AOL ruined yet another fine service, reminds me why I am redrumloa!

[redrumloa]

Who's been on the net for a while? Who knows AOL's history? I'm sure many of us Amigans have issues with AOL, I sure know I do. Today I am yet again reminded why i hate AOL.

Back in the mid 90's I used to listen to a free streaming music service called TheDJ.com. Sometime in the late 90's it became Spinner.com, basically improving on a pretty good service. Then the unthinkable happened, it was bought out by AOL and renamed Radio@Netscape. The interface became an AOL banner, but the programming remained good and it stayed free. Today that all changed, there was a new update(Windows only BTW). I installed it and all seemed good. Unfortunately after an ~hour of listening i get a popup saying "Your daily song limit has been reached. If you want to hear more sign up for AOL, blah blah blah.

Man, can AOL screw up a wet dream or what? :pissed: What sucks is whoever was doing their metal programming was quite good. Oh well, back to only shoutcast :pissed:

[redrumloa]

I'm with AOL and don't understand why everyone seems to be always having a go at them??

Hehe, to each his own I suppose. I have a go at them for too many reasons to post here. Their history goes back well past the few years they've been in the UK btw, they've been around since the 80's.

How's about giving me some of your auction items for free Red??

One thing doesn't have to do with another. Put it this way. How would you feel if AOL bought Amiga.org and a year later they made it a pay service for AOL users only? It'd be pretty ugly wouldn't it? Or better yet how about AOL buys the BBC and makes it a service for AOL users only? Then shortly later they convienently raise your rates?

This one move though annoying, isn't illegal. I never said it was. It just follows a pattern set by AOL. AOL very badly wants to be a monopoly like M$. They act like one even though they don't have one.

[redrumloa]

Oh boy, Red is starting to sound like one of those damned socialists!

hahaha I don't think that is happening:-)

@Red, I hear satellite radio is really big in the US, and has far better quality then both FM & Internet. Have you considered that?

As a matter of fact I have been interested in satelite radio since I first heard of it loong ago. Sadly I havn't really owned a car I felt good enough about to make the investment in hardware yet:-) I will probably be getting a one soon, maybe a Sirrius. I'll probably be steering clear of XM since i heard they are owned by CC.

[redrumloa]

Hey, btw, what is AOL anyway? I mean, when it first started, it was some sort of dial-up ISP, was it not?

In a nutshell it started out in the 80's as Q-Link, a massive Commodore 64/128 only BBS service. It was quite good for what it was, kind of expensive but all large multiline BBS services were expensive back then.

Then in the early 90's AOL killed off Q-Link while it was still a pretty viable service and focused only on AOL, which was PC only. You can find many websites on the evils behind this closure, most have to do with the pleas from users to allow the backing up of the file databases which had many one of a kind software. Those pleas went unanswered and the software is lost forever.

AOL as we now know it has historically been known as 'The internet for Dummies', and that label is still pretty accurate for the most part. Your typical AOL user does not know the difference between AOL and the internet, they think it's one and of the same. The typical AOL user needs technical support for such things as how to operate the on switch.

Bleeding heart liberals should hate AOL for all the enviormental disregard the company shows. How many trees have they killed off printing the mailers for their junkmail CDs? How many thousands of tons of waste CDs get thrown into landfills every year from their junk mail campaigns? How much productivity is lost ever year by people forced to continuously delete unwanted AOL links from their desktop, start menu etc?

Ooops, i am getting started.. Must shut up now :-D

[redrumloa]

Only recently did they make it a free-preview thing, and why not? Free don't make money.

And why not? I never said they couldn't. It's been a billboard for banners since the TheDJ days, so theoretically they could have been making money on banner ads.

Funny how people take what i said as "How dare you deny them to make money". I never said that, and I never said there should be regulation to block it. My point is only a listener who will certainly NEVER be an AOL customer, it's a shame to see AOL kill off another fine service. IMO most listeners will simply uninstall the program. Not the end of the world, there are other free serevices out there.

BTW Grady, just a question. How would you like it if Clear Channel bought your favorite local radio stationa and made you buy special hardware and pay a subscription fee to listen to them? Would that not be annoying? it would probably be in their right to do so, but you'd still be annoyed eh? :lol:

[redrumloa]

by redrumloa on 2004/4/26 8:44:16

I'll probably be steering clear of XM since i heard they are owned by CC.

Clear Channel  :-x