Welcome to the archived messages from In The 00s. This archive stretches back to 1998 in some instances, and contains a nearly complete record of all the messages posted to inthe00s.com. You will also find an archive of the messages from inthe70s.com, inthe80s.com, inthe90s.com and amiright.com before they were combined to form the inthe00s.com messageboard.
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Subject: AOL STILL Sucks!
Whether it's new 5.0..."You've Got Mail" or the latest 9.0 crap, AOL Still SUCKS!!
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Whether it's new 5.0..."You've Got Mail" or the latest 9.0 crap, AOL Still SUCKS!!
End Quote
whats so amazing about AOL is that they are such a huge company that was one of original "pioneers" of the internet frontier, yet they still manage to suck.
I admit, I was a sucker and singed up for their "free" hours 4 years ago. Then, after realising how much they suck, promptly terminated my account with them and joined a local ISP and never looked back since.
AOL is an enigma. One one hand, they are so well known, and so popular. Yet on the other hand, are way over-priced and, based on the huge majority of AOL customers I have talked with, still manage to be a huge dissapointement.
My local ISP costs me $17.95, and I have had absolutely no complaints with ehm since joining 3 years ago. They have national access numbers(like AOL), and ofer all the same features as AOL. So why on earth would anyone join AOL!!! ???
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
We joined AOL when we first went on-line at home. Why? because their CD was available free at the supermarket. When they changed their pricing structure we left because we could get a better deal elsewhere.
We didn't have too many problems when we could actually get on-line but sometimes it just was too busy and couldn't get through. Our main gripe was the amount of junk mail we got. I don't think I ever gave that address out to anyone but we got tons of junk spam sent there.
Anyway now we've got pay as you go with Tescos
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
AOL is successful because it gets people to sign up for free and then, at the end of the free period, relies on inherent human laziness. Moderate Internet users or those who only really use the Net for chat or email make up the majority of AOL users, because most of them can't be bothered shopping around for another ISP (and probably don't even know what that means). It's convenient, it's there when they want it, does what they want it to do, and therefore they're happy with it. It's like if you have a crappy car, but only use it when you go buy groceries or visit your mum in the next suburb on weekends, you're not going to shop around for a better one.
People who want more from their Internet provider will go find someone else.
Finally, as I've said many times here before: AOL must be destroyed!
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
I am so glad I cancelled AOL and got Optimum Online!
;D ;D
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
whats so amazing about AOL is that they are such a huge company that was one of original "pioneers" of the internet frontier, yet they still manage to suck.
End Quote
Actually, AOL is a "Johnny Come Lately" to the internet, and tried to fight it for many years.
Here is a bit of history for those that are new to online services. The history of this technology actually goes back to 1969.
In 1969, Compu-Serve first went online. Later on they changed their name to CompuServe. For almost 10 years, they were the only source for e-mail and electronic search available if you had no access to ARPANET. At this time, ARPANET (later to become the Internet) was only available to Military, Government, and coporations and universities that were involved in Military research.
CompuServe was targeted at Lawyers, Doctors, and Financial experts who needed real-time news and information. It was fairly expensive (I seem to remember it was about $20 per hour), and was well beyond the ability of most users to afford.
In 1978, The Source came out. It was very similar to COmpuserve. But there was no interconnection between these, or any other services at the time. In other words, you could not send e-mail to a Source user from CompuServe.
The next service to achieve any success was 1985, when Quantum Services came out. This was targeted at Commodore 64 users under the name Q-Link. It was very popular, partially because each copy of GEOS (a GUI that worked on the C-64) came with a free month of service for Q-Link. Q-Link was also the first nationwide on-line service to have a flat rate payment. Instead of paying per hour, most services were available for $20 a month.
In 1987, AppleLink came out. This was a sister service to Q-Link, but for Apple II users.
In 1989, Q-Link, AppleLink and PC-Link all combine to form America Online. AOL, CompuServe (which by this time had bought The Source) and Prodigy (A startup company that had a flat rate system similar to AOL and was created by Sears and IBM) were the only nation wide on-line services to home computer users.
Now the Internet first started to go public in 1993. By 1994, most local internet service companies had flat-rate monthly service available.
February 1995 is when AOL first started to offer Internet service. That is over 2 years after other companies started to offer Internet locally.
September 1997, AOL acquires CompuServe. But pressure from CompuServe corporate users as well as fears of anti-trust litigation cause AOL to continue to run it as a seperate service.
To sum it up, AOL is a direct descendent of one of the very first on-line services. They were also the first to offer flat-rate service as opposed to an hourly fee, which enabled everybody to use it. But they were lagging badly when it came to the Internet. Even to this day, they try to disguise Internet sites as their own, making new people think that they need AOL to get to their web sites.
Just some ancient history from a long time computer user and on-line enthusiast. I am not even going to start talking about the contribution of the tens of thousands of BBS systems made to the on-line community. :)
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Actually, AOL is a "Johnny Come Lately" to the internet, and tried to fight it for many years.End Quote
I guess what I should have said was that in the 90's when internet use became available for homes, all we heard was AOL this and AOL that. They suckered a ton of people into joining them. Everyone I knew that had internet access had AOL back then.
On a side note: what cracks me up is how in their commercials they plug the heck out of how they offer such "exclusive" features as Instant Messaging and Parental Controls etc etc as if AOL is the ONLY place you can get these things. MSN, Yahoo, and many local companies offer the same features.
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
AOL has always sucked, and always will. >:(
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Since you can get the AOL frisbees discs at Wal-Mart maybe they should say AOL Sucks, ALWAYS!
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Since you can get the AOL frisbees discs at Wal-Mart maybe they should say AOL Sucks, ALWAYS!
End Quote
if you write on the back of the FREE AOL CDS/coasters, it creates a spiffy 3-D effect! it's pretty cool, i write on 'em and use them to decorate my closet...maybe i'll scan one eventually.
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
if you write on the back of the FREE AOL CDS/coasters, it creates a spiffy 3-D effect! it's pretty cool, i write on 'em and use them to decorate my closet...maybe i'll scan one eventually.
End Quote
Thanks for the tip..but please don't ever use aol!
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Since you can get the AOL frisbees discs at Wal-Mart maybe they should say AOL Sucks, ALWAYS!
End Quote
AOL sucks and Wal-Mart sucks... hmm, I'm starting to see connections... :)
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Thanks for the tip..but please don't ever use aol!
End Quote
don't worry, RnRfan, i'll never sink that low. ;)
here's a pic of one of my aol masterpieces...sorry for the low quality:
http://home.att.net/~padrino/images/blscd.jpg
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
AOL Still SUCKS... and still no argument from me!
I want to point out that AOL is NOT sucessful, they were when most people were internet ignorant, but there merger with Time/Warner has brought that comany to it's knees. The corporate name was changed to AOL/Time-Warner but they dropped AOL from the name just in the past month.
I used it once and immediatley got rid of it, when my mother went online 3 or 4 years ago I strongly recommended she not use it but she chose to take the easy way and immediately regretted it as well. The spam and busy pop-up crap they have makes it frustrating to use. The only person I know who continues to use it is my 88 year old grandmother, and that's just because if though it works poorly, at least she knows how it works.
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
http://home.att.net/~padrino/images/blscd.jpg
End Quote
Beautiful, just BEAUTIFUL. I have NO idea what the heck it means, but it's cool!
Subject: Re: AOL STILL Sucks!
Quoting:
Beautiful, just BEAUTIFUL. I have NO idea what the heck it means, but it's cool!
End Quote
lol...thanks. :) "BLS" is "the brendan leonard show" (an awesome x 1023 TV show) and the little scribbly things on either side of it read "TEAM FRESH" and "BOYling Point"...then under is is all the guys names, and some random triangles, dots, squares, and tildes in the background.