Just yesterday I posted about AOL’s layoffs of 5,000 people as a cost saving part of their plan to offer their services for free. Well, it would seem the beleaguered ISP is shedding subscribers even faster than Wall Street predicted. This according to a couple of Bear Sterns analysts. They rang up AOL to cancel their $14.95 subscriptions and switch over to the new free AOL. After holding for 18 minutes, which is way longer than the average 5 to 10-minute wait, the customer-service rep told them "every second call we are receiving today is for free AOL." Probably because they are both MBA’s they quickly worked out that at the rate consumers are calling to receive AOL's free service, it will take less than a month for its 6 million existing broadband subscribers to make the switch. Meaning a huge loss of revenue which is going to be virtually impossible to make up in new ad fees. If I was an AOL employee, I’d be thinking those 5,000 layoffs might just be the tip of the iceberg! 
Well, at least my Internet connection is free!
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