I never did like AOL!

I was never one for the amount of control that AOL’s interface held you to but I could see the benefit for some people. If you were one of the people that signed up early for AOL and their phone dial up service got used to this type of thing. When broadband became available many of these people kept their accounts with AOL even though the signed on through their new broadband connection. What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have to keep paying for that AOL account!

Nicolason Carlson from Business Insider found out that the majority of AOL’s business comes from selling the dialup internet access to people who already have internet access:

In his big New Yorker profile on AOL this week, Ken Auletta explained that 80% of the company’s profits STILL come from AOL’s subscription business.

What’s troubling about AOL’s subscription business is who the subscribers are and why they may be sticking around – in Auletta’s words, “older people who have cable or DSL service but don’t realize that they need not pay an additional $25 a month to get online and check their email.”

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.”

This is the sort of practice by companies that just infuriates me. I hate seeing people being taken advantage of just because they haven’t the knowledge to know what they are paying or need to be paying for. So hopefully this article will open your eyes and make you aware that you don’t need to pay for something that you don’t receive any benefit from. I remember how hard it was to cancel my account and over the years how hard it has been for our customers to do so as well. Good luck!

You want more information visit the Audio recording here or download the recording by clicking here, with Ken Auletta and his full article is available in The New Yorker January 24, 2011 edition p. 32.