Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Make it stop

Dear AOL:

I first received one of your unsolicited software diskettes back in 1997. Despite my household's being a customer, you sent invitations to sign up. And despite my having a Mac, you sent Windows software. But since the disk was a standard 1.44MB diskette, I reformatted it and used it for storage. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.

But then the world went CD-ROM. I received one CD per month for a year. Perhaps my failure to respond to your offer (which no sane person would refuse) caused you to lose confidence in the US Postal service, which prompted the redundant mailings, just in case I didn't get the disk the first 11 times. I used some for coasters. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.

In 2000 I got broadband. Your earnest invitations to switch from 1500K to 56K in order to access AOL's "unique content" continued. And despite Google, and Gnutella, you then offered me a chance to pay you $5 per month on top of what I pay the cable company to get celebrity gossip, trailers for movies I'd never see, and the amazing ability to "share photos" and "download music".

While I admire your persistence, I have run out of creative uses for the useless CDs you keep sending me. At this point, too many landfills have been "AOL Optimized". Please stop, or I shall be compelled to contact the media and then dump truckloads of your CDs on the lawn of your corporate headquarters.