AOL, known to most people as "that Internet service provider that costs way too much money", may reportedly soon be absolutely free to people with a high-speed connection. The motive behind this potential move for AOL is to increase their advertising revenue. With the increasing obsolescence of dial-up, AOL's been losing customers rapidly, and advertising dollars have gone with them.

Under the proposed change, dial-up users who use another service could also sign up for all of AOL's services for free. There would still be a subscription-based fee for people who wanted to have AOL as their main dial-up provider. AOL says this risky move could cost them as much as $2 billion in lost subscription revenue, predicting as much as 8 million people cancelling their accounts.

Obviously AOL needs to pick up some steam, and they're realizing that they can't stay alive as a high-end dial-up service, or as a company that requires a double monthly fee for service for high-speed people. I think this move is a smart one for AOL. We'll see if it actually goes through.

Read more. Story broke by the Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Report Published by: Mark Raby