AOL Loses 1/3 of Its Subscribers in One Year »
Posted by: TechnologyExpert 9 months, 2 weeks agoTime Warner released its Q3 earnings report today, and boy does it look sad for AOL. In terms of subcribers, numbers dropped 5.1 million to 10.1 million, over a 33% drop in one year's time.
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ACTeeple9 months, 2 weeks ago
I was under the impression that AOL WANTED to lose subscribers. I know that sounds odd (or sarcastic) but hear me out. AOL began to allow their subscribers to take their email address elsewhere. They also offered people who liked AOL services to still access them after they left. This move was supposed to help them wean subscribers off of their services so they could shift their focus from an ISP to a web portal. Granted, it might not have been the best move for them, but I thought that was their plan.
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sussane9 months, 2 weeks ago
that's not really bad, only 13 have left AOL. i guess its not hyped.
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torrent299 months, 2 weeks ago
I don't think so. Maybe to some of the older netizens or whatever you want to call them it may, but I doubt many of those weaned on AOL would even know what Netscape was.
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UnusualSuspect9 months, 2 weeks ago
I still have AOL as a freebee, having been a member since 1993. But having been on recently, they're changing things right and left for the worse.
Members who picked out certain designs for their IMs are gone; gone is the artwork that many picked out years ago, to be replaced with fewer creative possibilities. And if you're on a Mac, as I am, you can't even edit your profiles easily anymore.
So if people are leaving in droves, it's AOL's own fault...what did they expect?
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vladbuk9 months, 2 weeks ago
This year have lost, in the following will find. And in general the competition grows.
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palamaComment removed: User banned.
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ladyraestewart9 months, 2 weeks ago
I had a similar experience along with several other people I know. My favorite was six months after catching them charging my credit card I get another charge. I call asking why and their response, "we called and someone who answered authorized it." I lived alone and I guarantee I never authorized AOL to do anything.
Screw AOL and any company associated with them. They are thieves, plain and simple.
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Grrr9 months, 2 weeks ago
Same here. When I left dial up a long time ago I went through 4 different attempts to get out and stop them billing me. Only to find a month later they were still billing me.
I am now on a list there that gets me bumped up to management first attempt if I call in because I made a rep cry and then told their manager that I'd sue them if they ever billed me again, in such colorful terminology that they hung up on me. Legal called me back to ask if I was serious and played me the tape.
It was awesome. I still get that "warm fuzzy feeling" just thinking about it.
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IanFraigun9 months, 2 weeks ago
And what else would anyone expect. You don't do dialup and you don't need to be a subscriber because your broadband provider becomes your ISP.
They have decided to go to an advertising rather than subscription based structure. You would expect major decreases in subscribers due to that decision.
There are still folks out there who are paying $9.95 per month for some of their premium offerings, but since those folks obtain ISP services elsewhere I bet they are not counted in the subscriber numbers.
As I see it AOL is in a transitional period and moving in the direction they actually planned. It will be OK so long as the advertising revenue contiunes to climb since they are at a point where subscriptions will no longer decrease so rapidly.
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Harbeas9 months, 2 weeks ago
I had AOL about 5 years ago and ended up telling them where to go. Their dial service was atrocious and I ended up sending them a message that I want nothing to do with them ever again. They called quite a few times offering various incentives, I finally had to tell them even if they offered their service for free they could still put it where the sun doesn't shine. So for whatever reason they are losing customers it does not surprise me.
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antitrust9 months, 2 weeks ago
Dial-up is ancient technology compared to todays high speed internet providers such as comcast, at&t, qwest, etc. Media on the web has boomed in the last few years and have you ever tried to watch a vid from youtube or online gaming on dial-up? Sucks period. You can go make a sandwhich and come back and watch it load some more (ok im exaggerating). Dial up only makes sense when a cable or dsl connection can not be reached or if you can not afford the cost.
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Justice4All9 months, 2 weeks ago
The 33% must be hackers. I know people who changed their bank account to disconnect from AOL. They make it very easy to sign up, but you need a degree in computer science to stop service.
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pnconner9 months, 2 weeks ago
Worst place I ever worked, treat their workers like excrement. Liars, big time, a very corrupt corporate environment.
They changed their name from American Online to AOL..? Too much of their operations outsources to India. More like anti-America Online.
AOL = ******s Outsourcing Livelihoods.
Good luck to all my friends and colleagues still hanging onto a job as the recession sinks in.
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GoodWillClubbing9 months, 2 weeks ago
Good I'm glad AOL is going down the tubes. They overcharged for all of their services which weren't worth half of what they charged. Hopefully this is the start of the end of the entire AOL Time Warner family. They did well when no one had a choice but now that there is options it's only natural people purchase quality services from quality companies rather than overpriced junk from AOL. And what is there on AOL that anyone would even want to go back and use once they left????? there's nothing, that's why everyone is leaving.... only those afraid of change will stay with AOL, that is the only reason not to leave at this point. Their customer service stinks and their product stinks, so why do we need an article to tell us the obvious that AOL is going down the tubes??? it's just evolution
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Conale9 months, 2 weeks ago
This 1/3 loss is only a small part of the story. It has been several years since membership (paid) was in the mid twenty mil range. AOL first made the concious decision to convert dial-up members to DSL and Broadband hi speed. The other questionable decision was to raise CPU and RAM and harddrive requirements. So called 'new and improved' features were more 'flash' than substance. 'Ease of use', the original reason for AOL dominance, was sacraficed for a 'everything for everybody' policy set by the advertising department. The main idea was to replace user subscriptions with advertising revenues. We will see how that finally works out.
This is offered from a more than ten year user, a sometime beta tester and a disapointed observer.
Conale
PS Sorry they havn't been able to fix spell-check yet!
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universal129 months, 2 weeks ago
Aol are in the process of creating a lot of other features that will be used on the internet such as a myspace type of program and others as well. Im sure the loss didn't come as much of a surprise to them.
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TechnologyExpert
I am Editor-in-Chief at Alice Hill's RealTechNews (http://www.realtechnews.com). I also have my own blog (Tech-Ex) at http://TechnologyExpert.Blogspot.com. Finally ...
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