Wednesday, August 31, 2005
AOL Caters to the Insane
I'm sure that anyone who's ever dealt with America Online has had an inkling that the service caters to morons and the insane. Now the company itself is admitting to it all. I just logged into my free AIM email account to read this message from the company:
AIM Mail lets you:
Reduce password overload.
You only have to log in once to access both your AIM Mail and your IM.
Be spontaneous.
Respond to an IM with either an email or an IM.
Exude that confident glow.
We've got you covered with industry-leading spam and virus protection.
Keep anything and everything.
Two GBs of storage enables your hoarding tendencies.
Preserve important relationships.
Unsend an email sent to an AOL or IM address. Unless it's been opened, in which case you're on your own.
Secretly indulge in obsessive behavior.
Check to see if an email you've sent has been read by its recipient. Check again. And again.
Do it your way.
You can easily access your AIM Mail from Microsoft Outlook or any other IMAP-compliant email program.
So one minute they're urging me to "be spontaneous" and "respond to an IM with either an email or an IM." Then the next minute they warn me that I might want to "preserve important relationships" by opting to "unsend an email sent to an AOL or IM address" with the warning: "Unless it's been opened, in which case you're on your own." As if these things didn't spill it out for me, they wrote the words: "Secretly indulge in obsessive behavior." I'm told that I can "check to see if an email (I've) sent has been read by its recipient." I can: "Check again. And again."
Let's get this straight - a major American corporation is encouraging people to go a bit bonkers sending email that could destroy our personal relationships. If we have a moment of clarity and realize that sending the email was a mistake, we can stop it...if we do so in time. Should we be gluttons for punishment, we can obsessively sit at our computers refreshing the box to see if the person has read the message yet.
Heaven forbid that people prone to this sort of behavior seek out professional help...not when AOL is here to feed our psychoses.
AIM Mail lets you:
Reduce password overload.
You only have to log in once to access both your AIM Mail and your IM.
Be spontaneous.
Respond to an IM with either an email or an IM.
Exude that confident glow.
We've got you covered with industry-leading spam and virus protection.
Keep anything and everything.
Two GBs of storage enables your hoarding tendencies.
Preserve important relationships.
Unsend an email sent to an AOL or IM address. Unless it's been opened, in which case you're on your own.
Secretly indulge in obsessive behavior.
Check to see if an email you've sent has been read by its recipient. Check again. And again.
Do it your way.
You can easily access your AIM Mail from Microsoft Outlook or any other IMAP-compliant email program.
So one minute they're urging me to "be spontaneous" and "respond to an IM with either an email or an IM." Then the next minute they warn me that I might want to "preserve important relationships" by opting to "unsend an email sent to an AOL or IM address" with the warning: "Unless it's been opened, in which case you're on your own." As if these things didn't spill it out for me, they wrote the words: "Secretly indulge in obsessive behavior." I'm told that I can "check to see if an email (I've) sent has been read by its recipient." I can: "Check again. And again."
Let's get this straight - a major American corporation is encouraging people to go a bit bonkers sending email that could destroy our personal relationships. If we have a moment of clarity and realize that sending the email was a mistake, we can stop it...if we do so in time. Should we be gluttons for punishment, we can obsessively sit at our computers refreshing the box to see if the person has read the message yet.
Heaven forbid that people prone to this sort of behavior seek out professional help...not when AOL is here to feed our psychoses.
