The article states "that its Membership Group — the division that includes its dial-up Internet business — still generates most of the company's revenue".
According to the Yahoo! report[1] it includes every membership service (such as Mail):
"The Membership Group, which consists of offerings that serve AOL’s registered account holders, both free and paid, and are focused on delivering world-class experiences to AOL’s loyal users who rely on these AOL products and properties every day. The results for this segment include AOL’s subscription offerings and advertising offerings on Membership Group properties, such as AOL Mail, as well as from performance compensation for marketing third party products and services."
I do not find this surprising at all. I realize it is not dial-up, but my in-laws who pay >$70/month for high-speed broadband are still convinced that AOL is the only route to the "Internet". I cannot convince them otherwise.
Or people who have broadband, but keep paying for AOL's dialup service because they don't realize they think they need to in order to keep their AOL email and instant messaging accounts.
That said, I'd like to have a closer look at the numbers before jumping to any conclusions. Nowadays the situation might be complicated a bit by the fact that AOL bundles "backup dial-up" service in with their packages of paid services that are primarily intended for broadband users.
If you have an iPhone, switch to EDGE for something roughly approximating the dialup experience. (I think it's a bit faster, but they're in the same ballpark.)
But AFAIK EDGE almost never gets anywhere close to its theoretical speed limit while 56k modems are usually very close, so in practice EDGE might be something like 50-100% faster.
until my grandparents passed away their entire use for "the internet" was AOL and that only to receive pictures of their grandchildren. I think I may have some other older relatives who use the net and/or AOL simply for email.
The article states "that its Membership Group — the division that includes its dial-up Internet business — still generates most of the company's revenue".
According to the Yahoo! report[1] it includes every membership service (such as Mail):
"The Membership Group, which consists of offerings that serve AOL’s registered account holders, both free and paid, and are focused on delivering world-class experiences to AOL’s loyal users who rely on these AOL products and properties every day. The results for this segment include AOL’s subscription offerings and advertising offerings on Membership Group properties, such as AOL Mail, as well as from performance compensation for marketing third party products and services."
[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/aol-reports-revenue-growth-fir...