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