America On-Line: will it survive ...? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...?

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To: Tim Kenney who wrote (6491)	12/18/1997 10:18:00 AM
From: Brent D. Beal	Read Replies (1) of 13594

True life story-- I called by brother-in-law last night and he told me that he had just purchased a computer (he just finished med school and has managed to stay nearly completely computer illiterate, so this was a pretty big step) and had signed up with AOL because he wanted to get onto the internet and set up an e-mail account. Curious, I asked him how he liked the service (I didn't tell him what I think of AOL because I wanted to hear his reaction). He said he had 50 free hours, but didn't think he was even going to use that--he said right after he signed up for the first time, he got some big splash ad trying to get him to buy some trinket, which was annoying, and that by the time he signed off he felt like he'd just spent an hour with a used-car salesman. He also said that he went from the e-mail area into something that was labeled "email-extras" and found some neat e-mail greeting cards, which he almost started sending to people, until he read the small print about the cost--he was pretty miffed that AOL didn't make the cost for explicit. He said he'd already be asking around at the hospital and that some friends has told him to set up an e-mail account at Yahoo! or Hot-mail and to sign up with either AT&T or Earthlink for his ISP--he asked me if I thought it was good advice and of course I said yes. . . This all came from someone who 3 weeks ago was computer illiterate. In under 3 days with AOL he'd already figured out the service was crappy and had gotten some concrete advice about better products. AOL better hope this type of scenario isn't common--but I'm betting that it's more common that the company admits. But you know what, I bet he gets counted in their subscriber numbers for the next few months. . . Sooner or later this company is going to run our of suckers, or at least the rate at which they are finding suckers is going to slow, which from an investing standpoint in nearly the same thing--either way the stock is coming down hard. . .

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