AOL: Trouble in Paradise?

The paradise is the distancing of AOL services from the all too familiar, shiney yellow man boxed CDs we've all come to loathe and recignize. Filling landfills week after week (or stocking up on "coasters") may be a thing of the past as AOL moves from its massive push of 1,000,000,000,000 free hours! to a free service.

Now, the layoffs begin. Even with the alleged 40% savings on the bottom line reported to be produced by the switch it's no surprise some of those in the ranks are being set free.

The AP headlines "AOL to cut payroll by 5,000, 25 percent of its work force".

Some of the biggest cuts appear to be in Europe, customer service, and the "sales force" stuffing little gold discs in unsolicited mailings.

European market is to be sold to another company as AOL bows out. Customers support will be greatly reduced as free live services are only available to paying customers. And hey, if you don't HAVE TO pay why would you? Well, until it's 230am the day before a thesis is due and you're in dire need of some AOL tech support. But how often does that happen? And anyways, if you've got internet access there are plenty of IT support groups, forums, and threads to search. Make a pot of coffee and get to searching. It'll probably take less time than phoning an AOL rep anyway. But that's pure speculation.

The changes are coming not only because AOL plans to stop aggressively marketing its dial-up service, but also because it will end its practice of charging high-speed Internet users for access to its content and services, such as e-mail and parental control software.

The layoffs are expected to begin on September or October. I hope AOL has a plan to keep employees motivated for that long. Unsecure employees can be dangerous to any company and since no one is positive where the cuts will be focused no one is safe.

A good choice and good move by the Time Warner and AOL execs since users are switching to broadband and higher speeds every day, still a cut this drastic and PUBLIC will unsettle many things for the months to come. The stock market value notices and has held back slightly, we'll see what happens from the employee stand point.