AOL Subscribers Down by 846,000 (pray for more)

Washington Post ^ | By David A. Vise

[Texaggie79]

America Online's subscriber base plunged by 846,000 in the second quarter, as hundreds of thousands left for cheaper or faster Internet connections and a similar number were dropped because they had been mistakenly counted in the past, AOL Time Warner Inc. disclosed yesterday.

In addition, new disclosures about a federal investigation into improper accounting at Northern Virginia-based America Online Inc. showed that the division's legal problems are hurting other parts of the AOL Time Warner media empire.

AOL Time Warner said yesterday that the Securities and Exchange Commission would not allow it to spin off a portion of its cable television unit until it resolves a dispute over how to account for hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable revenue from a complex deal with German media firm Bertelsmann AG.

[Texaggie79]

Could be legal problems that are hurting AOL, or...... it could be that their subscribers are finally realizing that they are getting SCREWED for paying for services that suck ten times worse than free versions of the same type of service.

[camle]

they have the same issue RIAA has - THEY CHARGE TOO MUCH!!!!

if they charged less, they'd sell more. tis that simple.

[1Old Pro]

Already posted here:

AOL subscriber base plummets ( as internet users realize what a crap ISP they are)

[DoughtyOne]

Wow, you mean those 2 million free hours CDs aren't working...

Sniff sniff...

[grapeape]

Howdy there Aggie! When do you think that they will be out of business. I'll give them to the end of next year.

[umgud]

Maybe they ought to consider lowering their price and improving their service. I use AOL only because I travel and can always get a dial up number everywhere I go. Also, adding locations is easy with AOL. If I could do this with Net Zero or Juno, etc....., I'd probably quit them.

[tracer]

The market has spoken and, hopefully, will continue to speak with respect to the viability of Peasants OnLine....

[Redcloak]

Wow, you mean those 2 million free hours CDs aren't working...

They work for scaring birds outta fruit trees. (They don't work on squirrels, however. I had to shoot that little stinker off the branch with a slingshot. He's off stealing someone else's peaches now with a marble-sized knot on his ass! But I digress...)

[Texaggie79]

Why you gotta go changing the title?

[1Old Pro]

Search for AOL (pray for more)

[DoughtyOne]

They must use 75% of that $21.95 (or whatever it is now), for stamping out more of those CDs. It's almost but not quite achieved perpetual motion status.

[Texaggie79]

I'm too lazy to go changing up the search. I copy the headline, i paste it into the search field, I'm done.....

[Gorzaloon]

Like most disease epidemics, this internet infection called AOL is finally burning itself out.

[ex-Texan]

Both ! AOL has the worst Internet connectivity of any company. They SPAM their own subscribers with crap ads all the time then claim they are 'fighting SPAM.' AOL is just plain lousy pure and simple. If you ever use one of their free CD connection discs you will regret it forever. It takes over your 'puter and is almost impossible to remove. To make matters worse, AOL's management has engaged in the worst sort of hype imaginable. When the feds get through with their investigation people will be shocked by the things AOL has been doing. AOL-Time-Warner is a HUGE @c^%ing Joke. The idiots at Time-Warner should be lined up and shot at dawn for buying into AOL's hype. If you still hold this stock better dump it now before it hits the toilet. JMHO folks! Feel free to flame away.

[laweeks]

When I had AOL, I was paying over $20 per month, had trouble getting a phone line to connect, and had a daily barrage of profane and useless spam to contend with. Now I have a local server, pay $15 a month, and get NO spam email whatsoever. I frankly can't understand why AOL has any customers.

[r9etb]

I use AOL only because I'm too lazy to switch, and I only use it for e-mail. I connect to the internet directly through IE or Netscape, because AOL's browser sucks.

I also loathe their inability to stop spam -- which is probably the REAL reason they're losing customers.

[FlyVet]

I had AOL years ago. Now I have Hawk Communications. Why should I pay $25/month when I can get roughly the same service for $10?

I was listening to talk radio this morning, I think it was Imus but not sure. His guest was talking about VH-1's "Prison Rock". One of the "musicians" said he was in for "shooting a guy." In reality, he had beaten a child to death. VH-1 knew this, but said nothing. The only sponsor they could get for this show was AOL Time Warner. If what I heard is true, they are not only overpriced, but moral scum.

[Texaggie79]

I use AOL only because I'm too lazy to switch

It's about a 2 week to 2 month long process, of continually putting up with calls and questions asking why you would DARE cancel AOL. They will keep handing you up to higher and higher "management" if you allow them to. They will tell you that they will throw in more free months. They will offer many things. They will even say that they must have a good reason why you are switching, and their sucky service is not an answer they will accept.

[CatoRenasci]

It's easy to trash AOL, I do it myself. But, do you all remember what dial-up was like before AOL, and before the www was widely used in the mid-1990's? Remember Prodigy? Compuserve? All those different services. All proprietary. The difficulties of e-mail between services? (AOL was the worst, I admit). AOL and AIM really changed the nature of computer use, and made it ubiquitous.

Unfortunately, they've not kept up, and they're dying. Their own mistakes are killing them. But, at least appreciate what AOL did accomplish.

[Jumper]

Netscape was fighting Microsoft over Internet Explorer. AOL, being of the Democrat pursuasion and seeing/seizing an opportunity to profit from the fight, teamed up with Netscape by virture of ownership. Then as the battle between the browsers raged, AT&T again of Democratic backing in a sure fire sign of the times jumped into the fray and provided much needed financial backing, further raising the political stakes. Soon Time-Warner and CNN came to rescue of the AT&T/AOL/Netscape and brought their liberal political capital to bear but time was running out as the Al Gore let the Presidency slip away on a bet the Senator from NY could be bought with the National DNC funding. Soon the Justice Department changed hands and Tobacco, Microsoft and others which crossed the 'rats were getting an even break.... But the likes of Enron and Global Crossing - democrat misadventures into capitalist campaign finance were deposed and brought to justice further decapating the fortunes of the democrat party.

In the past 18-months AT&T has spilt their company into four divisions to cope with the growing challenge of Microsoft and her allies. Microsoft has helped to support the building of fiberoptic H across the USA since late 1999 and now, and in 1999 MS allies bought about 500 small cable companies up and down the east coast! Microsoft's goal is to use companies allied but not owened to provide Telephone services, cable TV, entertainment via software and other interactive consumer product to the masses as a price which undercuts the cable subscriptions of CNN, of the AT&T phone company, and of the Time-Warner Entertainment. Microsoft has to this end worked to acquire the likes of MSNBC and will soon offer subscription services which will kill AOL, AT&T and Time-Warner by giving the same bundeled services for less than half the price - no matter what your politics you will vote price and consume the Republican Free Enterprise. You are reading this first here on FR but can enjoy anticipating the future!