Cognitive Dissonance

AOL Sounds Its Death Knell!

There was a great disturbance in the Force, as if a million clueless users cried out in terror, and then were silenced.

A collective shudder vibrated throughout the internet last week as the once mighty provider of providers, in a possible moment of self-realization, plunged the proverbial sword into its chest, opening its veins to spill millions of clueless and completely unprepared users onto the internet's metaphorical carpet.

That's right. At the beginning of this month, AOL announced that they will be offering their until-now exclusive content and user@aol.com email accounts for free on their website and accessible with any web browser . Internet users around the world were heard collectively saying:

So what?!@x0r)

While AOL users nationwide said:

MrnfHunh? *mumble**gurgle* *jessicaSimpson*gurgledrool*

So here's the DL (yo)

Since nearly the beginning of (the publicly available internet) time, AOL has existed in its own world. ON the internet but not OF the internet, AOL provided the online equivalent of a country club or gated community, where content was served to its users; and its users never needed to set (metaphorical) foot on the web-at-large.

In the beginning, this model worked well -- it functioned as an oasis of easily accessible information in the midst of a turbulent and strange internet. The walled city of AOL, and its sister-states Prodigy and CompuServe were held up as shining beacons of civilization, bringing enlightenment and knowledge to their masses. There was a postal system between these three cities, but they relied on their own internal sources for news and entertainment.

This went well for a time, until the birth of the World Wide Web, and the standardization of HTML and web browsers. A new life was being born outside these city walls, with pages springing to life in the darkness like mushrooms after a rain.

AOL, however, did not like the new life being born outside its walls. So, while Prodigy and Compuserve saw the writing on the wall and were lost to history, AOL hung on.. clung to its outdated and outmoded concept of easy access to exclusive content in a "walled garden" of internet-land. Emphasizing ease of use over practicality and functionality, AOL quickly earned the reputation on the "new" internet as a sort of asylum for cluelessness, and an @aol.com email address quickly became a warning sign of idiocy for the rest of the internet community.
Thus it has been, until now...

Now, AOL has torn down its walls. With a complete change of business model, AOL now is offering all of its services (except for dialup internet access) completely free of charge on its website. Furthermore, AOL email addresses are now freely available for anyone who wants one. (Former subscribers: If you have had an AOL account in the past two years, you may retrieve your email address using your former password, free.) AOL will also continue offering dialup internet access for those who want it for $9.95 per month.

So, will the internet community survive the mass exodus of AOL's subscribers onto the *real* internet-at-large? AOL's last hold over its members has been relinquished, so many millions may flee. Remember, that some of these people have NEVER been outside AOL's servers before, lets try to help acclimate them to the real world.

Is this a smart move for AOL? Will it herald a renaissance for AOL? Or is it the last gasp of a dying giant? Only time will tell.