19-Year-Old Squatted At AOL For 2 Months 141
New submitter mrnick writes "Eric Simons, 19 years old, was working at incubator Imagine K2 in Silicon Valley, which was hosted at AOL's Palo Alto campus. His grant money eventually ran out, but his access badge kept working, so he moved into AOL's office. He slept on a couch, took showers and washed clothes in the office gym, and ate for free in the cafeteria, all the while working on his new start-up. He was able to get away with this for two months before being discovered by security guard."
Re:AOL still exists? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:AOL Offices (Score:4, Informative)
not to defend AOL, but it is really NOT their responsibility to determine whether their service is needed by their customers.. but rather to provide the services the customer subscribes to -- which is what AOL does. similarly, if you subscribe to cable tv but then install a satellite dish, it is YOUR job to cancel the cable if you no longer need or want it - the cable company can't read your mind, YOU have to return their equipment and cancel the service (or pay the bill, or suffer the consequences of doing neither)
___
if you do happen to know someone paying for AOL dialup but they have high speed internet.. do them a favor by suggesting they cancel the AOL dialup if they don't need it (laptop use when traveling to remote locations without wifi or other high speed options, etc)
for those who actually like the AOL client software or want to keep their @aol email account -- they can do both. you can use AOL's client software on your own internet connection (called "BYOA" - bring your own access); and if you don't use AOL client software, existing @aol email can be read at mail.aol.com - the email address(es) remain even when you cancel your paid AOL service (basically it just converts to a 'free' BYOA account).
don't forget to mention that if they cancel their paid AOL service and have a bundled AOL-provided antivirus, they'll need to replace it with something else.
to cancel paid AOL service, see http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=219764 [aol.com]
Re:AOL still exists? (Score:2, Informative)
Ya. My mother still refers to the whole computer as "The AOL".
Re:AOL still exists? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they buy up popular websites, make editorial and staffing changes to fit their monetizing goals, and then leech off the site's residual popularity until the talented people they still have and their audience get tired of the new sites and go elsewhere. There's enough Op-Ed blog bits about Tech Crunch post-AOL acquisition to show this.
A dying company playing vampire on young properties to support it's existence a little while longer. Soon they'll be another Lycos.