AOL Raises Prices On Remaining 2.3M Subscribers

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AOL, a company that should just be thankful it even has customers, has decided to raise its prices. Awesome business strategy. :rolleyes:

AOL is now taking in more money per subscriber each month: $20.86 compared to $20.03 at the same time last year. What’s that? Yes, of course AOL still has subscribers. 2.3 million people remain who send AOL money every month because…well, maybe they need dial-up Internet service, or they forgot about the automatic charge, or maybe they’re afraid of facing the company’s retention department.
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Sane business model as the USPS...less customers?, well then, raise the rates! That'll bring 'em back in droves.

Or something.
 
We still have an embarrassing number of clients who have AOL accounts. They are paying $20/mo for an email account.
 
This actually makes business sense. The people that still subscribe to AOL are very ignorant of the internet and/or lack even the most basic consumer common sense. Unless the prices rise so much (which is not the case here) that it makes it flat-out un-affordable to the those of the elderly on strict budgets, increasing the price will not cause any loss of customers. Free money for AOL.
 
Gweenz said:
We still have an embarrassing number of clients who have AOL accounts. They are paying $20/mo for an email account.
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Email account is free, but they don't know that. They keep paying as they've had that address for 20 years and don't want to lose it. It needs to get more attention, and it has in the past.
 
How do you explain raising prices on a service with no new subscribers and outdated tech?
 
I'll bet they figure most of their remaining subscribers don't even know they're subscribed and don't pay enough attention to their bank account to see the charge. Free money, basically.
 
My parents are on AOL because their summer home doesn't qualify for any high speed internet. Even cell coverage is voice only. My dad didn't want two sets of email accounts and different providers at each house. I finally did get him to verizon 4g at his winter house.
 
az_max said:
My parents are on AOL because their summer home doesn't qualify for any high speed internet. Even cell coverage is voice only. My dad didn't want two sets of email accounts and different providers at each house. I finally did get him to verizon 4g at his winter house.
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You mean AOL is the only dial-up provider at the summer home? There is not a cheaper one that is not charging an additional fee for the other useless AOL stuff besides the connection/email?
 
AOL...

... Remaining Customers


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I'm actually curious to see what AOL looks like now.

Not....like....curious enough to go look it up, but...you know. :D :D
 
I tried to get someone I know to stop paying they wouldn't =] Its really amazing that a company can make money off of this.

Just for the heck of it I went to aol.com just a second ago, looks like tabloid what a surprise.

AOL sucks for sure but there are still people who have no option but dialup. I would assume those are the people who are paying more. I know the people I have heard of pay something more like $5 for the email that they can have free.
 
EchoWars said:
Sane business model as the USPS...less customers?, well then, raise the rates! That'll bring 'em back in droves.

Or something.
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Ha, yeah. Remind me of the single movie theater in the small town I'm from. The owner wouldn't spend a time on improvements and upkeep. Had no heat in the winter, screen had tears and stains on it. Half the time the projectors were out of focus during a movie. Seats were worn out and torn up. Whole building smelled like piss.
So people quit going and drove to the next city to see a movie. His answer to this "downturn" was to double prices. Soon he was totally out of business.
When asked why he had to close it down he answered "People are watching cable TV and don't go to movies anymore" :rolleyes:
 
Mister Natural said:
aol users deserve whatever the company wants to throw at them.
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Agree.

I keep telling my subcontractors that an AOL email address does nothing but tell people you are incompetent. If you don't have your own web domain, at least get a Gmail.
The response I usually get is "But I have had that address for 20 years!"
Good grief folks! We are talking about you presenting a appealing image concerning your business. NOT some warm fuzzy feeling you got back in the 90s when you dialed into AOL and heard "You've got mail!" :rolleyes:
 
@@@@@@@@@@ MACRO KILL @@@@@@@@@@
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Good times, AoL. ;)
 
I still use my AOL accounts for my e-mail, but haven't paid for it for many years. Why use it? It costs nothing and I've been using it for a long, long time and see no need to use anything else when what I have works perfectly well.
If your paying for it when you don't have to then I can see dumping it though.
Also, as I don't have a business or a web domain to impress people I see no need for change no matter what people think.
(I'm old enough to know better but still young enough not to care...:D)
 
Wow, I looked up aol email, used my aol screen name and password from college, and it logged in.
 
kamxam said:
I still use my AOL accounts for my e-mail, but haven't paid for it for many years. Why use it? It costs nothing and I've been using it for a long, long time and see no need to use anything else when what I have works perfectly well.
If your paying for it when you don't have to then I can see dumping it though.
Also, as I don't have a business or a web domain to impress people I see no need for change no matter what people think.
(I'm old enough to know better but still young enough not to care...:D)
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Yeah, I can't disagree with hanging on to it for personal emails, since family and old friends all have that address for you.
BUT, for any kind of business as a contact point. That is -DEATH-
 
Wtf? I just noticed that I've been getting billed by Compuserve for the last decade.
 
EchoWars said:
Sane business model as the USPS...less customers?, well then, raise the rates! That'll bring 'em back in droves.

Or something.
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Postage isn't expensive. It was 8 cents in 1972 (and I believe postage was subsidized by taxes at that time, which hasn't been true for years, in case you thought otherwise). Adjusted for inflation, that's 44 cents.

Just buy some anytime stamps and use them whenever. Besides, the reason postage has to go up is to cover pensions, which Congress forced the USPS to prepay for employees that haven't been born
 
Steve said:
AOL, a company that should just be thankful it even has customers, has decided to raise its prices. Awesome business strategy. :rolleyes:
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If they're willing to pay 19 bucks (or whatever the current rate is) for AOL, when i'm sure there's dial up that's much less (and just as fast), then this increase isn't going to matter.

I suspect AOL makes most of its money from websites like Huffington Post, but I could be wrong.
 
nilepez said:
Postage isn't expensive. It was 8 cents in 1972 (and I believe postage was subsidized by taxes at that time, which hasn't been true for years, in case you thought otherwise). Adjusted for inflation, that's 44 cents.

Just buy some anytime stamps and use them whenever. Besides, the reason postage has to go up is to cover pensions, which Congress forced the USPS to prepay for employees that haven't been born
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It is expensive when you consider all the cuts and efficiency gains over time that should have brought the price down. Everyone was forced to move their mailboxes out to the road so they can just drive and drop, machines do almost all the processing and sorting of mail. Plus its really subsidized by the hoards of junk mail they let people spam us with that you cannot unsubscribe to. And it is incredibly expensive when you figure almost nothing sent to you in an envelope could not be sent cheaper electronically.
 
rudy said:
It is expensive when you consider all the cuts and efficiency gains over time that should have brought the price down. Everyone was forced to move their mailboxes out to the road so they can just drive and drop, machines do almost all the processing and sorting of mail. Plus its really subsidized by the hoards of junk mail they let people spam us with that you cannot unsubscribe to. And it is incredibly expensive when you figure almost nothing sent to you in an envelope could not be sent cheaper electronically.
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New houses in 1972 had mailboxes at the street. Adjusted for inflation, gas prices are 65% higher today. If you don't adjust for inflation, they're almost 10x higher. The rest of your post is just rationalizations for bitching. Bulk mail is not a government subsidy, and bulk mail was common 40 years ago. Never mind that you can opt out at http://www.dmachoice.org/

Just because I don't use the mail very much doesn't mean it's overpriced. And FYI, higher efficiencies are why the price is almost unchanged after 42 years, the end of government subsidies and the decline in use of the USPS. When I ship a package, i have 2 choices: Fedex or the USPS. Which I choose depends on the price and time it takes to arrive. If I want to ship overnight, I generally go USPS. They're cheaper. I avoid UPS, because I find them unreliable -- I've had issues with packages I've shipped and those that were shipped to me.
 
rudy said:
It is expensive when you consider all the cuts and efficiency gains over time that should have brought the price down. Everyone was forced to move their mailboxes out to the road so they can just drive and drop, machines do almost all the processing and sorting of mail. Plus its really subsidized by the hoards of junk mail they let people spam us with that you cannot unsubscribe to. And it is incredibly expensive when you figure almost nothing sent to you in an envelope could not be sent cheaper electronically.
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The Postal Service was doing just fine until the Federal government ham stringed them several years ago with the pension burden. They WERE profitable before that. There is something nefarious going on with the USPS, it just isn't the USPS's doing.
 
nilepez said:
New houses in 1972 had mailboxes at the street. Adjusted for inflation, gas prices are 65% higher today. If you don't adjust for inflation, they're almost 10x higher. The rest of your post is just rationalizations for bitching. Bulk mail is not a government subsidy, and bulk mail was common 40 years ago. Never mind that you can opt out at http://www.dmachoice.org/

Just because I don't use the mail very much doesn't mean it's overpriced. And FYI, higher efficiencies are why the price is almost unchanged after 42 years, the end of government subsidies and the decline in use of the USPS. When I ship a package, i have 2 choices: Fedex or the USPS. Which I choose depends on the price and time it takes to arrive. If I want to ship overnight, I generally go USPS. They're cheaper. I avoid UPS, because I find them unreliable -- I've had issues with packages I've shipped and those that were shipped to me.
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So what you are saying is that after 1972 homes as they were built started moving mail boxes out to the street so efficiency slowly went up. So I think a letter should cost little more than 8 cents today. In some cases USPS is cheaper, of course they have a government sanctioned monopoly on letter delivery and can piggy back off that service to give them an unfair advantage over fedex/ups/dhl/amazon generics.
 
I had AOL mail before yahoo and hotmail existed so I still have it logged in on old accounts. I stopped paying for it a long time ago.
I only fire it up once in awhile just to see what is there, it also makes for a good fake address if you need one.

AOL 9.7 is still slow and glitchy
 
rudy said:
So what you are saying is that after 1972 homes as they were built started moving mail boxes out to the street so efficiency slowly went up. So I think a letter should cost little more than 8 cents today. In some cases USPS is cheaper, of course they have a government sanctioned monopoly on letter delivery and can piggy back off that service to give them an unfair advantage over fedex/ups/dhl/amazon generics.
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Actually they were on the street in the late 60s.

But since it should cost 8 cents, then why don't you start a business and deliver mail for 10 cents? You'll not only make the USPS obsolete, you'll put all the other shippers out of business. Do it man. You're so awesome many. I believe in you.
 
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