For AOL masochists, AOL is going for broke with free accounts

[Mhochberg at aol.com]

Sorry, Dina. I also have an online friend named Diana so I am not  surprised 
I misspelled yours. 
 
I've had the AOL account for over 17 years, since before there was a  WWW.  
Of course, back then I also had accounts on CompuServe and The  Source too. 
Back then the AOL account was great when traveling and as  a kiddie playground. 
 
There was a real difference between the services too, in terms of what each  
offered. For a short time, you go only go to a business's site if you belonged 
 to the company (AOL or CIS) that they had signed up with. Eventually,  
though, businesses created their own web sites and it didn't matter who  your ISP 
was. 
 
It is funny to see how things change then cycle back and cycle again. At  one 
point, having an aol.com email that was a "real name without numbers" was  
cool, then dangerous, then dorky, cool again and heaven knows what it is  today. 
Whatever, it will change again tomorrow.
 
The same thing happened with my CIS "name" ---73447.1253. For a while it  was 
ordinary, then geeky, then antiquated. By the time I finally dropped  
CompuServe (after 16+ years), it was the mark of a Internet "elder." <shaking  head>
 
---Mary
 
 


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