AOL and AIM rant

Another disappointed AOL customer.

Actually according to AOL, I'm not a paying customer. Therefore, I cannot get any customer support from them. For a few years in the past decade, I was a AOL dial up customer until I switched to broadband. Once broadband became cheap enough for most people to afford, AOL really went downhill. But AIM was still a faithful instant messaging service and I did not have any problems with it. Yet.

Again, for years I was faithfully using the official AIM client to use my screen name to talk to my contacts. However, once I found out that AIM was probably running adware, spyware, or any extraneous software along with their program I decided to jump ship. Going along with my open source software craze, I found Pidgin and have been happily using it since. It's a multi-protocol chat client, which I use to go on MSN, YIM, AIM, and for it to notify me of new Gmail email.

This setup of 4 different accounts has been operating fine for months. Given that Pidgin is free and open source, I am able to have patience and understanding in its limitations. Generally speaking, I can just Google any problems I have with Pidgin and resolve it myself. However, AIM started to go wonky today. I thought the problem was isolated to Pidgin, but AIM failed to work on Meebo, Gmail, and the iPod Touch AIM application. Therefore, I have reason to suspect that AOL is having problem with my screen name. My friends who I have asked have all reported no problems with their screen names and my alternative screen name works. Of course, I can't open a support ticket with AOL to resolve my issue because I'm not a paying customer.

I'm having AIM withdrawal.

Update: Good news everyone! My impatient rant paid off and I can sign back into AIM again! Let's cross our fingers and hope this doesn't happen again.