AOL Roughs Them Up
from the big-bad-bullies dept
The engine behind AOL's impressive revenue growth has always been called into question due to the ridiculously favorable deals they've tended to make. Now a few ex-AOL employees have revealed how they basically used their status to bully smaller companies into signing these unfavorable deals. I was sort of shocked when one executive described how he was made to cry during a deal making session (come on guys it's just business don’t be such a wimp).
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Yeah
I've always thought of AOL as a monolith - kind of hard to tell whether they were evil or not. They were never as 'evil' as Microsoft, but I never believed they were the epitome of corporate saintliness. Maybe they were just being quieter. I think they bought a lot of people off by sending free disks in the mail (for those of you who don't know, AOL sent out diskettes in the mail with AOL software). I don't think that a company can become as hugely successful as AOL without stomping on others and doing a little bullying - I mean, you have to be aggressive to succeed, and most people are looking out for themselves in every situation.
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Re: Yeah
Is there anybody in the civilized world who has not received an AOL diskette or CD?
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Re: Yeah
Probably not as they probably recycle it for housing in the third world. I know it was a bad joke!
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