Opinion piece from RB. "Free ISP providers fail miserably..."
Top Post 08/17/99 2:00 PM
By cybercop
- Taken from America Online (AOL) Previous Respond Next
By: cybercop 08-17-99 at 12:52 pm
Reply To: None Post # 47877
All things being equal, Price is seventh on the list of things that users look for in an ISP ( IDC survey ). The number one things are speed, reliability, tech support, content. I think that free ISP providers fail miserably in all of the pertinent categories.
You have to understand that the subscriber fees are great, but the real payoff will be advertising and e-commerce. Consumers that are driven by price alone, ie. "freebies" are not value or quality conscious. Hence, someone surfing the 'net at 28k because its free is not a spender that advertisers are going to pay big bucks to target.
Therefore, the free ISP model may have some subscribers - I signed up for Alta Vista myself - its free, what the heck, but how many users, and not only users, but user that spend money will they attract??
Bottom line - if you are trying to get out of paying $20 bucks a month and are willing to surf at 28K - are you going to spend lots of money online??
EOM
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