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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (8872)	3/17/1998 6:35:00 PM
From: Yikes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13594

Sam, EXCUSE ME?! You wrote: "right now most all broadband technologies are pipe dreams." What is "most all"? You can say they are slow in starting, but don't use the phrase pipe dream when it is already available to some consumers. @Home has a strong hold in Orange County, California. And it will take a few more years before everyone can get it. cabledatacomnews.com I reserve the phrase pipe dream for people who expect AOL to maintain its current growth rate so that by the year 2002, all 300 million Americans will be members: 1992 181,000 subscribers 1993 302,500 1994 1,000,000+ 1995 3,000,000+ 1996 6,000,000+ 1997 10,000,000+ 1998 20,000,000+ (assuming doubling subscriber every year) 1999 40,000,000+ 2000 80,000,000+ 2001 160,000,000+ 2002 320,000,000+ How many subscribers would you expect for AOL in 1998 and 1999? Assuming AOL makes $0.17 per quarter today with 10 million subscribers, how much can they make with 20 million? 40 million? No, I don't think it will reach 40 million subscribers. But it seems like a lot of people do without realizing as they buy the stock. I know a few people with @Home's service and they love it. Go into any non-AOL chat room that displays participants' access IP, for example IRC, look for the "athome" in their hostnames. Then ask them if they like the service. I did. Everyone loves it even though it has infrequent down times. Because it's much faster than 28.8k.

To: Sam who wrote (8872)	3/17/1998 11:23:00 PM
From: Chuck Williams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13594

Point of information. I know a novice web user with whom I work. He's a great guy, just not a cutting edge technocrat. He asked me about broadband... Of course, I had no bad comments for him except his kids might not be as restricted from surfing "inappropriate" websites as they were using a dial up method. This was a month ago. Today he stopped by to tell me how his broadband service is going. He said (and I quote): "It's amazing, I'm waiting seconds for things that used to take minutes." Another satisfied consumer -- and another lost customer for AOL. People switch every day, it's just a matter of time before AOL loses enough "converters" to hurt earnings. But by that time the stock will already be in the toilet...