The following comes from Business Week (May 6, 1996)
The Case Against Steve Case
America Online chief Steven M. Case has grandiose plans, nine lives, and excessive self-confidence, but he is missing the
point ("The online world of Steve Case," Cover Story, Apr. 15).
AOL's service is terrible: repeated inability to connect, frequent
and random disconnects, pricing that is exorbitant for even modest
usage, and interminable delays waiting for art to load. All this while I receive yet another in the never-ending series of unsolicited startup disks---as AOL attempts to corral more
"members" despite an inability to service those they have now.
It's the service, stupid. I'm looking for a direct-access Internet
provider with a flexible pricing plan. When I find one, I am history. If there are others like me, Steve Case will be history, too.
F.J.Krall
Summit, N.J.
A good depiction of Steve Case---not as a whiz kid but as a master
of spin. AOL's Mac users still don't have the "telnet" capability enjoyed by their Internet counterparts, which Case has been promising since 1994, The company appears to be held afloat by
deficit financing and public relations, helped by new customers---
and reporters---who don't know about the Internet software that offers everything AOL has---bigger, better, and faster---
subscribership will plummet.
David Cassel
San Leandro, Calif. |
