The 25 worst tech products of all time - by P.C. World

[Al's Fastball News]

1. America Online (1989-2006)
How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online
emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum "PC-Link" in 1989,
users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up
numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable
billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service and enough
spam to last a lifetime. And, all the while, AOL remained more
expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination
earned the world's biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom
feeders. 

AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force
marketing techniques. In the 90s, you couldn't open a magazine
(PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling
out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers:
at its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though
it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.

Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult.
Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to
bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their
subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine
to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation
policies--but the agreement covered only people in New York.


Ultimately the net itself--which AOL subscribers were finally
able to access in 1995-- made the service's shortcomings painfully
obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own
online content, it walled off the greater internet. Once people
realized what content was available elsewhere on the net, they
started wondering why they were paying AOL. And, as America moved
to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL
is now busy re-branding itself as a content provider, not an
access service. 

Though America Online has shown some improvement lately--with
better browsers and email tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of
broadband content and innovative features, such as parental controls--it
has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for
people who don't know any better. 




 Al's Fastball News
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