These products are so bad, they belong in the high-tech hall of shame.
Dan Tynan
Friday, May 26, 2006 01:00 AM PDT
The Worst Five
1. America Online (1989-2006)
How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from
the belly of a BBS called Quantum "PC-Link" in 1989, users have suffered through
awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face
advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service,
and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more
expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world's
biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders.
AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing
techniques. In the 90s you couldn't open a magazine (PC World included) or your
mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique
yielded big numbers: At its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide,
though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.
Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several
states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they
had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a
$1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its
cancellation policies--but the agreement covered only people in New York.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125772-page,2/article.html
