AOL To Offer Free Services?

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:

AOL business hasn’t exactly been going like gangbusters. Yesterday, Reuters reported on a Wall Street Journal story, citing “people familiar with the matter” that indicates that AOL may start giving its services for free to anyone with an existing broadband connection. The idea, of course, is to boost advertising revenue (while losing subscription revenue).

Under the plan, AOL would stop charging subscription fees for users with high-speed Internet access or a dial-up service from another provider, the newspaper said.

Subscribers who have traditional “dial-up” Internet access through AOL would still have to pay their monthly fee, the Journal said. [Source: Reuters]

We Say: Will this make a difference? Positively, that is? AOL estimates that eight million of its existing dial-up customers would cancel their subscription to take advantage of the new offer. Would I personally be willing to install AOL software? Yeah, I might be willing to try it. But I have enough stuff on my PC already that I really am not that anxious to install more stuff that I will most likely eventually uninstall. And I can find my way around the Web just fine without AOL.

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