Online services are doomed.
That might not be news to some of you, but trust me. If my experiences are typical - and I think they are - get out while there is still time.I know this because in a moment of weakness I succumbed to one of the thousands of America Online disks I've received in the mail and decided to sign up. I used to be an AOL member; heck, I remember when it was a service for Commodore 64 owners. But I dropped the service years ago because it was slower than molasses.
So I popped the disk in the drive and installed the software. Eventually it asked me for a credit card number. I entered it.
The card was refused as "invalid number." I entered it again. No go. I tried another card. "We're sorry. We already have that card number on file." (That's news to me.)
I tried a third card. No go. AOL offered me a toll-free number for "customer service." I called and remained on hold for nearly an hour. A representative came on the line and asked me if I had typed the number correctly. Yup. Typed my name exactly as shown on the card? Yup.
Well, she said, "some cards won't let you use them for payment for online services. Just try another card." And she hung up.
Determined to make this work, I tried a fourth card. It was accepted. Then I had to pick a user name. With 6 million AOL users, most of the good ones are taken, believe me. Another half-hour of picking elapsed before I settled on "Jim45923" or something.
The service then tried to connect me to its local 28,800 bps line but never could because of a "network error." I settled for the 14,400 bps line and meandered through the service.
If you think the Web is slow, try America Online at 14,400 bps.
Changing from one part of the service to another, in my case, took the better part of three minutes.
After a few weeks of this, I was through. I looked in vain for an online method to cancel my account. I had to call another toll-free number...wait on hold for 33 minutes and face a hard-sell to keep it.
I was told to expect a letter confirming my cancellation in the mail within two weeks; it's been a month and nary a sight of it. Wanna guess if my credit card will be charged for the service even though I quit during the free time period?
So I'm still reeling from that experience when CompuServe last week mails me an update to its WinCim software. (I've been a CompuServe user since 1984, so I'm hip to upgrades.)
This upgrade disabled my existing Internet setup and tells me I "don't have a modem installed" when my eyes can clearly see my desktop model staring at me. An hour of fiddling later, I'm back in business except I get an error message every time I connect. I just ignore it.
I still pay $9.95 a month for five hours of use of CompuServe when I bet I don't use it 5 minutes. I keep it because, like a lot of users, I don't want to notify all those people who have my e-mail address there. It's the same scheme that the big phone companies are using to sell Internet access; give it to people for free for a few months, get their e-mail address out there, and they won't want to switch when the bills come.
But online services had better shape up - the days of charging people hundreds of dollars a month for lousy, slow service are over. Flat-rate Internet providers are doing it better and offering lots of content that online services can't touch.
- CALL OF THE WEEK: Microsoft has released version 3.0.1 of its Internet Explorer for Windows 95. Get it for free at "http://www.microsoft.com"
- WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Tired of the Macarena yet? You need to see the "Hey Macaroni" screensaver, a freebie at "http://www.risoftsystems.com". It's for Windows 3.1 or 95; (if you have Win 95 after the install process, turn the included control panel off and use the control panel built in to Win 95 for better performance. Just right click on the desktop and hit PROPERTIES).