Copyright © 1996-2004 Al Evans. All rights reserved.

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I’d like to thank Leslie Miller for her great article about Q-Link which appeared in the February 10, 2000 issue of USA Today. It was a pleasure to be interviewed for the article. :-)

To view my Guest Book, click the links below the logo.

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Goodbye, AOL

 

                   Below is the text of an email I sent out on November 9, 2000. In it, I announced my impending
                   departure from AOL and my reasons for doing so.

                  
Good-bye, farewell, so long...
                   11-09-2000

                       Hi! This email is going out to two groups of people:
                    
                         1) ex-QLinkers whom I personally know;
                         2) the kind folks who have written to me regarding my "Remember QLink!" web page.

                   If you don't fall into either group and you have by some chance received this email,
                   please accept my apologies. I am no spammer, and this is a one-time-only mailing.
                   You will never hear from me again.

                   I first signed on to Q-Link at 11:02:04 PM EST on December 10, 1987. I know the
                   exact time because years ago an in-house friend was kind enough to look at my
                   account and tell me. Unbelievable as it may seem, I still have the Post-It-Note on which
                   I wrote the info. In fact, as I'm looking at it and writing this I just realized it's stuck to the
                   unmailed warranty registration card for the CMD HD-100 hard drive that I bought in
                   1991. At any rate, I know that compared to some of you reading this, I am an online
                   newcomer. Even so, thirteen years is thirteen years. Excluding the recipients of this
                   email, I doubt that AOL today has many active accounts that go back that far.

                   Every new frontier has its pioneers. Most of us probably didn't realize it at the time, but
                   we Q-Linkers were the pioneers of the commercialized version of cyberspace.
                   Without some degree of commercialization, without the promise of a profit for
                   someone, somewhere, the Internet would still be a comparatively tiny thing, populated
                   only by researchers, computer science majors and horny 13 year old boys. What
                   exists today exists, to a large extent, because of us. We Q-Linkers, you and I and all
                   the rest, may not have invented or built the Internet, but we damn well paid for a big
                   chunk of it, at 8c per minute. To paraphrase an old country western song, we were
                   online when online wasn't cool.

                   Pioneers are always an odd lot, and I think you'll agree that we certainly were no
                   exception. :-) What sane person would be willing to give up the known, the
                   comfortable, the safe, for something completely unknown and unheard of and,
                   potentially, unsafe? Who would give up real life for some online world of bits and bytes
                   and pixels? More importantly, who in their right mind would be interested in computer
                   SEX? (Not to mention the most important question of all: how the hell do you DO
                   it???)

                   I can remember telling coworkers about Q-Link and all the really nifty (non-sexual)
                   things a person could do online. I also remember their response, which was to look at
                   me like I was some kind of nut and slowly back away. Today, those same people are
                   addicted to the Internet, either via AOL or some other ISP.

                   I seem to be running off at the fingers here, a malady that I blame entirely on you, my
                   friends. You taught me well your bad habits. O:-) 

                   To get to the point of what originally was intended as a short note, sometime on
                   12-10-2000 my AOL account will cease to exist. Already, UncleAl2 is my last active
                   screen name. I must confess to having mixed feelings about leaving AOL, but I believe
                   that it has to be done. I do not agree with Steve Case's vision of an AOL-controlled
                   future, and I can no longer in good conscience help pay for his growing
                   monopolization of the Internet. If you don't know what I'm referring to, drop me a short
                   note. I'll be happy to forward you the latest issue of an email newsletter I subscribe to
                   called "AOL Watch." I think you'll find it a real eye-opener. I know I did.

                   As Lord Acton said way back in 1887, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power
                   corrupts absolutely." Steve Case is no more immune to the siren song of greed than is
                   anyone else. A benevolent despot is, after all, still a dictator, no matter how broad his
                   smile.

                   Remember Q-Link! will survive, albeit at a new location. The new address will be
                   http://www.qlinklives.org.* There is a placeholder at that address now, with
                   a link you can click that will allow you to be automatically notified when the page is
                   updated. I hope to find time to get the files uploaded there before my AOL account
                   dies. My new email address will be uncleal@qlinklives.org.*

                   I'd like to say it's been fun, but it really hasn't. No matter how many bells and whistles
                   they add to AOL to attract and amaze the rubes, AOL never has been and never will
                   be the warm, homey place that we once loved. Q-Link is undeniably dead. But... its
                   spirit does live on, within each and every one of you who helped make it the special
                   place it was.

                   Peace and love to you all.

                   Al


                   PS:  Since this letter seems to have turned itself into a mini-essay, I will be posting it
                   to "Remember Q-Link!" in a few days. Accordingly, I'd like to point out that it is
                   Copyright © 2000 by Al Evans. All rights reserved.

                   Please feel free to forward this letter in its entirety to anyone who may be interested.
                   AOL has once again nuked part of my address book, and I  know I'm missing some
                   folks. Thank you.

        *NOTE: To avoid confusion, I have replaced the addresses that appeared in the original email with the current addresses.