I’ve been doing this Internet stuff for a long time. Years and years and years.
Most of those years my ISP has been Earthlink.
When I started out there were only a few companies providing Internet service. I tried most of them. Out here in rural America the performance was spotty at best. Some days it wasn’t too bad. Others it would take an hour for a page to load.
Well after trying just about everyone, I settled on Earthlink. They almost always worked.
Down through the years ISP’s have popped up like dandelions in the spring. Most are cheaper than Earthlink’s $21.95 a month. I’ve stayed with them because their service worked well and I’m too damned lazy to change to someone else.
About a year ago I gave my dad a computer and set up the Internet on it for him. I bought an account with NetZero for him to use. Well we both found NetZero to be crap. At least half the time he couldn’t get online. And when you do go online, they force you to go through their system to connect and go to their homepage. I don’t like that.
I cancelled NetZero.
I had some unused email addresses on my Earthlink account. I set one up for my dad and set his computer to connect to my Earthlink account. I figured that since I was allowed 5 email accounts and wasn’t using them, it would be OK to add him in.
He only uses the computer to do a little emailing and to check the news on our MyFamily.com site. He spends very little time on it.
Earthlink has decided to start charging me extra for this. From $10 to 12 a month extra.
Stupid moves like this make me mad. I get a lot less lazy when I’m mad.
I can buy 3 accounts from Earthlink competitors and have money left over. So I think I’ll buy 2 accounts with Earthlink competitors and have a lot of money left over.
So Earthlink has tried to squeeze a little more from someone that has been a customer for their over-priced service for more than a decade. Now they’re going to get one less customer.
Brilliant.
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