Years ago, all credit cards charge membership fee,
ranging from $45 - $90/year.
You must 'pay' the credit card company first before you can use their card to 'buy'.
Then Visa/Master cards lowered their annual fee, American
Express did not, the market share of Amex card started losing ground.
When Discover Card started 'no member fee' card, all Visa/Master/Amex cards are losing market shares,
but Master/Visa cards turned to 'no fee card' quickly, so
they held the largest shares still, but not Amex card, so
Amex card lost ground, their stock went down
to $20 - $22 in early 90, Amex old Chief resigned.
Amex stock gains ground started in 1995 because
the new chief recognized the 'free' trend, Amex issued
Optima card to gain market, they also stepped into
Visa/Master territories, so Amex is now $138.
It took Amex 5 years to recover and now they are issuing
another card called 'Blue'...
I wonder how many of us here not having 1 or 2 'free member
fee' credit cards today and also use them to purchase?
I hope AOL seriously recognize the new trend of 'lower fee' or 'free' and cope with it as soon as possible, don't treat
them lightly and don't wait.
With MSN's $6/month ISP fee and NetZero, AltaVista's free ISP, their combined names is enough to stick in the mass
market, they are not local small timers.
ATT sees their advantage because CABLE won't go for free
for quite a while, holding the pipe is good for them becuase
they can own the next wave's ISP to 60% in USA after
free dial-up became irresistable trend.
Today's USWEST's offer of $19/month for a DSL connection
will become a trend too, just look at MCI's 5 cents/minute
forced ATT to lower their fee and followed by a lay-off...
I think AOL should plug in Netscape for free ISP in USA
as soon as possible to swallow all the markets before too late, as AOL Britain chief said
'if we have to bleed our customer out to
other free ISP, we might bleed them into our own
free ISP', at least the eyeball counts hold.
My 2 cents. |
