--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote:
When you say "in order to" are you saying
that this is their
motivation for the way they do this? I doubt it, that's all I'm
saying. I mean, if anything, their system (whereby one person may
show up at a large number of ips during a single session, as far as
a
website can see) would likely lead to *more* problems for AOL users
than *less*.
Yeah, that's exactly their motivation. They live to make money, and
as far as they're concerned, if they could pull all of the internet's
valuable content into their proprietary network they would just fall
all over themselves with glee. Short of that, they'll be the big bad
boy on the block, making sure their 27 million members get access to
all the internet, so they can sell (that's SELL) their software and
access to the great unwashed masses.
As far as problems for AOL users, they don't exacly care that the
internet works less "smoothly" than their own network.
Now, don't take me wrong, I like AOL for two reasons: It allows
grandmas everywhere to connect to the web and provides decent tech
support to them. The other reason is that for a long time they
essentially funded Mozilla development by keeping Netscape software
designers employed.
You have an option: You can leave AOL and use a
different
provider.
I disagree completely.
I meant to say that the Onus should not fall on W, because the W is
now in the corner where AOL and Michael are concerned, whereas users
do have the choice of ISPs.
Granted, it's a less than perfect situation. I apologize if I
originally had failed to convey my meaning correctly.
My understanding is that AOL is actually more often at
fault for
being
*overly* zealous about cancelling people's accounts, not for not
taking action. I remember reading a story that said that people
have
been cancelled based on sending a couple of emails to an
ex-girlfriend, etc.
I think if anyone says boo about an AOL user, the account will be
cancelled.
Let's see.
Itw just makes good business sense for AOL to be that
way. An ISP
that
is willing to stand up for users who get themselves into trouble on
the net is going to incur some serious costs looking into the
allegations, sorting out who is right or wrong, etc. Believe me,
it's
my nearly-fulltime job on Wikipedia. :-)
And you have our gratitude for that :)
It's a lot easier to just kick people off -- they
aren't the
customers
you want. The customers you want just pay their money and don't
cause
any trouble. That's profitable. A person who causes trouble is
just
going to cost you money in dealing ith complaints.
I agree completely.
=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/
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