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AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

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Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#231
My wife's grandparents use and pay for AOL. I think they pay for a premium package? All I know is that it handles their internet, web browsing, and email.

One day they had issues setting it up, so they call a help line. They ended up being scammed, and paid this person ~$200 to fix their issue. After it happened, they immediately called me up and asked if they were scammed.

I told them that unfortunately, they were. Surprisingly though, the scammer did actually fix their issue.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#232

My wife's grandparents use and pay for AOL. I think they pay for a premium package? All I know is that it handles their internet, web browsing, and email. One day they had issues setting it up, so they call a help line. They ended up being scammed, and paid this person ~$200 to fix their issue. After it happened, they immediately called me up and asked if they were scammed. I told them that unfortunately, they were.…

Was it really a scam then? Or just extremely overpriced?

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#233

My wife's grandparents use and pay for AOL. I think they pay for a premium package? All I know is that it handles their internet, web browsing, and email. One day they had issues setting it up, so they call a help line. They ended up being scammed, and paid this person ~$200 to fix their issue. After it happened, they immediately called me up and asked if they were scammed. I told them that unfortunately, they were.…

Are you using the word scam to describe AOL overcharging for helpdesk service or was the helpdesk not affiliated with AOL and they just happened to know how to fix the problem (or maybe they caused it?)?

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#234
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The NYC area is one exception. I've worked at a company that was acquired, and they laid off quite a few of the NYC-area employees. Rumor had it that some of them were making more than their managers, and their managers' managers.

> Rumor had it that some of them were making more than their managers, and their managers' managers. So on par with actual value created.

[deleted]

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#235
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Evernote but it just isn’t worth $130 / year for me. Last year they had a sale for $50 (or was it $60) for a year and I paid for that. If I can’t renew at that I’ll have to figure out how to migrate to Obsidian.

Migrating to Obsidian looks to be very easy now: https://help.obsidian.md/import/evernote When I converted many years ago it required 3rd party tools and was slightly more involved (but still totally worth it).

Two things I suspect I'll miss from Evernote is their web clipper and their OCR.

Last time I tried the Obsidian web clipper, it was pretty rough. It would drop images or include ads. I found the Evernote clipper to be pretty much flawless.

Evernote's OCR capabilities are also great. Somehow it's able to do a better job of recognizing my handwriting than even I can do sometimes. Last I checked, Obsidian isn't very good at this which is strange because the two big platforms — Windows and MacOS — both have excellent OCR APIs they could use for free.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Evernote but it just isn’t worth $130 / year for me. Last year they had a sale for $50 (or was it $60) for a year and I paid for that. If I can’t renew at that I’ll have to figure out how to migrate to Obsidian.

Wait a sec — you're saying you'll take the time and trouble to "... figure out how to migrate to Obsidian" rather than pay the $70-$80 renewal premium over what you paid last year? Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose you spend a total of 3 hours from start to finish doing the migration. That's the equivalent of being paid $25/hour in lieu of paying the Evernote full price renewal as opposed to what you paid on sal…

Aside from the fact that such calculations aren't necessarily applicable anyway, it is incorrect because they would most likely have continued to use and have to pay for Evernote for more than just the one year.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at the end of the last tech bubble, Herman Miller chairs were available for cheap. wonder what the score from the ashes will come this round?

I'd be super down for GPUs to be cheaper again.

Monkey's paw: GPUs will be cheap but there will be no new ones sold for ten years. Basically Mad Max with computer parts.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Evernote but it just isn’t worth $130 / year for me. Last year they had a sale for $50 (or was it $60) for a year and I paid for that. If I can’t renew at that I’ll have to figure out how to migrate to Obsidian.

Wait a sec — you're saying you'll take the time and trouble to "... figure out how to migrate to Obsidian" rather than pay the $70-$80 renewal premium over what you paid last year? Let's do a thought experiment. Suppose you spend a total of 3 hours from start to finish doing the migration. That's the equivalent of being paid $25/hour in lieu of paying the Evernote full price renewal as opposed to what you paid on sal…

You might be surprised to know that I also mow my lawn, I clean home, I cook sometimes, I do laundry, I drive myself to work, and I sometimes even watch TV, spend time on HN, or play video games.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#239
Looking at the portfolio of businesses that Bending Spoons has, it's like a who's-who of 2010s startups.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with AOL. That business itself was an amalgamation of other businesses over time, so they may find a mirror image of themselves once they start to dig into the weeds.

Re: AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is almost always possible.

Email was often used as a primary key on older websites

Yes, and it's possible to change that e-mail. The only place I've encountered which doesn't is Alibaba.
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