"Sex is the bedrock, the foundation of the city and the profit center that has allowed AOL to finance other programming.

AOL's usage records demonstrate this."

Rolling Stone magazine (10/3/96)


May usage records for America Online
_____________________________________________
6,950,171

1,321,056
453,039
119,977
110,945
72,642
Chat

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MTV Online
New York Times

The above numbers give hours spent in AOL's areas, from a total pool of 26,377,881 hours. According to these statistics, 26% of AOL's profits comes from chat.

Rolling Stone calculates a minimum of $7 million a month from dirty chat.

That's $84 million a year.


Rolling Stone concludes, "The biggest danger to AOL's survival is...the very real risk of being stigmatized as a purveyor of porn."


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