Aol Still Has Millions Of Paying Customers Including Dial Up Users

Why Do People Still Subscribe to AOL?

According to CNBC, the number of people who still use AOL’s dial-up service is “in the low thousands”. This is in stark contrast to the 2.1 million people who used the service in 2015.

But AOL continues to make good money from a subscription service called AOL Advantage, which offers “critical products for computer security, identity theft protection, premium technical support, and more”.

AOL Advantage reportedly has 1.5 million customers, each paying either $9.99 or $14.99 per month—a hefty and relatively passive income stream for the company. It’s easy to assume that many of these customers will be those who have been with AOL for many years.

What the future holds for AOL’s dial-up and services like AOL Advantage is unclear, since Verizon is selling Yahoo and AOL for $5 billion to a private equity firm.

AOL may not be the giant it once was, but Yahoo still pulls in around 900 million active monthly users, and both are household names for those who grew up during the internet boom.