Free AOL content

Most consumers in the United States have received compact discs in the mail at some point offering hours upon hours of free AOL dial-up service. Millions subscribed to the service, getting premium access to AOL content and, frequently, software that was not entirely bug-free. Millions of others consigned the discs to the trash, or, somewhat entertainly, made them into coasters. Now, AOL has announced that access to all of their content, previously behind a subscriber wall, will be free to users that have Internet access of any kind, not just through AOL. Though AOL will continue to be an ISP for nearly 13 million people, this new strategy is squarely aimed at gathering in new Internet traffic for its advertisers.