AOL, an example that worse is sometimes better for business (initially)

I'm going to chat all night!

Remember those AOL discs that kept coming in the mail in the 90's? The ones that showed up even if you were already an AOL customer, even if you attempted to contact AOL to stop, even if you shredded them up and mailed them back, even if you bricked up your mailbox? Well, they weren't free...

From the article:
[Even today] 40 percent of AOL’s revenue comes from dial-up subscriptions...


WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! 


back to the article:
 How much did it cost to get there?
AOL’s former CMO Jan Brandt tells TechCrunch that the disks cost more than $300 million; maybe even more shockingly, “At one point, 50% of the CD’s produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it.” But AOL was happy with the investment: At its peak, it logged a new subscriber every six seconds, she said.

here, read more -> http://www.geekosystem.com/aol-install-disks-cost/