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To: Eric Wells who wrote (81266)	10/20/1999 2:46:00 AM
From: dbblg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

OT AOL I happen not to think much of Merenbloom, but I don't think you have dealt adequately with his argument. In the piece you linked, he suggests that AOL effectively already provides free internet access to people who repeatedly, and often serially, sign up for 100 free hours and then close the account just before billing kicks in. Merenbloom is suggesting that the people willing to go to that level of inconvenience are unlikely ever to join AOL as paying members, and would be likely to migrate to a service like the free Altavista service. To the extent that AOL doesn't have to incur the costs involved with set up, support, and closure of the accounts, losing these accounts to free services would be a net positive. I don't buy his argument--I think the bulk of people who use multiple AOL free offers like AOL and/or get a kick out of gaming the company--but the churn numbers in the next couple of quarters should answer the question one way or the other. We should also have an answer pretty soon as to whether or not the free services are luring large numbers of current customers (or good prospects) away from AOL. I don't know anyone who has a free isp as their sole online access. Do you?