I once worked at a company that did about $50 million / year at 19.95/mo/customer where about 99% of those customers had forgotten they ever signed up. So it isn’t that surprising AM is still in business.

This is not actually an unreasonable business model, and is explicitly the profitability criteria for most gyms / fitness clubs.

AOL?

No, but more or less of that era. What was really interesting about it was that while I think there had been some dubious tactics to lure people to the product (before my time), the team I was on legitimately wanted to create a useful / valuable product for customers. Ironically, in the course of doing that it drove customers away as they became aware that they had signed up for this thing they had completely forgotten about. So in the course of making right with customers, that $50+MM/year stream disappeared from the company. There's a business lesson or two in there somewhere, but I'm not sure I like what it might say.

> I'm not sure I like what it might say.

To me it says economic performance isn't everything, and I like that idea.

I’m surprised that anyone thought there were a lot of women on that site. To me it seemed one step up fronm “Hot singles in <IP address location>!” Laughably transparent with a side order of extra skeeze.

It turns out -- IIRC -- that Ashley Madison was basically hiring women to flirt with potential customers. Something like that came out in the dump.

quick google: https://splinternews.com/ashley-madison-comes-clean-about-al...

I understand that, I’m just shocked anyone fell for it.