[geeks] Why I hate Verizon Online

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 @ 10:37 -0500, John Francini said:

> It may be for some people.
> 
> For those of us who Know What We're Doing(tm), which would include  
> this list and everyone I work with, it's merely a damned pipe.

I don't know... even people who are computer newbies... for the most
part I almost never see them use their WAN provider's content.

> I don't care for any of their 'value added' crap.

Here's what I see as their value added crap:

	- a home page specific to the service where you can pay bills
	  and look at some "exclusive" content that everyone else
	  has too
	- some coupons for computer hardware, and occasional online deals
	  for subscribers
	- some deals on software, which of course is always for Windows
	- some fancy wizard-ware for Windows (again) that suffices to take a
	  standard and relatively easy network connection and turn it into
	  a non-standard nightmare dependent on a Windows box
	- some help desk software that no one uses unless things go wrong,
	  at which point they want to use the telephone

Is there something else I'm missing?

AOL was the kind of content provision in the 1990s, and even they seem
to feel their model isn't working any more.

> In fact, if I could get a "pipe only" service with the same  
> bandwidth, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

Same here. I keep telling people that all I want is a pipe. I don't mind
if it also has DNS and domain service, but only if that part is just as
cheap as I can get it elsewhere.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["If you tell the truth, you don't have to
remember anything" -- Mark Twain]