[Ti] AOL only does HTML

[Michael Bigley]

>Is loyalty bias a sin? Explain how my loyalty to AOL is a sin  but 
>my loyalty to Macinstosh is a virtue.

Ah, there is your loyalty bias' negative side; you inferred that I 
was stating that it is a bad thing. It is not. In fact, loyalty bias 
is something that all companies strive for and it exists everywhere, 
not just in computing (for example, you may buy Tide because your mom 
bought Tide, even if it costs more and there is not empirical proof 
that it is better than Cheer).  In computing, loyalty bias creates 
people like yourself who become experts in particular 
hardware/software; others less experienced rely on you for certain 
information about the product because they know that you will have a 
reliable answer more quickly than searching acceptable sources (in 
the case of AOL, keywords I suppose).

>       It isn't AOL's job to make website devolopers jobs easy.    As 
>far as I'm concerned, it's AOL's job to make sure I can get online 
>anywhere in the world, not be dropped, not be bumped offline, not 
>hit a busy signal, not be barraged by spam, not have the mail server 
>go down, not be hit with popup windows.

While it is not their "job" to make someone else's job easier, their 
proprietary web access is not necessary for any of the things you 
describe above, and in fact add a layer of complexity for users as 
well. And their only motivation is advertising revenue.  Especially 
since AOL owns Netscape, the best solution for users and developers 
would be to eliminate their proprietary web interface and simple 
launch a web browser.  Further, if you make life more difficult for 
someone, as AOL continues to do for developers, they have to expect 
that those people are not going to say nice things about them.

No matter how good of a citizen your next door neighbor is, if he 
dumps his garbage on your lawn every morning, you are not going to 
think highly of him, and eventually will start letting others know, 
especially when someone else comments on what a great person he is. 
What AOL does to the developer community is no different; so when you 
speak highly of them, remember, they are throwing their garbage in 
our yard.
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Mike Bigley                Maineville, Ohio
       http://www.norbertrunning.com
Please support an American Indian Elder &
Medicine Man by visiting the above link.
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