security problems sway her. She says it's worrisome, but apparently not worrisome enough to DO ANYTHING about. Yee.

(/rant)

AOL dying would not be a good thing for the USA, as a lot of jobs hinge on it

I have quite a few friends still working for AOL also. But it is much worse than your friend is relating to you. I have had emails from supervisors forwarded on to me that relate how they plan on firing the customer service reps. They have outsourced most of the current positions to foreign countries. Next time you call tech support, and cannot understand the phone rep, you know why.

Not to mention the work environment at AOL is atrocious. They refuse to educate the reps on how to truly fix problems. The primary goal is to make you think you have been helped, sell you something (so AOL brings in the $$$ from the "partner") and get you off that phone in as limited time as possible. If you don't meet that time requirement, c'ya.

Not to mention how many people call AOL... there were times when there were 400+ calls waiting on hold, sometimes for an hour plus. And God forbid if you had to go to the bathroom when it wasn't a scheduled break.

I could go on, but I won't want to bore you all senseless.