Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFF and Prodigy
Message-ID: <1991Jan03.060212.8594@looking.on.ca>
Date: 3 Jan 91 06:02:12 GMT
References: <6506@crash.cts.com> <1990Dec24.180546.532@eff.org>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 27

I am not sure that Prodigy's management is uninterested in providing
what their clients want.  I just think they want other clients.  :-)

I've talked to Prodigy people and it's clear from the start that their
goal was not to create a flat-rate Compuserve.

They are looking for another market, a market that they believe is the
big one down the road.

However, when they started, they got a lot of people who were looking for
that flat-rate CIS.  And, of course, the more active, aware, and opinionated
users are the non-online-virgins, and they are the ones who wanted a cheaper
version of what they had.

I think Prodigy is too early.  There will eventually be a market for what
they call the Dinsey of the online world.  It isn't now, however.

I see them as torn between what they want their service to be on one hand,
and the fact that they have to show some success today on the other.  To
get success today, they need the business of the existing online
community that wants flat rate "traditional" online service.   But that's
not where they intend to go in the future.

Without the huge financial backing it's got, it would have died a while
ago.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473