The Mental Downgrading of AOL

AOL used to be it, the big dog of ISPs.  Now AOL has become a joke, providing the most intrusive landing pages I’ve ever seen.  They took a step back in time to the days of banner ad dialup where everyone knew they were getting online for free because they had to see ads.  But these are now the days of Google and paid broadband.

AOL used to be the service that meant something.  If someone gave me their email address and it ended in @aol.com then I knew they could afford internet, that they were willing to pay for it, that they were keeping up with the times.  Times have changed very much indeed.  Now if someone gives me that same @aol.com ending I think “Where have you been!”  I wonder how they can afford that junk, how often do they read their email, and why are they so far behind? 

AOL stinks.  The splash artwork is terrible, like a trip back to the 70’s to view graffiti and the abusive style in-your-face ads are even worse.  Going to the email online page is like revisiting their home page that I just clicked on as quickly as possible to get out of before another stupid ad fly-by. 

None of us can afford to waste our time on these intrusive ads, unreadable home pages, and bulk that takes forever to load and strains the computer’s memory.  How do you solve this problem?  Here’s how:

1. Change your home page to either a good news site like FoxNews.com or to Google where you can start off with your mind still on work instead of the next rag story.

2. Get your own email service.  Yahoo is still great, Google of course, or some other platform you can get to without being pick-pocketed on the way.

3. Make a mental commitment to avoid bad landing pages like AOL and Yahoo, and many others.

4. Switch to FireFox and load the ad-ons for NoScript and Adblock.  Your business life will increase in time value by a measurable amount.

5. Do it now! Stop wasting your time and your brain power.