Subject: Re: draft-ietf-nat-protocol-complications-02.txt

From: Greg Skinner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:40:02 -0700 (PDT)

Masataka:
   
> If IETF makes it clear that AOL is not an ISP, it will commercially
> motivate AOL to be an ISP.

Keith:

> probably not.  folks who subscribe to AOL aren't likely to be
> reading IETF documents.

> face it, it's not the superior quality of AOL's service that keeps
> AOLers from moving - it's their susceptibility to marketing BS and
> their addiction to chat rooms.  it's hard to help those people.

Assuming they need help.  The impression I have gotten from people
who regularly use AOL is that they are generally satisfied with the
nature of the service (as opposed to the quality of the service).
As they discover more about the Internet, they may or may not switch
to "real" ISPs, depending on whether they have needs for what "real"
ISPs provide.

--gregbo

---

From: "Anthony Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 23:33:50 +0200

Greg Skinner writes:

> The impression I have gotten from people who regularly
> use AOL is that they are generally satisfied with the

It's like radio:  Some people are content to tune in to their favorite FM
station and listen to the Top 40 or "easy listening" music; whereas others
prefer to get ham radio licenses and explore the medium to its fullest.
People who want "easy listening" on the Internet subscribe to AOL; people
who want "ham Internet" subscribe to smaller ISPs that specialize in
providing nothing but fast, "raw" connections to the mighty Net for people
who know what they want.

As long as there are still ways to get the "raw" connections that I prefer,
I don't really care if most people are satisfied with AOL and its
clones--that's their choice.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 17:54:11 -0400

> prefer to get ham radio licenses and explore the medium to its fullest.

Interesting analogy..

> clones--that's their choice.

Well.. obviously you're not a ham operator - most of the ones I know are
quite zealous about complaining when another operator does anything out
of spec.. ;)

It's interesting that the major complaint from the non-AOL crowd isn't about
AOL's existence, it's about interoperability problems.  Quite similar to the
average ham operator....

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech