I am not trying to be snotty or snobbish, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would pay $24.95 a month for AOL. I mean, for that money, you can get a high speed hook up and free email and all the bells and whistles.
Back in the day, AOL was the only way to go…but today? Is there some advantage I am not aware of?
Name recognition, more than likely. That, and their whole “we’ll keep you protected!” ad campaign. Not everybody realizes that most of the extra stuff you get with AOL you can get for free.
This is pretty much it. AOL is pretty much the only ISP that advertises.
Earthlink, yeah a few commercials.
NetZero, more than Earthlink, but still not much.
Local Broadband ISPs, definitely, but a lot of people hear Broadband and think “complicated”.
And then you have AOL, basically the only company that’s still around from the early days of the Web. It’s still a big name but it’s being marginalized more and more.
I imagine in five years (when Broadband will be everywhere) that AOL will have to change their ways or evaporate.
AOL can be accessed in many, many places. If one travels, I imagine that would be worth the extra money.
I quit AOL for broadband several years back, when it was interfering with my online gaming. Now I’m trying to persuade my parents to quit Compuserve, but I doubt that they’ll ever do that.
It really pushes, and to a large extent delivers, a one stop worry free net solution. AOL includes anti virus, antispyware, maybe a firewall also, and updates them by default as part of AOL.
I like it because it’s so easy to use. I am a complete computer dummy, and AOL offers the basic services I need and gives free support if I run into a problem. I say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Here in the boonies, where Hi-Speed internet and Satillite are NOT availble, it remains for me the only way to connect to the internet without long distance charges. Someday, they tell me this may change…
My parents kept it for quite a long time, even though my Dad is certainly savvy enough to get rid of it. There were a few reasons
[ul][li]An extra $10 or so a month is not so huge an amount that most people jump to switch providers[/li][li]The Wife Acceptance Factor: My stepmom was used to using AoL and she is slow to embrace new technologies (although perfectly competent once she takes the time to learn them)[/li][li]The email address. While @aol.com might be mocked on usenet, my Stepmom sells Mary Kay… and already has umpteen thousand business cards, Mary Kay themed checks, stickers, promotional materials, and customers with the AoL email address.[/ul][/li]In the end, they finally canceled, but paid whatever it costs to keep the email address.
I don’t know if this qualifies any more, but years ago I signed up with AoL because they were the only ISP who had tech support that was actually available and willing to help me figure out which type of poultry to sacrifice to make my craptastic WinModem actually work.
I keep for the email addresses that I’ve had for almost ten years and for the essentially one touch button I have for updating virus and spyware protection.
Oh also I’m lazy.
Laziness.
And I don’t believe that every area has an ISP including high speed internet that is cheaper than AOL. After a quick check - so far none of the alternatives that are cheaper than buying AOL by the year are available here.
What the lazy people said.
Me lazy too.
And AOL Radio is pretty cool. Five seperate and distinct blues channels for starters. Plus all XM programming.
No one has mentioned the fact I believed for these past 10 years I have been Online…
“AOL Invades your computer and strangles the performance out of it”
A question for AOL users, past and present. Does the AOL software still overtake your system like it used to?
Only if it has permission from Norton.
I’ve kept it because of the AOL only message boards. I’ve made friends there and kept in touch with them for almost seven years now. (They’ve made it where you can access the boards outside AOL now but the format stinks.)
I like that my email address hasn’t changed in ten years. It’s comforting considering how many times I’ve had to move homewise. 
I want dial-up for now, and I’ve tried two other ISPs and they both did a number on my computer. Since I’m not in any way an expert on this machine I don’t want to get anything screwed up again. The time I used Bellsouth for a day before I could even get to their help section when I first signed on I got a computer full of spyware and popups from Hell. I took it right back off my computer and went back to AOL but by then it was too late.
AOL has never done this to me. I never have to look at spam either, not ever. There’s a spam filter that lets me view any spam that is sent to me but I just empty the bin occasionally.
Two times in the past I’ve had some problems with my connection and all it took was a five minute phone call with a tech. Fixed me right up.
I like that I can use my checking account instead of a credit card for payments. I think now Peoplepc does this, but they’ve gotten some pretty awful reviews due to that smart dialer accessing long distance numbers. I am almost tempted to try it anyway since I don’t have an actual long distance provider on this phone line, but I’m afraid of another incident like the Bellsouth Nightmare.
I even made a thread here asking for a recommendation for a new ISP but all I got was “dude why are you still using dial-up?” If I can get more than dial-up without purchasing any extra stuff, without signing a contract, without having to have a major credit card, that will screen my calls and let me choose to answer them let me know and I’ll check it out. Especially if it has a free month deal! 
It’s only about $15 per month if you have internet access through another ISP. So we have DSL through the phone company, but have kept the AOL account at the lower rate.
Mostly the reasons for doing are getting less important, and inertia certainly plays a part. But some of those reasons include:
My wife has had the same AOL account for nearly 15 years. Changing her email address in the hundreds of places it’s listed and for the hundreds of people who have it would be a major pain.
AOL still has exclusive content. If that particular content is what you’re looking for, then it’s either use AOL, find a substitute you may not be as happy with, or go without.
Dial-up access in lots of places without long-distance charges. Good for when you’re on the road in cheap hotels that don’t have high speed connections in the room. Although you do have to pay the higher monthly rate or pay by the hour for connect time to use the dial-up access.
For $15 a month, not really a bad deal.
I still have an AOL account (note, I worked there, started as tech support and ended in network operations) even though I have cable. I can use dial up just about anywhere which is handy while traveling and AOL has tons of content that isn’t available anywhere else. I am also addicted a couple games that you can only get on AOL.
AOL software, after version 2.5, never gave me any problems (2.5 sucked). I did second level support (I was the guy you talked to if the tech couldn’t fix the problem) at AOL and 95% of the problems I encountered were due to an underlying computer problem. The vast majority of the problems were due to Windows being jacked or the user installed something that overwrote system files. A lot of other connection software installed new com drivers/modem drivers or screwed around with network adapters and winsocks. This would cause problems and the company that installed the stuff always blamed AOL. (My favorite was the Earthlink tech I spoke with on a conference call with a customer who claimed that having comm.drv=comm.drv would break modems. Sad but true) The other 5% usually just took some time to think about to resolve. I think I told about 5 people in two years to reinstall Windows when all else failed.
Slee
I’ve also wondered about this. I guess some people having been using AOL for years and are comfortable enough that they don’t wish to change.
At home I still use my free (10 hours a month) Netzero account. We use those AOL disks that come in the mail as coasters.
I dont’ see anything else appealling enough to make me change–not that I have searched etc. It’s a pain to change everything, including my email account. I only use the internet for here, another site and looking up stuff and amazon. I dont’ work on it, and I don’t really spend all that much time on it (really).
Why switch? It’s ok;,it works. I don’t care about looking stupid online or “uncool”.
Does it ever! I recently set up a new PC for a 70-year (or so) old friend. The tentacles unfurl, giving spyware protection, antivirus, general PC health checking, the AOL application itself and a handful of other doo-dads.
As much as I loathe AOL, and as creepy as I felt even touching an AOL CD and sliding it into an innocent PC, it’s got at least two good things going for it.
For the end-user, it’s EASY. Whether it’s a kid, or a 70-year old who’s afraid to click the wrong thing for fear of blowing up the computer, it’s easy to click the desktop icon and have it auto-logon to their account.
It also gives the user a good array of security apps so they’re less likely to be overrun by viruses and other nasties. It’s all in the backgound and they don’t have to think about it. As it’s included, they don’t even have to go out and buy anything.
Finally, for my friend, it’s really the only option. Her home is so far from anywhere that DSL or cable broadband are simply not available. Phone lines are so long and crummy, that she’s lucky to hit 33k on dialup, but at least she’s on.