Remember Those AOL CD's?

[4kyiyw4k]

How Much Did Those AOL CDs Cost? A Lot.

 

Sweet, free shiny thing!

 

If you were computing at all in the 1990s, you should remember those AOL discs (or disks) that would frequently show in your mailbox. Surely printing up all those CDs and mailing them out to millions of people couldn't have been cheap â?? and they weren't.

 

A question of Quora asked: "How much did it cost AOL to distribute all those CDs back in the 1990's?"

 

Amazingly, AOL's co-founder Steve Case answered with the following response:

 

"A lot! I don't remember the total spending but do recall in the early 1990s our target was to spend 10% of lifetime revenue to get a new subscriber. At that time I believe the average subscriber life was about 25 months and revenue was about $350 so we spent about $35 to acquire subscribrs. As we were able to lower the cost of disks/trial/etc we were able to ramp up marketing. (Plus, we knew Microsoft was coming and it was never going to be easier or cheaper to get market share.) When we went public in 1992 we had less than 200,000 subscribers; a decade later the number was in the 25 million range. â?¦"

 

It may have cost a lot, but it certainly worked to build AOL into a nationwide force in the business.

 

Former Chief Marketing Officer at AOL, Jan Brandt, chimed in with a number and a staggering fact:

 

"Over $300 million :-) At one point, 50% of the CD's produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it. We were logging in new subscribers at the rate of one every six seconds."

 

What did you do with all the free AOL CDs you received in the mail? Did you make crafts out of them? Did you use them to make neat light shows inside your microwave? Drink coasters at your computer desk? Tell us in the comments below!

[Numbers`]

never got 1

[Parumpapapums]

OMG i loved getting them, and upgrading them from 2.0 to 8.0 before i got cable Lol good times. I used to collect them and pile them up had a pile at like 3feet high but dunno what happend to em.

[Ownedu]

Trashed em

[Bearcub]

OMG i loved getting them, and upgrading them from 2.0 to 8.0 before i got cable Lol good times. I used to collect them and pile them up had a pile at like 3feet high but dunno what happend to em.

 

This same thing with me

 

I clocked out with AOL 9.0, i then realised you dont need AOL to go on the internet and there is such a thing as a browser/AIM.

 

 

FREE 900 HOURS LOL

 

Anybody remember the sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

[Ash]

Flung them all down the street into the forest when i was about 12... LOL

[4kyiyw4k]

OMG i loved getting them, and upgrading them from 2.0 to 8.0 before i got cable Lol good times. I used to collect them and pile them up had a pile at like 3feet high but dunno what happend to em.

 

This same thing with me

 

I clocked out with AOL 9.0, i then realised you dont need AOL to go on the internet and there is such a thing as a browser/AIM.

 

 

FREE 900 HOURS LOL

 

Anybody remember the sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

my mom still uses dialup at work

[Satan]

Lmfao!

They usto have shelves full of them at Asda, I remember taking like 20 of them and throwing them :')

[claudia]

idk but i swear you know every single thing bout computers..

[schalke]

still sitting right next to the computer with all the other CDs we have

[JustKool]

I have like ~20 of them in my room somewhere

[Eazy]

i got like 5

[Little Tony1]

I broke them everytime I saw one lol.

[Creepyweird]

One word:

 

Frisby

[samuel]

idk i thought they were pretty useless since i didnt know what to do with them