According to an article on CNet:
AOL subscribers will be paying for customer support, security features such as antispam, anti-spyware, antivirus and parental controls, and access to more than 200 radio channels at a higher quality and with no commercials, [Executive VP of programming and products Jim] Bankoff said.
You can go get yourself a cup of coffee while I laugh at that. I'll still be laughing when you get back.
Customer support? Without the buggy software, I'm not going to need customer support. Every new alleged upgrade causes more problems in my computer. As I type this, I'm still waiting for AOL to close, having logged off and quit the program a good 20 minutes ago. I've become very good at closing down the program the hard way, by manually ending every AOL process through the Windows task manager.
Anti-Spam? It isn't that AOL's anti-spam software has a problem differentiating between the messages I get from an email group I like and the messages promising ways to enhance portions of the human anatomy that I do not have. It does have a problem figuring out where I might like those messages to go. Emails from my list often go to the Spam folder while the stuff I would consider spam--mortgage offers, black market prescription drugs, and the aforementioned anatomical enhancement product offers--go right on to my inbox. With our new email setup, we have a special address set up to use for any situation that may lead to spamming. My personal email is going to be held very close to the vest.
Anti-Virus? We disabled AOL's antivirus a long time ago in favor of one that works a lot better.
Parental Controls? I have the easiest form of parental control out there: no children.
Access to more than 200 radio channels at higher quality with no commercials? I don't have time to listen to the radio, over the air or by internet. Most of what I do want to listen to is by download, anyway.
In short, we, like 4.7 million other ex-AOL members, have come to the realization that there is absolutely nothing left for us on AOL that we can't get elsewhere better or cheaper. Paying for AOL was one thing when the world was dialup and AOL actually provided access to the internet. Now that having AOL means paying twice for the net--first for the high speed connection, then for AOL--there's no sense, particularly since they've made free the few things that were worth paying for and left subscribers paying for all of the stuff that we tolerated because it was bundled in with the decent parts.
1 comment:
To further elaborate:
We've been AOL members for forever. I started on AOL since it was Applelink and I connected to it over an Apple IIGS (boy, been awhile since I typed out that name!) But since AOL 9.0, there have been computer problems, software glitches, and most annoyingly, it doesn't remember my personal settings making using it a great inconvenience. In a way, I am almost relieved to make this switch from AOL to relieve all these problems, yet saddened that we are making this change after all these years. I'll be curious what AOL does in the remaining year we will have it.
On a related note, if anyone is interested in learning more about the "better alternative" to AOL's antivirus program, check out ours: NOD32 at www.eset.com You'll find it to be immensely superior to both Norton and McAffee and costs exactly the same. Those of you with Macs need not worry about this sort of thing. --Emp. Peng.
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