gibbergibber - 11:01 am on Jul 9, 2006 (gmt 0)

-- AOL is finally paying for years of poor customer service, overbilling, etc.--

Even if they'd had excellent service, the product itself is worthless now because content and access have been totally separated from each other in the age of the internet and world wide web.

People might consider paying a website for certain kinds of content, but they'd very rarely consider paying their access provider because the access provider wouldn't be able to compete as it could only sell content to its own subscribers. Websites let people sell content to literally anyone with web access, there's just no point in doing it through proprietary subscription systems any more.

Microsoft found this out pretty quickly when they tried to set up the original MSN, not the website we know today but an AOL/Compuserve-style proprietary network which appeared just as those kinds of networks were going out of style. Another proprietary network which appeared at just the wrong time was the Sierra Network, a games-oriented dial-up community service run by the games publisher Sierra On Line (who ironically enough had never actually done anything online before TSN).