Slashdot Log In
AOL to Raise Dialup Prices
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Feb 22, 2006 05:18 PM
from the going-the-way-of-the-dodo dept.
from the going-the-way-of-the-dodo dept.
United Bimmer writes "America Online has announced that it's going to raise the price on dialup users in an attempt to encourage them to upgrade to broadband. The new rates will near $26 a month, already drastically higher than the market norm for dialup access. This will bring the dialup prices to almost the exact same per month as broadband depending on your plan. However through this, they do still offer an unadvertised lower price for those who can't get or don't want broadband can request lower-priced plans, including an unadvertised offering of about $18 with a one-year commitment."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
AOL to Raise Dialup Prices
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 272 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Ding! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I thought broadband was their enemy? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://aol.com/)
Re:I thought broadband was their enemy? (Score:5, Funny)
Well that's nice of them. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://moacad.com/index.php?title=User:Andy)
Re:Well that's nice of them. (Score:4, Funny)
(http://phorm.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Monday May 19 2003, @12:08PM)
Re:Well that's nice of them. (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.metaphysicalfarms.com/)
Neat! (Score:5, Funny)
Holy Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.leekspin.com/)
2. Give crappy broadband service
3. Increase the price of your crappy dial-up service
4. Profit!!!! Or go out of business.
Another failed attempt to fill in step 3.
What about those who can't get broadband (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm Worried... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.marsinvestigations.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 28 2004, @03:50PM)
One more reason not to use AOL (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Saturday October 20, @10:03PM)
Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Golf courses could make the hole smaller to encourage more people to buy Tiger Woods video games.
McDonalds could increase the amount of ice in drinks to make people buy bigger drinks.
Motion Picture creators could degrade the quality of videos to make people move to a new format.
Nike could make their shoes less comfortable and then sell replacement linings.
Is this funny or insightful?
It's probably both.
1. Shoot self in foot. 2. ???. 3. Profit!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/~panaceaa | Last Journal: Friday July 14 2006, @09:19PM)
AOL takes away all incentive to keep customers. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://homepage.mac.com/djkuhl/)
A good case for my point would be Dish Network. As they've started updating their systems for HD, they have given current users free updates for satellite dishes. Without this option, the users could easily re-evaluate their options and check out DirecTV. When Dish finally has a complete HD solution to all their customers, they could very well up the cost of their service and customers would have to accept the fact that they can't afford the initial cost of a new satellite service. Dish Network understands that you have to upgrade some options for free or you lose a permanent revenue source.
$ Criminal (Score:3, Insightful)
Time Warner is now bundling AOL service with its High Speed service (to raise subscription rate for stock holders?) Everyone knows that you can get dial up as low as $9/month. Not to sound like a broken record, but BroadBand users tend to stear away from AOL - Cutting their own throat.
Confession time (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Confession time (Score:5, Funny)
I'm also betting that you used to spell better?
People can't let go of AOL (Score:5, Interesting)
They know that there's a huge number of subscribers that are scared shitless about leaving the warm embrace of AOL, and they just won't leave. They figure that some folks will upgrade to AOL broadband, and AOL makes more money on this folks. Others will pay double, even triple for phone dial-up. Just to not lose that wonderful interface. They'll even suffer pain, case in point:
I'm seeing this girl that's just scared to death of computers. AOL auto updated to the new version, and just totally screwed her computer in the process. This is not enough to get her to quit AOL. I fix her computer, requiring a complete OS reinstall, and set it to an older less toxic version... her stupid brother pops in an AOL 9.0 CD to upgrade it. It upgrades to 9.0, and then the cheap ass CD shatters from the high rotation rate of her 56x CD-ROM drive immediately post-install - totally destroys it. Then the software again does a number on her computer... and she still will not quit AOL.
Hell, AOL is now learning what drug dealers have know for a while, and are going to make bucks on it.
That's right folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Read that again.
Perhaps people will begin to understand why:
1. Retail stores deliberately mistreat their customers by having one cashier and 57 "loss prevention" employees.
2. Disney fires 4000 people between nine-figure movie releases, then fires their entire animation division
3. General Motors fires 30,000 people because "nobody is buying cars" We hear the news on the radio in a traffic jam that can be seen from orbit.
4. Half of working-age adults are not employed in full-time permanent jobs.
5. Half of the population is functionally illiterate.
Go back and read about the company that is deliberately overpricing their product to make customers leave.
Go ahead.
AOL and the lovely iron embrace... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://jimmybearpearson.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 09 2006, @10:10AM)
When my father-in-law moved, he purchased DSL through the local phone company. He loves the speed. We tried to wean him off AOL, but have been unsuccessful. Quoth he, "Web mail is terrible, and Thunderbird is horrible!" [read:it doesn't have my familiar-of-7-years filing cabinet, and I have to actually start an application after he's "started" the internet.] "I don't 'see' the Internet!" [read: He feels warm and comfortable with the AOL main window as the portal, and using all these 'loose' applications gives him no warm fuzzies.]
It isn't that he's not smart (he's got multiple Dr. degrees), it isn't that he doesn't understand... it is how he feels that matters. This is the nut of the AOL user base.
None of my tech-enabled friends uses (or would consider) AOL - I think AOL has become a cultural ubiquity.
$26 may not be too high... (Score:5, Interesting)
Second... my parents (mid 50's aged) used to be stuck with a high cost ISP through a deal they got at work. When their contract expired, they switched to your average nation $10 / month dialup ISP (Qwest has decided their neighborhood doesn't warrant DSL, although they live in a suburb and cable is readily available, but overpriced for their budget).
This new ISP, unlike the old expensive one, is awful. Heaven help you if you want to send UDP traffic because it gets dropped, constantly (and on dialup, that is in fact the end of the world). Disconnections every 20 minutes, minimum. Plus, a real PITA interface with 'pop-up' blockers and 'virus scanners' that take down the web connection with frightening frequency while in fact neither blocking popups nor catching viruses and spyware. I know because, as most of you, I get the call to fix it when it is broken, and I *used* to be able to play games like Starcraft (pure UDP) with my little brother, back in the day...
This isn't just a complaint post, though. There's a market hiding in there. Specifically, I would consider recommending an ISP who charged more money in exchange for services that were actually valuable. Like ISP to backbone latency guarantees, or never a dropped packet on their network (which requires quite a bit of expensive redundant hardware and a willingness to not sell all available bandwidth), or any of a host of other non-intrusive services. You want to scan for viruses? Scan the packets before they get to me. A popup blocker? I use a *real* webrowser, I don't need it. Your ridiculous dialer app that wraps internet explorer? Just give me a phone number and an 8 line instruction page for setting up a modem shortcut.
For the right price, it *must* be possible to actually provide a true, clean, non-intrusive high quality connection at the advertised speed. Is that AOL? Probably not. But it if existed, it would be worth considering, even at $26 for dialup. The older I get, the more I am interested in exchanging my money for quality goods and services. I care about price, but I care more about what I'm getting than how much I'm getting it for. I am willing to pay more to avoid having MSN, AOL, Earthlink or any other such ISP manage my broadband connection, from experience with each of those.
Is there such a thing as a 'luxury' ISP? Maybe there should be.
Dialup v. DSL (Score:3, Interesting)
Things have changed. Although I was happy with my local ISP, SBC DSL is now cheaper (I live in a rural area where a lot of those $10 deals aren't available). Only child still at home is now in college, and she needs better access. We both do some online gaming. I switched to DSL without any regret except the loss of a locally maintained Usenet spool.
Now that I have a nice wireless network set up at home, I have found an added fringe benefit; backup network access through my neighbors who don't share my ideas about security.
Broadband for $26? Point me in that direction! (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not saying AOL is a good value or anything for dialup, but in my experience thats a pretty lowball estimate for "exact same per month as broadband".
E-mail from AOL - even limited plans changed... (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.mapraider.com/)
I probably use the account once every three or four months at the most, and I even then I access the AOL network through my own separate broadband ISP account. The only time in the past dozen years I've used it for non-testing for any period of time is when the three hurricanes came through central Florida and I was without my broadband connection for a few days.
AOL isn't sparing anyone from the price increase. I *was* paying their obscure $4/mo+hourly plan which I considered fair. But, I received the following e-mail from them the other day:
As you can read in the letter, they're basically justifying raising my monthly fee for items of their service that I never or rarely use or benefit from: reliable Internet service, security features, exclusive content, member service and support.
And now they'll be getting $83/year (nearly all of which is pure profit) from me -- a developer trying to support users of their crappy service. I realize it's not a lot, but that doesn't make it feel like less of a ripoff.
Way to go AOL. You're making it really easy to just give up on you completely.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
All kidding aside, AOL completly relies on the fact that their customer doesn't know a thing about how computers or the internet actualy work. Just look at their commercials: (talking about their spyblocker or some such) "Because with high speed internet, the intruders come at you faster!" I don't even know where to begin with that statement. But the AOL users just nod knowingly and install more bloatware.