i just got the emachines computer and have it up and running on compuserve. i got a intel 400 chip inside for an extra $100 bucks. I like AOL,s aggressiveness but it worries me that if a giant marketing push were undertaken by giant companies like ATT/MSFT to provide FREE service that AOL might lose its membership base-and fast.
Why would anyone pay 22 a month as I am now doing if a comparable service were free? Of course, this presumes it could be profitable, the free service.
Here I am using an essentially free computer comparable to what Dell sold for over $1200 a year ago. Who is to say this could not happen to internet services, just as AOL gives you a computer to get your on line business as a subscriber, could not an even more aggressive internet service provide give you the service free to get income from advertisersa and possibly your e-business (and thiers)?
I worried about Dell continually, thinking the threat to them was a "dumb" low priced box widely used at the corpoarate level, taking away their profits, no matter how efficiently they built to order. Could not AOL's membership revenues go this way, become an unnecessary expense. This Is certainly not what I want, being an AOL shareholder, of course, and yet...
jhg |
