kehoe@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu (Brendan Kehoe) (11/14/90)
When all of this hit the fan, I called up a friend of mine who mentioned that he was using Prodigy quite a bit. Boy did HE have a lot to say. He said that very morning he'd mailed off his last check with a 3-page letter explaining why he was cancelling the service. From what he said, more than "9 or 15" people are disgruntled about all of this [censorship, email tariffs, etc]. He said he personally knew upwards of 200 people that chose to sign off the system at about the same time. But debating whether or not they should do all of this is, in my opinion, a pretty big waste of time. Why? Because of the market Prodigy's trying to hit. They're not aiming for the people that see the GEnie ads in Compute! magazine, or those that try out CompuServe with their intro kit; they're looking for the people that are walking through Sears' electronics department looking for a good deal on video tapes & happen to see this bright yellow box with people smiling all over it, right next to the computer they were given for Christmas. They don't want the people that have any kind of technical ability at all. They want those that still view computers as complete and utter mysteries never to be solved. And as long as they blitz the media & have it as widely distributed & available as it is now, they'll never have a shortage of customers. In about a month this will probably die down to a low murmur (though I'd LOVE to see this covered on the Today show, but I doubt it will happen), and they'll keep raking in the naive customers. Whatcha think? Brendan Kehoe | brendan@cs.widener.edu [ It's here, but it won't resolve yet ] For now: kehoe@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu | Also: brendan.kehoe@cyber.widener.edu