9/96
An Offer I Could Not Refuse
ATT is my long distance provider. I use their long distance service to talk to my brother, Harlan, in Chicago for two or three hours each month. He gives me advise on web page creation which I ignore. I give him advise on stocks which he ignores. We scheme about making money on the Net and never do anything. ATT charges me about $35 dollars per month for these conversations.
ATT makes me an offer:
Bring AT&T WorldNet Service home with you and we'll give your first five hours a month FREE for one full year. Simply take a moment to fill out the form below or call 1-800-WORLDNET.
The Survey
Carefully read the section above, then complete the following sentence by checking one of the choices below: I think that ...
1 - ATT is Stupid.
Long distance is ATT’s bread and butter. This promotion gives away the very technology that permits customers to stop paying the fees that are their lifeblood. Do I really need to say anything more? Okay,I'll try again. Let’s say that I own a toll bridge. It is the biggest and most popular bridge over the river. I have become rich and powerful by charging tolls to everyone who crosses the bridge. Now, I have decided to give everyone who crosses the bridge the plans and materials they need to build a speedboat and bypass the bridge. That is the definition of STUPID.
2 - ATT is Smart.
They know exactly what they are doing. Thanks to Bill Gate’s phenomenally complex software, they know the number of people capable of assembling the pieces needed to decrease their long distance bill would not make an appreciable dent in the ATT paper clip budget. By making this offer now, ATT can get a handle on exactly who that group is, and begin offering services that will compensate for the potential loss of long distance revenue. They are planning to stay ahead of the curve, by increasing internet revenues faster than than they lose long distance revenue. They know that if they don’t eat their own children, someone else will. ATT is very, very smart.
3 - ATT is Clueless.
ATT has no clue what they are doing. We are giving them way too much credit. This is a giant bureaucratic snakepit of highly political, empire-building, back-stabbing, middle-management pukes. The only reason for this promotion is that some ambitious wet-behind-the ears MBA (who uses the WEB exclusively to expand his porno collection) has convinced some pot-bellied senior executive (who is proud of the fact that his fingers have never touched a keyboard) that this is a hot new market. They have simply blundered on the scene and will soon blunder off.
4 - All of the above.
5 - None of the above
Special Note: These results are based on a pool of 1 (one) respondents. Since I don't have the HTML skills to actually make this page function, and have no idea which buttons you are pushing, the only respondent I could actually track is me. . . and I have very complex fellings on the subject.
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