AOL in a big media deal, Clinton running for office, stocks at all time highs. What's not to love about 2000.
Which Clinton was running in 2000?
Al Clinton.
Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
151–160 of 239 posts
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#152For those who are wondering why this might be a good investment: AOL still has 2 million (!) dialup subscribers that fork over $20 a month. http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-...
At a cost of $2000 a sub, that's pretty expensive though.
They're going to rake in that much in people forgetting to cancel their AOL dial-up account.
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#153Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#154For those who are wondering why this might be a good investment: AOL still has 2 million (!) dialup subscribers that fork over $20 a month. http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-...
I feel like this is a perfect reason why this is a bad investment. Anyone who is still subscribed to AOL dialup is honestly probably a senior citizen or technology-illiterate. AOL is not even marketing their dialup service anymore. These people over time will slowly decline until those 2 million eventually hit zero. In fact, you can clearly see the nearly exponential downward trend right on the article you linked. Th…
Selling Depends is a big market, there is a lot more cash from adult diapers to be made.
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
if low wage, and probably lower skilled workers can take your job, you probably suck The alternative hypothesis is that you are overqualified. You may not have been overqualified when you took the position but now you are. De-skilling is a very real phenomenon in the workplace. The xenophobic uncle has seen more than you and may well be the wiser man. Sometimes the country on the other side of the border is the enemy…
"The xenophobic uncle has seen more than you and may well be the wiser man. Sometimes the country on the other side of the border is the enemy." Open source has also cut many jobs and devalued salaries, but many don't see it this way. As businesses get more tech savvy (which is happening fairly quickly), they realize that they don't have to pay software engineers to build software any longer. They can take open sourc…
> Open source has also cut many jobs and devalued salaries,
[citation needed]
Obviously, choosing an open source model limits the opportunities for monetizing software development through licensing fees. I don't see the evidence that it has actually, in fact, "cut many jobs and devalued salaries", however.
> As businesses get more tech savvy (which is happening fairly quickly), they realize that they don't have to pay software engineers to build software any longer.
Non-software business avoided doing that directly even before open source was particularly popular, by paying other people for COTS software licenses, support, professional services, custom development, etc. Having worked in an enterprise firm at the time, while we had large license fees, the hammer to get people to pay them wasn't that "if you don't pay, we'll sue you for copyright infringement for using the software without a valid license", it was "if you don't pay, you lose the support that's bundled as part of your license agreement".
Support, professional services, custom development that's different features desired by the general market, etc., is what most business pay for with software, no matter what the licensing model is. Open source doesn't affect that at all. And the people that can be most effective at selling that, even with open source software, are the people who are actually deeply involved in developing the software. Which is why, even with open source software, the firms that make their revenue selling support to enterprises are still paying core developers on the project -- so, in effect, the end users are still paying for the development of the software, just like they always did. (Of course, open source means that the companies that want to can just get the source and provide their own support -- but many of the big users doing that, it turns out, also and up paying their own employees to work as core developers on the upstream project.)
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but why do you believe WhatsApp is overvalued? They have an incredible mindshare, it is the only app (besides Facebook), that I see moms and grandmas using on a daily basis. Heck, my mom talk to me mostly through it. She evens send me emoticons, pictures and voice notes!
I've never seen a person in the US actually use WhatsApp to talk to another person in the US. I used to occasionally see someone use it to talk to friends who were traveling abroad, but that's mostly been replaced by iMessage or Hangouts at this point.
I've paid for WhatsApp and am in the US. Yes, I originally joined to chat with people overseas, but now it's also the sole messaging service I use with multiple US-based contacts.
AMA I guess, since apparently fellow Americans don't understand WhatsApp.
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
They owned a closed "Walled Garden" version of the internet. Once the open internet took off, AOL was doomed.
Isn't that what Facebook does now?
It's exactly what Facebook does. There's always a market for walled gardens, if they can keep up with the change in the free internet.
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#158To give you some perspective. When Time Warner and AOL merged back in 1999, AOL was valued at $166 Billion.
No that's backwards. AOL bought Time Warner for $165B. Their valuations relative to each other was 55/45, so actually AOL was valued at more than $165B. But yes in any case, AOL was worth quite a bit more in 2000 than 2015.
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#159AOL in a big media deal, Clinton running for office, stocks at all time highs. What's not to love about 2000.
"It's different this time..."
Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
No the commenter you're asking, but I've never had a constructive conversation with "those types" - the kind who go out of their way to talk about getting laid off from a tech company. Of all the ones I've spoken with, it followed the pattern of "BigCo outsourced jobs to those darn Foreigners, and I got laid off, and it will happen to you too!". In particular I worked with a former DBA for IBM at a grocery store in h…
> probably lower skilled workers can take your job, you probably suck More probably these decisions are made at a very high level and the individual abilities of these workers aren't even taken into consideration. The real lessons here are never trust your employer, loyalty is a two-way street and always have an exit plan.
Great point here. Never stop interviewing, always maintain your network connections, and make sure development that you do is associated with your personal brand so that it's portable. There's always a company willing to pay you more, treat you better, give you more interesting assignments, or ALL OF THE ABOVE.