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Is AOL still an Internet access provider?

by Aqwis 11y ago

acjohnson55 11y ago
Yes, there's a shrinking, but still very lucrative, dialup business. It's provided the capital for Aol's growth into media and advertising these past several years.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Gotta love old people adverse to change, or thinking they still need to pay for email.
  - codingdave 11y ago
    What does dialup have to do with email? You still need connectivity to access free email providers. And for older folk who do nothing other than email, do not have smartphones, but do have a landline... 20 a month on dialup makes more sense than 50 a month for Comcast. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to us who are permanently connected and do not even have landlines... but to the 65+ community, there really still is a small, shrinking, but real use case for dialup access.
    - dangrossman 11y ago
      He may have been being more literal than you think. I can name 3 people that were paying for an AOL subscription because they thought they needed to keep it to keep using their AOL e-mail addresses. They all had broadband from their cable companies, they weren't dialing up.
      - krisdol 11y ago
        They may have needed it at one point. At the time I quit AOL, there was no way to keep the email address, and they did not provide IMAP access or forwarding. Seriously. They (very badly) practiced the lock-in attitude. I just visited mail.aol.com and realized that things have changed a lot.
  - tat45 11y ago
    Not to mention those people who live in areas still not serviced by any broadband providers. I know, insane, right? I thought everyone lived in cities too!
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      You can usually get an Edge/2G connection, which is probably faster than dial-up.
      - plorkyeran 11y ago
        In practice it isn't signficantly. EDGE peaks at 384Kbps, but these days if EDGE is the only thing available you generally have a poor connection that gets you about half that before all the dropped packets that halve it again.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Satellite internet can also be had for prices which aren't completely absurd.

Is AOL still an Internet access provider?

by Aqwis 11y ago

Is AOL still an Internet access provider?

Yes, there's a shrinking, but still very lucrative, dialup business. It's provided the capital for Aol's growth into media and advertising these past several years.

raverbashing 11y ago
Gotta love old people adverse to change, or thinking they still need to pay for email.
- codingdave 11y ago
  What does dialup have to do with email? You still need connectivity to access free email providers. And for older folk who do nothing other than email, do not have smartphones, but do have a landline... 20 a month on dialup makes more sense than 50 a month for Comcast. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to us who are permanently connected and do not even have landlines... but to the 65+ community, there really still is a small, shrinking, but real use case for dialup access.
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    He may have been being more literal than you think. I can name 3 people that were paying for an AOL subscription because they thought they needed to keep it to keep using their AOL e-mail addresses. They all had broadband from their cable companies, they weren't dialing up.
    - krisdol 11y ago
      They may have needed it at one point. At the time I quit AOL, there was no way to keep the email address, and they did not provide IMAP access or forwarding. Seriously. They (very badly) practiced the lock-in attitude. I just visited mail.aol.com and realized that things have changed a lot.
- tat45 11y ago
  Not to mention those people who live in areas still not serviced by any broadband providers. I know, insane, right? I thought everyone lived in cities too!
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    You can usually get an Edge/2G connection, which is probably faster than dial-up.
    - plorkyeran 11y ago
      In practice it isn't signficantly. EDGE peaks at 384Kbps, but these days if EDGE is the only thing available you generally have a poor connection that gets you about half that before all the dropped packets that halve it again.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Satellite internet can also be had for prices which aren't completely absurd.