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Non-Tech : E*Trade (NYSE:ET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Hua who wrote (5217)	2/16/1999 10:40:00 PM
From: mod	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

Don't you remember the AOL stories? Businesses who depended on e-mail were not able to access it, orders were being lost, etc. So AOL's troubles did cost people money, and it was well publicized. The EGRP lawsuit is a nuisance, which will not result in a material charge. If you read your customer agreement, they have ample protection and defenses. Only the lawyers will make money in the eventual settlement, as usual.

To: Tom Hua who wrote (5217)	2/17/1999 9:28:00 AM
From: j_b	Respond to of 13953

<<Disruption of service at AOL didn't cost people a lot of money>> When cable service goes out during the playoff games, consumers desparately wish they an alternative to the monopoly cable companies. They would switch if they could, yet they have suffered no monetary losses due to the service outage. They become irate enough to call their congresspeople and demand deregulation, yet they suffered no monetary loss. This may come as a shock to many people on this board, but money isn't everything!! IMHO, the reason AOL didn't lose customers during their bad times, was that the "cost" of switching ISPs was too high. People (primarily newbies) would have to install and learn new software (and uninstall the old). They would have to change their email address and notify everyone they knew about the change. They would lose access to the AOL-specific sites they were used to frequenting. They would lose access to communities and bulletin boards they were used to participating in. There is a similar cost to switching brokers. Your account can be tied up for weeks. The history of your transactions is no longer available online, since it would reside with the broker you are leaving. The features that brought you to your broker might not be available at the new broker, and would definitely require a learning curve to use. As long as the service is up now (and remains that way the vast majority of the time), I doubt many people will actually switch. They may put less of their assets into ETrade, and open a "backup" account at another brokerage, but there probably is no way to measure that. The online broker newbies will still like the handholding and ease of use at ETrade or Schwab, and the daytraders (like the experienced netizens of old) will frequent a site that focuses on speed, dash, and accuracy.