since we're on the subject -
until recently, the only choices here were dialup or satellite. So, my sister had aol for years (lives two properties down the street), i had a local company that charges $14.95/month.
I could never understand her choice. She said it was so kids could use the internet and be 'protected'. Essentially she had bought into their lies.
Meanwhile, I could call local company and whether it was a billing issue, a technical issue, whatever, the person answering the phone could handle *all* problems. None of this 'let me transfer you' or 'you need to call xxx-xxx-xxxx'.
For when traveling, I had an account with access-4-free.com Up to 10 hrs free access, after that it was $1 per hour with max per month of $10. Note: access-4-free is now out of business.
On a side note, if you have email through a remote server (such as through your website), some places like netzero block you from accessing the remote email server when sending outgoing email. (they claim it's to prevent spam, but in my opinion it's cause they want to be able to put an ad on bottom of all your outgoing emails). They do this by blocking port 25 access to 3rd party mail servers. Some email servers are now where can use a different port to bypass this block. When choosing a new ISP, I always ask the ISP whether or not they block port 25. Since I send all outgoing email through my website's email server, blocking port 25 is a deal-breaker for me.
But anyway, back to subject at hand, I too often wonder why people stick with AOL. Sometimes I suspect it's because it's easier to stay with them than to move to another provider, but that's just my guess.