Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Why is AOL so stupid?

This is topic Why is AOL so stupid? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-04-2003, 10:37 PM:

(Yes I know there are not enough gigs here to answer that.)

I still keep a minimal AOL account for continuity on an old address. That's where all my spam goes. I access the net via regular ISP's (DSL and a couple of dialups) and I used to have their 9.95 unlimited time "bring your own access" account until they jacked it up over 50% to 14.95. So I dropped back to a minimal timed account.

See if this pricing makes any sense:

$4.95 per month light usage plan providing 3 hours of AOL, including the Internet, with additional time priced at just $2.50 per hour.

$9.95 per month limited usage plan providing 5 hours of AOL, including the Internet, with additional time priced at just $2.95 per hour.

What is the logic there? Even if you always go beyond 3 hours what is the incentive to use the 9.95 account? With the 4.95 plus two exra hours @ 2.50 you're up to the same 9.95 and if you go over even more 2.50 is less than the 2.95/hr rate for extra time on the 9.95 account. What am I not understanding? This is crazy even by AOL standards.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-04-2003, 10:38 PM:

Lest you wonder whay they lost BILLIONS this past quarter???

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-04-2003, 10:45 PM:

I just sign up to AOL on a yearly basis....it only costs $19.95 per month. AOL service has been very reliable for me up here, very seldom do I have any problem at all! Their virus screening of email is beyond reproach, and I have never received a virus with AOL as my ISP. (I can't say that with Microsoft, Yahoo, and and the rest of those Yahoo's that use the off-the-wall local ISP's.

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 02-06-2003, 08:51 AM:

Paul AOL charges you $19.95 a month. Is this unlimited usage? I have unlimited usage and i pay $28.95 a month. [Mad]

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 02-06-2003, 09:30 AM:

quote:
and I have never received a virus with AOL as my ISP.

AOL IS the virus! I had to install it once so I can log on with my friend's account to get a Windows Update. (Had no ISP installed at the time). After I uninstalled it, I still found little AOL links and icons all over my computer. That thing worked its way into every nook and F**king cranny in my computer!! That's exactly what a virus does. Except there's no antivirus software out there that recognizes the AOL software.

=TMP=

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-06-2003, 05:35 PM:

William, the answer is yes. $19.95 per month if you sign up for it on the annual plan. It costs $239.40 per year for unlimited usage. I don't know why you are paying so much, but if it is a limited usage plan, I can see how the cost could be so high.

I would recommend you call AOL's billing department and see what the heck is going on....

Supposedly, if you just sign up one month at a time for unlimited usage, it is $21.95 per month.

Go to keyword "Billing", select "What Price Plans Does AOL Offer. Click on that, and browse through it and see what your options are.

Thomas, I never had any problems like you described.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-06-2003, 06:40 PM:

I recommend AOL for beginners but beyond that I don't know why anyone would keep them as their ISP once they've mastered the art of using a search engine and can find what they want. Most ISP's are around 19.95/month and if you're willing to prepay the year they typically drop a couple bucks below that. I can't see paying extra for a service that won't even let me use a proper email program!

Purely out of curiousity, what is the deal with NetZero? Does the 9.95/month account require you to look at ads? A few years back I used to play with their free service and I knew how to kill their ad console so I was just left with a live connection but I presume they've improved the software since then.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 02-06-2003, 06:41 PM:

I installed AOL Instant Messenger about two months ago, and I'm still finding these damn "TRY AOL FOR FREE" icons and shortcuts everywhere. The problem is, just today I figured out how to remove the one that crammed into my start button menu on the XP machine. It's as bad as the Microsoft Virus ... I mean "Favorites" ... that seem to come back every time I update Internet Explorer. *grumble grumble*

Posted by Dennis Atkinson (Member # 345) on 02-06-2003, 06:56 PM:

I had AOHell for a few years. AT&T has treated me nice and for $14.95 a month. You get that price when you also have them for your long distance (7cents per min.) and have an AT&T credit card.

Dennis

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-06-2003, 11:49 PM:

Adam, you can block all that crap by "Settings" - Preferences - and select all the crap you want for privacy, pop-ups, marketing, and BS like that. Turn it all off. That's what I did. If you don't set your preferences,you can expect seeing all that stuff. AOL is getting very concerned about in-house and out-house pop-ups, and they are taking steps to stop that nonsense.

One thing for sure...they are not near as bad as Microsoft. I have not yet figured out how to disable that with them.

Posted by Nate Lehrke (Member # 1460) on 02-07-2003, 02:05 AM:

I love AOL! Well actually I only like them for the free internet. I just keep calling them telling about how crappy there service is & they will keep giving you free months. How great is that!

Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 02-07-2003, 04:36 AM:

Just type "AOL Sucks" into Google and you'll find hundreds of reasons why AOL is so stupid. I was with AOL for years - now I'm using the Yahoo/SBC dsl service and I'm quite happy with it.

I had never been so frustrated with a company until I had to deal with AOL's billing dept. Whenever I tried to change my plan it was non-stop sales pitches. The worse came when I joined that gawd-awful "aol's traveler's advantage' program thinking it would save me money. I began with the free trial - I then called and asked it to be cancelled before I had to pay but next thing I knew $60 had been charged to my account. I went with that...then a year later I get a card saying I will be billed another $60 unless I ask for the program to be cancelled. I called and was told it was cancelled. A month later, you guessed it, charged $60 causing 3 checks to bounce and another $60 in overdraft fees at the bank. THREE calls to AOL (and a promise to have my money refunded) led to nothing, no refund, nada. Those three calls were agonizing and the last one, which led to me talking to a supervisor who went into the same sales pitch as his employees caused me to hang up the phone on him. I then went and cancelled my credit card that AOL was taking the money from, cancelled AOL (knowing they could not continue to charge me for anything with a cancelled card). I may have been able to handle this differently but I was at my wits end!

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 02-07-2003, 04:55 AM:

I never had a direct problem with AOHell. My problems lie with the majority of their users.

Start Disclaimer
The next statement is a generalization based on experience and does not apply to the fine people here on Film-Tech. This rant can also be applied to other MAJOR online services anf their users.
End Disclaimer

Just about everybody I have run across that uses AOHell are about as dumb as a retarded cabbage. I think I could give 2 more IQ points to the average user and they may be able to bark. Because they can get online, they are now a computer and network expert. These people are the sheep that are also responsible for patronizing the [bs]

movies that keep getting made because they do not understand a good movie even if it [sex]

them in the ear. They are the reason that the government will never do away with the Electoral College. I do not know what is worse, a virus writer or the average AOHell mindless sheep of a user that chokes out the bandwidth by keeping REAL users off-line.

Now I know my disclaimer may have been forgotten by now, I know that there is some AOL users here. This rant IS not directed at you, just the primates you may be sharing bandwidth with. Can anybody here that uses AOL pass along any war-stories about the dung-slingers they have dealt with online? ANy stories that would make somebody go "What the f...?!?" or "How in the hell did they even turn on the computer?"?

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-07-2003, 06:46 AM:

"Hey I just put up naked pics on my webcam CLICK HERE! "

I hate AOL! (But hey I dont pay the bill so... )

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-07-2003, 01:11 PM:

Yes, I admit some areas of AOL are VERY stupid! Make a search and hen check the lower left side of the screen says "Search for ****** on:

.Find Best Prices on "********" in AOL Shopping
yada yada yada
.KIDS ONLY sites about "********"

Jeeze....

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 02-07-2003, 10:28 PM:

Hey Paul, thanks. Bastards at AOL.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-07-2003, 10:50 PM:

[Big Grin]

Posted by Barry Martin (Member # 1376) on 02-10-2003, 07:41 PM:

Having AT&T broadband for internet access I, too, have the AOL "Bring your own service" arrangement. 10 bucks a month for what I have experienced as the best email program out there. I like the IM'ing too, but you can of course get that free with the AIM program anyways. I hated AT&T's email, Hotmail, and Yahoo. When I used to be single and just got on the internet I spent a lot of time using AOL's "People Directory" to search for people online in my area with the same interests and made a few really good friends that way that I may have never met. I have never been disconnected or dissatisfied for any reason. I hate the pricing and the advertising, but that's just about everywhere. I just couldn't stand the 56k speed any longer with all the things I was doing online. It takes me about half as long as it used to in order to keep up with things.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-10-2003, 08:37 PM:

Some of you state that you like the email feature of AOLame. Pullllease. It sucks. Plain and simple. Get a real email client that was developed specifically for that purpose. Lots of buddies use Exchange or Outlook for their email. I prefer Eudora.

BTW, when I first got online back in the early 90's I used AOL for THREE days. I agonized through them until I could get to the local ISP office and I never looked back... AOL... makes me wanna [puke]

and

myself...

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-10-2003, 09:56 PM:

Amen...I use Eudora too. I hate HTML in email.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-11-2003, 12:26 AM:

Outlook? Yuck. [puke]

I've never understood how anyone can stand that bloated, insecure POS.

I've been using Pine since ~1994 or so and have no intention of switching in the forseeable future. Sure, it has its flaws like everything else, but it meets my needs perfectly and I'm familiar with it. When combined with procmail for mail filtering and vi for editing, it's actually fairly powerful. Unfortunately, the configuration defaults are lame and about half of them need to be changed in order to make it usable (for me, anyway).

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 02-11-2003, 04:33 AM:

Pine is pretty damn good. However I have always been a fan of Pegasus. It's free and powerful. Never used Eudora but have always heard it is pretty damn good as well.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-16-2003, 12:35 AM:

I use an older Eudora (pre bloat) that is relatively featureless. Just like I want it.

Given that I don't give a damn about AOL's "features" I never upgrade versions unless there is some compelling reason. Well, I thought such reason existed as whatever version I had kept downloading updates when I disconnected...every time. Took a while to realize that the update installation was failing (error message flashes by too fast to notice), hence it was going through the same routine at each logoff. After a month or so of logging off by killing the program to avoid that bit of BS I figured ok, maybe I should just go ahead and install 8.0.

Now in what is likely NOT a coincidence when I connect to DSL there is a good 15-20 second delay in the DSL login process that used to go boom boom boom. I suppose I should reload the DSL software and see if that undoes whatever AOL 8.0 corrupted. Or maybe delete the AOL software altogether since this is just for an old email account and I can do that via web access.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 02-23-2003, 04:50 PM:

One reason AOL is so stupid is because it lets hackers roam easily. Wired News uncovered the lax AOL security just before the weekend.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 02-23-2003, 05:30 PM:

There's something fishy about the AOL hack story.
AOL uses SecurID access control to get into the Merlin user database, SecurID uses passwords and a physical device (like a keyfob or smart card) with a system that constantly checks against a code that changes every minute... one doesn't just identify to log in and then play at will. http://www.rsasecurity.com/products/securid/
The only way I can see this "hack" happening is via an inside job, someone willfully allowing the release of restricted information. That's not a "hack", just a crooked employee.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 02-23-2003, 06:35 PM:

Which is just the same as their 'hack' to get into other people's accounts. Calling tech support and getting the password reset isn't a 'hack' -- it's just dumbass AOL employees leaving the door open.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-23-2003, 09:04 PM:

But what's in AOL that anyone would want?

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 02-23-2003, 09:13 PM:

Other than customer credit card numbers, not too much else of interest.

Posted by Chad Calpito (Member # 1562) on 02-23-2003, 09:33 PM:

I use to use AOL, but, after the price increases and other stuff, I left AOL. I am so glad that I use COX Digital Internet Cable Services for my Internet activities now. I will never go back to AOL.

Chad