AOL, a Time Warner company, recently announced it would be bringing down the premium services wall, thus exposing otherwise walled-off content. The move is said to be setting AOL up to lose a potential $2 billion in revenue. Services include e-mail, virus protection and other security software as well as content that AOL subscribers currently pay close to $30 a month.
Though AOL is going to lose revenue, I think this is a good move since the company needs to re-position itself and its business model, which was set up back when dial-up Internet was the only mode of getting online. AOL should be able to attract additional content readers and serve additional advertisements and close the gap on its loses. It should also put AOL more directly in competition with Yahoo's online services and content offerings. By taking a hit now AOL is taking a proactive approach as it was most likely going to eventually happen anyway as content is now so freely available online. So I think the move was a good proactive approach, which shows AOL "gets it."
Related Link: Free vs. Paid Content
