Re: Genie...is it worth it?

[bazyar@netcom.com (Jawaid Bazyar)]

bird@nwsrs.nw.att.com (J. L. Walters) writes:

Joe Walters wrote:
>Well, guess I'll have to read that one ;-)

 'Taint worth it.

>> It also costs $3/hour, which is totally outrageous in my opinion.

>Current charges are $7.50/month for four hours access which works out
>to be $1.88/hour which I usually stay within. WHY the price goes up
>with increased usage is beyound me and I'd love to see an explanation.

  GEnie's hardware perhaps can't handle the load - mabe they
need the discouragement to keep load down? Just a guess. Either
that, or they're raping us :-)

>> Internet providers are much less expensive, averaging $20/mo for
>> _unlimited_ usage.

>Good point if you tend to spend lots of time looking for things,
>downloading them etc., etc. One provider in my area allows up to 10Mb
>of local storage, Unix, ftp, www, etc., etc., at 14.4K. GEnie asks
>extra for higher speeds.

  Or real-time chats. Real-time chats can be very valuable, but
they're a tad pricey on GEnie (and AOL for that matter). Delphi's
20/20 (20 hours for $20) is the cheapest plan of any of the services,
but Delphi itself is somewhat lacking.. it does make a good Internet
provider for those who don't have a proper local IP.

>One point to keep in mind is that the on-line services are in a life
>and death struggle right now and are tending to lower their prices and
>upgrade their services in order to keep you. I'd hope that GEnie will
>go to 9600 or 14.4 in the near future.

  GEnie does have 9600, but they charge an arm and a leg. I think we'll
see AOL around for a good long time due to their aggressive stance.
They are building their service on top of the Internet infrastructure,
which is the way to do it.


>		Joe Walters att!nwsrs!bird NW 31K14 (708) 224-7189
>		To know, and not to do, is not yet to know.
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