Why AOL Don't Suck

Post #25,226 by pwhysall 1/23/02 2:33:12 AM Reply	Why AOL Don't Suck 100 Million Paying Customers. Get that through your head. Subscription to AOL is not mandatory, nor is it the only alternative, nor is it forced upon you when you buy your computer. Sure, they're an Evul Corporate Empire, but hey. I'm chuffed that they financed the development of the rendering engine that drives my browser (Galeon, uses the Gecko engine from the Mozilla project). I'm not an AOL customer. Never have been, never will be. I have a suggestion for you. Think about where all those customers came from, bearing in mind that AOL has had no lock on the market like Microsoft has. Personally, I hope that the AOL-buys-Red Hat rumour isn't just hot air. If MS is the enemy (and they surely are) then we need a big stick to beat them with. Red Hat Linux, with AOL driving it, could be that stick. But you seem to think that some other company, hitherto unknown, is going to step forth and challenge MS. Do tell. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #25,227 by nking 1/23/02 2:34:32 AM Reply	AOL does suck, McDonald's syndrome I keep telling you that, despite the piss poor service, people stick with them. It is like McDonald's people know that the food is no good for them, and the service stinks, but they keep going back for more. Billions served, I have no problem with the "Billions" part, it is the "served" part that I, and "Stake 'N Shake" have problems with. Or those baseball teams like the Chicago Cubs that despite having a bad win ratio, still have tons of fans. Or the Phoenix Cardnials, they sucked in St. Louis, and they asked for a new stadium or they would move. We told them not to let the door hit them on the rear end on the way out. Phoenix loves them, despite them being some of the biggest losers in the NFL. Or Apple, despite being run by an Ego-Maniac, and price-gouging their customers (compaired to PC prices), and stabbing the Mac-Cloners and Apple Retailers (Gee I wonder why they have a web store, Store within a store, and Apple retail stores that compete with their retailers?) in the back, Apple stays in business? Must be those loyal Mac fans, they stuck with the company even when products got abandoned and the features they wanted in their OS was still vaporware (Pre-OSX days) for over a decade? Or how about the US Postal service? Slow, mail gets lost, mail gets delivered to wrong addresses, mail gets damaged or destroyed, and other services available (Fed Ex, UPS, RPS, etc) yet people continue to use the US Postal Service to send packages? BTW we get a 3 cent raise in sending a letter this summer. At least Jessie James had the decentcy to wear a mask when he robbed you! "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #25,229 by pwhysall 1/23/02 2:56:16 AM Reply	I see we are at that point... ...at which the facts have become irrelevant. No matter, I'll give them to you again. AOL have 100M customers. That's a lot of people. They're all paying. The ISP market is cut-throat; it's never been easier or cheaper to switch. AOL's technical ability is substantial. The sheer scale of their network (and the fact that it's still working) is testament to that. AOL don't have a lock on their market or their customers, especially c.f. Microsoft. Frexample, you want Windows Media? (rhetorical question) You're hosed on anything other Windows (mplayer on Linux don't count because it's well iffy at the moment). You want internet access and filtered content? There's only, oh, about a zillion companies offering different products. Customers who whine but don't switch are customers who are still paying. After all, if AOL's service was THAT BAD, they'd switch, right? Right. Finally, who would you like to oppose MS in the internet-access-plus-content game? `/me slaps Norm for making him defend AOL.` Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #25,231 by nking 1/23/02 3:16:20 AM Reply	I'll repeat myself again AOL has 100M customers, I never did dispute that. What I did dispute is the fact that AOL service is crap, which I have provided links to, and personal experience with, and documented issues that people have had with AOL. The ISP market is cut-thoat, I never did dispute that either. Never been easier or cheaper to switch? Rubbish! I have a local ISP I was telling a client about, she asked me which button to press on Windows to get to that ISP. I told her that it isn't pre-installed with Windows, but doesn't take special software to access. She wanted a button to press, or a CD to load. No "this is how you use the Internet Setup Wizard, enter the phone number, email name, etc", as that was too complex for her. AOL is bundled with the modern versions of Windows, and those **ing CDs are everywhere. (Skeet shoot anyone?) AOl may not have the lock on their customers, but their customers don't know that. In fact most of them barely know how to start up Windows. All they know is that they boot up that CD with the 700 hours free, and keep paying $23 a month for access. "Hey Norm, can I add you to my buddylist?" The fools don't know that they can use AIM without using AOL. They are fooled into thinking that only AOL offers the Wall Street Journal, MTV, USA Today, and other things that can also be accessed from the web. AOL plays on people's ignorence. Customers who whine and don't switch are still customers. But that doesn't mean that AOL's service and support is golden. Like I said, it is the Fast Food of ISPs. Quanity over quality. The local ISP with 100 members and phone lines in someone's basement offers 1000% times the quality that AOL will ever have. Who to oppose Microsoft? How about a group effort? Or are all the players out there want to become just like Microsoft so bad that they forgt that they shouldn't become the monsters they are fighting against? Why not have a group of companies come together to form a set of standards to be used to create an Internet access plus content game system? One that is independant of just having one ISP, or one hardware maker, or one game designer? "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."**
Post #25,241 by bepatient 1/23/02 8:14:09 AM Reply	Why bother... ...because you are associating loudmouths (in netspeak) and a couple of personal issues to the experience of MILLIONS of people. You don't get to be that big without 1) some people having a bad go of it 2) other people taking shots at you and 3) some technical issues that don't compromise user integrity that are not important enough to fix. ISP's are a dime a dozen. Most of them are significantly less expensive than AOL. Don't give me this "McDonald's" syndrome to explain it. Unfortunately for your argument...I happen to know ALOT of people who >actually like< AOL. And as Peter has pointed out...AOL has proven to be nothing other than a very strong financial supporter of open source projects. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #25,274 by nking 1/23/02 1:05:56 PM Reply	Oh really? 1. Some people having a bad go at it? 2. Other people taking shots at you. 3. Tech issues not important enough to fix. Explain Coca Cola, they are big, yet I don't see people taking pot shots at them, or telling them to change their secret formula. They have a much larger customer base than AOL. true, they are not a tech company, but they are really that darn big. It is more than just a few people having a bad go at it, trust me. Like the wife of an abusive husband, they stay with them even if they are mistreated. A friend of mine left AOL 8 months ago, and went to Earthlink. Earthlink was much better than AOL, cost less, gave him a free Web Cam, and never once bounced his email or cut off his Internet surfing. Yet he returned to AOL. Why? His wife complained that she didn't have that AOL screen when the Internet popped up. She wanted that look and feel, she didn't want Mozilla or IE as her browser, she wanted the AOL one. Why? Because she was used to it, and she didn't want to learn something new. So sometimes the email I send to him bounces or never gets there. Shtty service, but easy to use. Focus on the Easy to use part. If someone wrote an easy to use Client and Server software that any ISP could use, it might take some of the business away from AOL. Many people use AOL because they don't have to use their brain or think in order to use the AOL custom software. The dumbing down of the USA made it possible. "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."*
Post #25,291 by drewk 1/23/02 1:36:49 PM Reply	AOL keeps changing His wife complained that she didn't have that AOL screen when the Internet popped up. She wanted that look and feel, she didn't want Mozilla or IE as her browser, she wanted the AOL one. Why? Because she was used to it, and she didn't want to learn something new. Microsoft has gotten away with this same piece of FUD. "I don't want to learn anything new." Well, besides the fact that that's pretty sad to begin with, AOL and MS have both changed their interfaces several times, and people keep learning them. Did your friend try setting the IE homepage to Yahoo? They have categories that match many of the AOL ones. Oh, or did you mean she liked the specific channels that AOL has? She likes their choice of movie reviews. She likes their selection of travel options. That's AOL's market research doing it's job the exact right way. Find out what people want and give it to them. AOL isn't really "easier". It's just more familiar. Whenever someone asks me how to do or find something on AOL, I have no idea. It takes me twice as long to do it that way as Googling for it. We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html\|Thomas Friedman]
Post #25,329 by bepatient 1/23/02 4:42:27 PM Reply	Really Same issue with my wife. Taught her how to search...set up portal...the whole nine yards. Bottom line...AOL has >content< that others don't. She likes that content and the way its structured. 9 years for me Norm. 7 screen names. No mail issues. No security issues. My username has never been compromised. (knock wood). I have as many friends that use AOL and like it as you have that don't. That boils down to personal preference. Irrespective of that...there is still nothing but a positive track record between AOL and open source software....so you may not like them...but they've donated time and talent to projects that >you< like. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #25,404 by nking 1/23/02 11:25:22 PM Reply	What can AOL provide that you cannot find on the Net somewhere else? Like was said, many of us just use Google or some other search engine. We don't need our steak to be cut up into tiny pieces for us, we can do it ourselves. I am sorry that you cannot see AOL for the company that it is. "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #25,406 by bepatient 1/23/02 11:46:07 PM Reply	Don't be sorry... ...no need. I don't agree with you...and your opinion is not TRUTH. AOL is a media company. There is ALOT of content that is specific to AOL. It is arranged well. You like to google. Fine. My friend likes to sign on and click once. Works for him. He's actually very computer and net savvy. You have a disdain...he has a preference. His preference is shared by a whole lotta people...whether you like it or not. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #25,409 by nking 1/23/02 11:56:03 PM Reply	whether you like it or not my disdain is shared by a whole lotta people as well. Many of whom are Ex-AOL users. What media exists that you can only get on AOL? That is like saying I like the Cable Company because I can get local channels on it with just a click of the remote. Sure but you can also get the same media from an antenna. Want the same program channels as Cable but don't want to pay the high prices? Get satellite TV! I suppose that AOL shows CNN stories that are not viewable from cnn.com or the CNN news channel on cable and satellite systems? Or maybe they have the same, but AOL integrates the story in the same Window that you read your email from? I still do not understand what the big deal over AOL is that 100 million people want to use it. These must be the same people who keep electing the idiots into office that I never vote for? :) "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #25,480 by wharris2 1/24/02 12:46:27 PM Reply	Re: What can AOL provide that you cannot find on the Net Back when I used Compuserve, they provided a number of reasonably civil (sometimes moderated) forums and chat areas that you can't usually find on Usenet or IRC. I suppose AOL has a similar setup. Internet discussion group places like ziwethey are few and far between. Trying to discuss stuff on Slashdot? Hah. Kuro5hin? Almost as bad. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #25,600 by nking 1/24/02 5:32:06 PM Reply	Oh really? Mark Two. You mean like Ezboard? :) But anyway if AOL has forums, tons of other websites have forums that can just as easily be used. Even if AOL forums may not be accessable by the web, someone else already provides the same services elsewhere. Does AOL provide moderation of forums? This is something that Ezboard and Yahoo lack, they let the script kiddies, lamers, spammers, and other evil doers take control of the forums/clubs. Usually it is up to founders or forum owners to clean them up, but very few actually do. Some just create the forum or club and then leave. "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #25,236 by Ashton 1/23/02 6:48:22 AM Reply	Peter, I see a quite larger reason to work against AOL than mere technical BS. (However impractical it may be to in fact 'work against' YAN behemoth run by YAN sociopathic personality) It's a moot point by now, I think - just how badly engineered something can be - and still sell to millions. Muricans are stuck with mediocrity in increasing doses, anyway - and not just in gadgetry. (They also sold a lot of Ford Pintos here...) One of Norman's links above points to a problem of much larger concern (to the likes of me, anyway).. the Camel's nose well into the tent re CENSORSHIP [link\|http://www.motley-focus.com/~timber/ccapress.html\|Story begins here] The technical shortcomings as are sold to a massive group, apparently unable to use the web except by - an autoload CD that does it all - explains the appeal. Given the intellectual level also of the average PHB as described here - we may suppose that this situation won't change. Even hundreds of web hours later, these people will still not know what an ISP is, or even be willing to be talked through filling in the blanks. They NEED AOL as nanny, not only for their kids. BUT I see an active negative force in the assertions made in the link. Once again a megalomaniac biznessman is to determine CONTENT for adults, perhaps under the rubric of "the cheeldrun's safety at AOL". (That rubric fails since - their own filter software can easily keep the tykes out of the Naked Lunch reading rooms. There's more to it than that.) Yes, all those folk support AOL for having not the skills to do otherwise. But the more of them who do, and also fail to object vociferously to the censorship -- the more nails in the future coffin of.. that which we take for granted today at zIWE and elsewhere. This 'freedom period' is ever in jeopardy from the Yahoos of the world (not Yahoo\ufffd) - and Murica is lousy with sanctimonious Yahoos: just note the War on Drugs and all the other ones. AOL may prove thus to become the test-case which a Puritan government cites as evidence that, See? people don't care - let's extend AOL rules web-wide as an amendment to the Patriot Child-Protection Speech Act (Ashcroft personally qualifies for that epithet, and such aims would be consistent with his avowed Fundamentalist religious bent. I don't have to make this up.) Ashcroft + AOL makes this more than a theoretical possibility IMhO. Ergo - AOL is hardly just a bumbling 'nother Billy with delusions of world domination.. but a Significant other Billy, apparently just as dangerous to support as the Original. Possibly more-so. Still think we may safely ignore this lumbering wannabe International [Whatever] ?? Ashton PS - could AOL's 'customer service' possibly be as disdainful of the inividual user and her needs as: M/Sloth's since the first? PPS - re your post to the maillist: seems you have a bevy of European Ashcrofts to contend with on your side of the pond. It's an epidemic of panicky dumbth!
Post #25,246 by jb4 1/23/02 9:16:28 AM Reply	Hey! Watchit! Leave the Cubbies outta this! ;-) jb4 (Resistance is not futile...)
Post #25,245 by jb4 1/23/02 9:15:11 AM Reply	By that...er, "logic"... Micros~1 is the greatest company in the world, with 250 million brain-dead autommtons...er "customers".... Oh, I forgot..You already thing that Micros~1 is the greatest company in the world.... Sorry for the interruption...back to your specious argument with Norm. jb4 (Resistance is not futile...)
Post #25,261 by pwhysall 1/23/02 11:06:08 AM Reply	Re: By that...er, "logic"... Haven't you been following? I said AOL got their customers in a COMPLETELY different way to MS. MS got/get theirs via total monopolization and exploitation of that monopoly. And your comment about me thinking MS are the greatest proves you aren't paying attention. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]

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