'You've got problems

The Boston Globe ^ | 1/26/2004 | Hiawatha Bray

[Radix]

After five years, Rich Krause finally gave up AOL. The 46-year-old attorney in Stillman Valley, Ill., got his Internet access from a small local dial-up provider, but also maintained a subscription to America Online, the nation's largest Internet service provider, with its vast array of news and entertainment resources. But Krause rarely used the AOL services.

[Radix]

AOL is a bad product, and they are getting their comeuppance now. Capitalism and competition works.

[The Great RJ]

Why would any one choose AOL when there are so many better choices? One reason is that AOL still seems to attract and retain "newbies" who believe they do not have the computer skills to try anything else. All those free AOL disks must be used by someone or AOL wouldn't continue as a major player.

[TheGeezer]

AOL is a bad product, and they are getting their comeuppance now. Capitalism and competition works.

Amen! Additionally, AOL is still, I think, partially owned by antipatriot religious bigot Ted Turner. The more people that dump AOL the better. Come to think of it, if you have Time Warner cable TV - dump it and buy DirecTV satellite service which is largely owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of FOX. That way, you can slam BOTH Ted Turner and Time-Life, which owns Time Magazine. You get two boycotts for the action to deny one!!

[The_Victor]

AOL is a bad product, and they are getting their comeuppance now. Capitalism and competition works.

AOL must be using the Ford business model; marketing and advertising hype, God forbid they should actually produce a better product at a lower cost. If AOL took the money that they put into mass mailing of disks (90% of which are in the trash) and spent it on what they put on the disks, and on improved hardware, they'd be back in the game.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I'd like to see ads for an American Shredder to dispose of all those AOL discs.

[APFel]

http://www.nomoreaolcds.com/

[MissAmericanPie]

I dumped AOL for it's homosexual promoting, saudi owned, leftist bias, it's lousy browser, and snotty employees.

[MosesKnows]

AOL is a bad product

What criteria did you use to assert that AOL is a bad product? What would that same criteria say about Microsoft Windows?

America On Line served and serves a useful purpose. AOL provides a useful gateway for families requiring structure in their on line experiences. Many AOL users no longer require that structure and will abandon it.

I do not use AOL, I do not need AOL, and I would feel restricted were I to use it. However, I cannot label it a bad product. How many Internet users do you know that did not begin with AOL?

[RiflemanSharpe]

I am in it and we call AOL, internet for dummies. Their software blows too.

[Mr. Bird]

Author and Internet marketing expert Seth Godin says the company's best bet is to emulate another member of the Time Warner stable -- cable TV channel HBO

Every ISP's best bet is to emulate cable companies. Start striking semi-exclusive deals with current content sites. I envision a situation in which, say, ESPN.com charges an ISP a fraction of a cent per month to ISP's per subscriber, the ISP passes along the cost to the subscriber.

Won't happen for a long time, though. Everything is still pretty vanilla out there.

[steve8714]

Are they as snotty as Lucianne .com?

[chouli]

Actually, those AOL CDs make handy artists paint discs. We mix our paints on them for stamping and scrapbooking. They are cheap and work great.

[Gorzaloon]

I do not use AOL, I do not need AOL, and I would feel restricted were I to use it. However, I cannot label it a bad product. How many Internet users do you know that did not begin with AOL?

Some of us did not.

AOL did serve a purpose, in that its users did not need to mess around with modem init strings, etc. Also, in its earliest incarnation as Q-Link for the Commodores, it afforded nice chat groups, etc., and at the time, the Marketplace said it was a good product, just as it says AOL was a good product. I have a sister-in-law, for example, who is not technical, and uses AOL, because it has managed to convince her that she is an idiot, and will always need training wheels, and that AOL is "The Internet".

AOL will go the way of the Trim-Comb and other extinct handy products, someday, and those of us who have to repair and clean up the messes it makes of relatives' computers will heave a sigh of relief, along with the real internet.

[txzman]

AOL is toast. The only reason the merger with Time-Warner was done was for the tens of millions in stock and bonuses reaped by the company insiders. American greed and stupidity at its finest.

[armymarinemom]

AOL is a bad product, and they are getting their comeuppance now. Capitalism and competition works.

Amen. I have no idea why people complain about it causing computer problems and then still continue to use it. Their policy about approving what web host people can use for web sites really ticks me off.

[MissAmericanPie]

I wouldn't know, I didn't branch out past AOL. It had nothing I was interested in or used, it offered it's browser, chat rooms, and that was about it, who needs to pay $20+ a month for a lousy browser and chat rooms they never use?

[LouD]

AOL made sense for me back in 1994 or so, when they offered the most ubiquitous network of local access numbers (important then for business travellers), and a pretty good list of proprietary content: Stuff like Hoovers business research data was available for free with your AOL account. I also found instant messaging useful for communicating with work colleagues scattered across the country.

Now, broadband internet access is widely available and every company has their own VPN, valuable content like Hoovers is gone (now a private subscription service that costs several hundred dollars a year), and instant messaging is free.

So, why would I want to use AOL? For the crappy non-standard e-mail interface? Worthless chat rooms? Access to content that's free on the internet anyway?

[Agnes Heep]

Are they as snotty as Lucianne .com?

How did Lucianne get involved in this? Did you just get banned for posting something that her "rules" defined as okay?

[Agnes Heep]

AOL will go the way of the Trim-Comb and other extinct handy products, someday, and those of us who have to repair and clean up the messes it makes of relatives' computers will heave a sigh of relief, along with the real internet.

Most people's computers are already a mess, especially if they get discount models that come "pre-loaded" with every piece of crap under the sun, all running as active processes or services, with no conceivable way for the average schmuck to disable them. AOL is the worst of the lot, in my opinion. My first piece of advice to frustrated computer users with AOL is to get rid of AOL and reload the operating system, then get an standard ISP and a good browser like Mozilla that doesn't try to do your dishes, hang up your coat, or hold your weenie when you take a leak.

People who have taken this advice usually end up very happy. As an added bonus, the oner of having to do for themselves what AOL was doing for them generally sharpens their computer skills in very short order.

[steve8714]

No, I needed help. That is when I encountered snotty employees. Usually when I post something stupid other posters will let me know.