AOL DISCONTINUES BUNDLED BROADBAND
Oh, Where? Oh, Where? Has My Underdog Gone?!

America Online Inc. has quietly stopped offering a complete broadband package, requiring subscribers to instead obtain their high-speed Internet connections directly from a cable modem or DSL provider.

The reversal in strategy stands as another black mark against the purported wisdom of the $160 billion merger between America Online and Time Warner at the height of the Internet boom, a deal the companies had described as a perfect marriage of new and old media with the means to deliver it. (full article)

I don't exactly remember when I became an AOL member, but it was about ten years ago. After a year and becoming more Internet savvy by 1995, when I began to create my first websites, I would commonly say that AOL doesn't have a future because it's an enclosed system versus the open wild of the Internet. Later on, AOL added Internet surfing and added more content, but these weren't the reasons why I continued to pay my monthly fees. It was simple laziness.

Over the years, my work email has changed several times and I had a Yahoo! account, which I mainly used for my fantasy sports leagues, but AOL has remained my primary personal email account. I liked keeping the same email address over the past decade and the improving functionality of their address book, which was the main reason I never signed up for Plaxo while trying every online social/professional network service available.

While my laziness saw eye-to-eye with AOL's service, my logical sense thought AOL's days were numbered. What kind of idiots, besides lazy people like me, would stay on with this service or even sign up? But they did and AOL grew from 10 million to 15 million to over 20 million dial-up users... then they merged with Time Warner!

"Ok," I thought, "this is a no-brainer. With the growth of broadband, AOL Time Warner should integrate Time Warner Cable's Road Runner service with AOL, transition their customer base to broadband, sign exclusive content deals, etc... The high-speed service shouldn't be called 'Road Runner' anymore. Just AOL or AOL Broadband..."

When this didn't happen, I thought the people at the company were idiots or the bureaucracy was so thick within the infamous Time Warner corporate culture that this or other ideas to transition AOL into the broaband age would never be executed on. I was guessing the latter.

Soon the AOL name was dropped, 2 million subscribers signed off last year, and now the ridiculous $54.95-a-month package was written off too. AOL never had the proprietary content offerings to ask for such a price, or to compete with regular broadband service providers (should have merged with Road Runner). Why would a new user sign up for AOL's broadband access plan or a current user switch when no clear service or content advantage was identified? The great brand? The "aol.com" that typically identifies you as a non-tech nincompoop? Exclusive access to such great content and services as EA.com (an effort which was seen as dead-on-arrival by any online gamer)?

Good thing for AOL broadband growth in the U.S. is not growing at a rapid pace. They still have a few years to try to stop the bleeding. I hope they do because I'm still a lazy, loyal subscriber who doesn't want to transfer his address book to Plaxo.