AOL was a good model for general consumers. also remember many people used AOL before the www was all the rage so... you stay with something you have alreay learned.and AOL was accessible anywhere in the world for the most part whereas podunk mom and pop ISPs had local phone numbers. This was important if I was say going to UK or France for more than a few days as dialing back to a podunk in phoenix would not only be damn expensive but the quality of connection thru the long distance would no doubt be horrible... Aside from our AOL account we had a podunk that had two brothers that seemed as stupid as Daryl and his other brother Daryl in the Bob Newhart show that ran it. Eccch! The game changer for local residents though was the cable companies and telecoms offering Internet service... same bill as their telephone or cable tv easy to sign up... and remember at first the hi speed connects were though the telco for us and we had AOL but after I quit travels just had a minimal AOL account... why? lots of people I have known for eons can still contact me there. Why do I still use it? because my friends know to reach me there. Why will I always have an aol account forever? well until all my friends pass on or I pass on it is a connection medium! Ed # Uptime seemed to be better on also than some of the podunks In a message dated 10/25/2015 12:40:46 P.M. US Mountain Standard Tim, ci...@xenosoft.com writes:
[AOL] On Sun, 25 Oct 2015, ben wrote: > I suspect the reason they failed was not service > but a) PC's had games b) Ma Bell wanted a arm and a leg > for long distance connections. Some of their early efforts to COMPETE AGAINST the internet helped establish outfits like Netcom, and were a boost to ISPs. Perhaps Ed (still using AOL) would have some insight into what caused their decline. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
