America Off Line

About 16 years ago, my dad sent my sister and I a Christmas present. It was a Tandy computer. I admit, I was less than happy. It's not like I was a spoiled kid or anything, but even then I knew that Tandys were complete crap.

Anyway, I couldn't do anything about it. This thing had 256k of storage on it or something ridiculous like that. It wasn't good for much, but my mom went and got a modem and AOL for it. I never really understood what AOL was for. Back then it was actually a way to get online, a service provider. But they made it practically impossible to get to the actual internet. Instead you were given their content. I didn't give a shit about that, I wanted the internet, dammit!

So everytime I read something these days about AOL, I just remember how pointless it was in 1990 as a service provider and how they are now re-branding the company as a content provider. BECAUSE THAT'S ALL IT EVER WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Most days, there are a handful of blogs I try to always read. One of them linked to something different recently, so I checked it out.

The Consumerist seems to be a part of the Gawker Media empire created by Englishman Nick Denton (Wonkette, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Fleshbot, Gawker, The Defamer, et al). Even if it's not, there's still the high quality of information presented in an easy to read format. The focus is the consumer 'biting back'.

I just took a look at the latest update, and it inluded an article about an AOL subscriber trying to cancel their account. There's an MP3 you can listen to of a five-minute phone call. It's ridiculous. He keeps trying and trying to cancel his account, but the customer service rep (CSR) kept trying to figure out why he wanted to cancel. He would not let up. It's pretty funny. Check this link for the full story.