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David Coursey, Executive
Editor, AnchorDesk, ZDNet
Is America Online worth another two bucks
a month? Doesn't sound like much until you realize the increase
-- actually $1.95 a month -- adds up to $23.40
a year, which is like charging customers for one
extra month, at the new $23.90 monthly rate, every year.
If I had told you that AOL wanted you
to pay for an additional month each year, would you have felt
differently about it? And might it have prompted an even more
important question:
Have
you outgrown AOL?
THE INCREASE
MAKES AOL THE MOST EXPENSIVE
of the big consumer Internet service providers (ISPs). If
that alone doesn't make AOL boss Steve Case the most popular
man in the Internet service business -- at least among his
competitors -- I don't know what will.
AOL's increase provides cover for every
other ISP in America, and probably overseas if the AOL increase
extends to world markets, to raise their own prices. Now that
competition has dwindled, AOL can safely increase rates without
too much fear of customer defection. After all, would it be
worth a few bucks to go to MSN or Earthlink?
I SUSPECT
COMPETITORS WILL DO THE MATH,
decide battling over a couple of bucks isn't worth it, and
accept the status quo and raise their rates, too. This reminds
me of how the airlines tend to raise, or lower, their fares
all at the same time. But somehow they do it in a way that
doesn't draw too much attention from the Feds.
For the really low-cost ISPs, AOL's price
increase must be seen as an act of a truly munificent being.
These small companies can add nearly 20 percent (for the $9.95
a month providers) to their revenue and still be in the same
relative pricing position vis-à-vis AOL as they were
before! It's almost like free money! And for companies that
badly need it, too.
Sure, someone will make a big deal over
not increasing rates, perhaps promising to do battle with
the evil AOL Time Warner, but that won't last very long.
HAVE YOU OUTGROWN AOL? If I had just a
single Internet connection, it would not be AOL. Why? Because,
for an experienced user, AOL
puts too much distance between the person and the Internet.
Surfing via AOL isn't like surfing from
a machine that's just connected to the Internet and using,
perhaps, Netscape Navigator as a browser.
Yes, you can use AOL as an ISP without
actually using the service by opening your own browser and
mail program and minimizing AOL. That works pretty well for
me -- and it's what I do while traveling -- but I have received
many complaints about how browsers run atop an AOL connection.
I can't duplicate the problems, but I hear the complaints.
THERE IS NO DOUBT that AOL is a great
service and is responsible for much of the Internet's explosive
growth. But there is likewise no doubt that using
AOL is more like using the Internet with training wheels
than connecting to the Net itself.
And for many people this is exactly as
it should be. But for others -- perhaps you've always wondered
about that wide world outside AOL's doors -- the price increase
might provide a reason for some self-examination. And maybe
some users, perhaps you, will decide to strike out on their
own.
Most of us -- myself included -- started
with training wheels, after all. But one day we realized we
could ride the bike without them. (And that if we did, our
older friends would stop making fun of us).
Perhaps that time has come for AOL users,
at least a few. You, perhaps?
zdnet.com
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