Pay to send email...

[ward at pong.be (Ward Vandewege)]

On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 11:20:07AM -0500, Bill Horne wrote:
> 1. It's AOL's attempt to create a "walled garden" for its users, and to 
> charge an admission fee to anyone not affiliated with Time-Warner.

It's kind of funny. They started as a 'walled garden'. They had to give in to
customer demand and offer full internet access. Now they're trying to go
back. I'm curious how their customers will take this :) Initially I imagine
it won't be an issue. But like you said Bill, if this flies, they'll probably
try to make everyone pay to send e-mail to their subscribes. That's what
greedy media companies would see as a logical revenue stream. Should be fun
to see them go down in flames at that point.

How important is AOL nowadays in terms of numbers of subscribers? I've been
convincing people who still pay the AOL tax to switch to Gmail and the like
for quite a while now. Most of the people I know have - though fewer things
in life are harder than getting AOL to cancel your membership ;)

Ward.

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