A O Hell

To err is human. Almost everyone knows that.

However, to REALLY gum-up the works, takes AOL.

The only thing that can truly bollix-up your email and address book (under the guise of "user friendliness") worse than AOL is Comp-U-Serve - and THAT evil entity is owned by (you guessed it) AOL.

So what can these people possibly do to screw-up something as mundane and benign as email?

'Cupla things:

• Attachment caps - Emails sometimes require or get enhanced with attachments. Grandma wants to see the the latest photos of the kids. A co-worker needs a document to edit. Stuff like that there. These items add size to an email - photos and videos being the primary offenders. While most ISP's (Internet Service Providers - the people who hook you up to the world) have email size limitations to maintain traffic flow, AOL's are smaller. This means your one email to Cousin Winifred with 6 photos could turn into 6 emails with 1 photo each. . . but only after it is bounced back to you with the computeresse proclamation, "Your email is too damn big.", message.

• Address book hording - Lord AOL happily taketh email addresses. That brings you into the fold. However, they do not easily giveth them back. In other words, to use AOL, the company has made the service very user friendly to access: put your contacts and their information into our system (import it from wherever it was) and start emailing away. When you "grow up" and AOL becomes a nuisance (and at some point, AOL will become a nuisance), you will need a crowbar to extricate you email addresses. There is no convenient "export your addresses" feature - like their convenient import / upload your contacts feature. This makes leaving AOL particularly difficult - especially if your address book grew while you were with AOL. now there is only the tedium of transposing. Compare this to Gmail, Yahoo mail or your ISP's webmail service which probably has both import and export capabilities. Hey, they're your contacts, you should be able to move them freely and easily.

• Software clogs - The only thing that puts more chazzerai (that's Yiddish for garbage) on a PC than AOL is the "recommended" software you get when you install a new HP printer (Did I really need 500 MB to print a piece of paper?).

So what precipitated the rise and fall of Aye Oh El? The short answer is the proliferation of the internet. In the very early 56k-modem-as-part-of-your-phone-bill days, AOL truly was a simple solution. "You got mail!", was a one stop shop and eliminated the need to set up IMAP, POP3 and SMTP servers in confusing email programs. And with the relatively low (and automatically billed) fee "softly" padded into the monthly credit card bill, AOL grew large enough to find "synergies" with media giant, Time Warner.

Then high speed internet and THAT additional monthly cost became the norm. Given the choice between ssslow AOL, and fast DSL, people started leaving AOL in droves. This lowered membership numbers and revenues. Lower membership meant that the advertising dollars being commanded to get in front of AOL's large captive audience were also dropping. So to stop the hemorrhaging, strong customer retention tactics were employed. . . until someone recorded their conversation and posted it on the internet.

AOL Phone Call

The embarrassment resulted in AOL becoming a free subscription service - provided you contacted AOL and requested the change. If you didn't call AOL, you continued to send AOL a monthly "premium" subscription service payment.

Also around this time, AOL and Time Warner "un-synergized" themselves and went separate ways. . . something worth considering for yourself and AOL as well.