The Staff works hard at providing a fast and pleasant surfing experience
for you. Experience it.Ms. A. Stewart, WebMistress
A reprint from PC Worlds worst products of all time:
AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing techniques. In the 90s, you couldn’t open a magazine (PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers: at its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.
Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation policies–but the agreement covered only people in New York.
Ultimately the net itself–which AOL subscribers were finally able to access in 1995– made the service’s shortcomings painfully obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own online content, it walled off the greater internet. Once people realized what content was available elsewhere on the net, they started wondering why they were paying AOL. And, as America moved to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL is now busy re-branding itself as a content provider, not an access service.
Though America Online has shown some improvement lately–with better browsers and email tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of broadband content and innovative features, such as parental controls–it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don’t know any better.
