Does Using an AOL Email Address Suggest You're a Tech Dinosaur? 461
Nerval's Lobster writes: Despite years of layoffs and tumbling net worth, AOL seemed to get a new lease on life this week when Verizon bought it for $4.4 billion. But even if AOL's still alive, using an AOL email address has long been seen as a way of signaling that you're stuck in the 1990s. A recent analysis of Dice data found that a mere 1.8 percent of those registering for the site used an AOL address, versus 55 percent for Gmail. For the past several years, Websites from Gizmodo to Lifehacker have all declared that still using an AOL email address is counterproductive, to put it mildly. But is that actually true? Do the people in your life and work actually care whether you use AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, or a custom address, or is the idea of 'email bias' an overblown myth?
What does it say about you? (Score:2, Troll)
Does Using an AOL Email Address Suggest You're a Tech Dinosaur?
Yes, if you're an asshole. "If it ain't broken don't fix it" only applies to popular things.
Re: What does it say about you? (Score:2)
I use it (still), but as an email flophouse.
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Yes, pretty soon they'll start a cross promotional campaign with Pabst Blue Ribbon. "Free aol.com email address with every sixer purchased, nice skinny jeans by the way!"
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Same here. Anyone that says, "We need your e-mail address and we promise we won't spam you" gets the AOL account. I check it, maybe, once every few months.
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing on the internet says 'I'm a blithering idiot, please abuse me.' as quickly and concisely as @aol.com.
It used to be worse. Now you are just a dinosaur. Before you were king of the chumps.
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Insightful)
HA! You dope. I just crafted an AOL address THIS YEAR so I could bypass the other email hosting entities idea that my cellphone number is needed to verify that I'm a human, just so I could create a fake Facebook account so I can play games with my daughter without having to stoop so low as to have a real Facebook account. Mailinator was not an option, this worked out great and now I have an old-school aol.com address. I fucking make websites, I don't consume them. AOL is great if you don't want some free email site hounding you for necessary bullshit info, like your fucking cell phone number.
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:4, Funny)
> I fucking make websites, I don't consume them.
Other than Facebook, and Mailinator, and AOL, and Slashdot, you don't consume them. And this lamp! The ashtray, the paddle game, Facebook, Mailinator, AOL, and Slashdot.. you don't consume any of them at all!
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If you make websites, then I assume it would be trivial for you to have a custom domain from which you could make unlimited disposable email addresses?
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, nothing except "My e-mail address is USERNAME.... .... .... .... Oh, I need to add the @aol.com?"
Luckily, there seem to be fewer and fewer of those folks around.
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing on the internet says 'I'm a blithering idiot, please abuse me.' as quickly and concisely as @aol.com.
I consider judging people based on irrelevant categories to be far more damning.
Shortly after gmail came out, every other free webmail provider upped their storage amount in order to compete, including aol. Gmail at the time didn't provide imap access. You could access your mail via the web interface or pop. Aol, on the other hand, did provide imap, along with a ton of storage space, which allowed me to check my personal e-mail via my PDA's email client (remember those?), instead of its horrible browser.
I had a perfectly technical reason to switch to an aol address while everybody was switching to gmail.
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Trouble is, the perspectives of-old are self-limiting by definition, as they cater to a niche audience. Once an organization (in this case, a website) has hit its upper bounds in that niche audience, it needs to branch-out to a wider audience to continue to grow, and in the process of doing that often such organizations will discard whatever core beliefs let th
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That fails on functionality. An AOL email address, AFAIK, functions like any other.
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But.. but.. but... iIsaw somebody from AOL say ROFLMFAO a buncha times on IRC, that means AOL'ers are st00pid!!!
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is so cool, I just went and got myself an aol email account based on this article!
The point is, sometimes you WANT to look like a non-techie. Great deception value.
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:4, Funny)
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Does AOL mail allow more than 5MB of storage space?
Does AOL mail have a reasonably useable UI? (not something made in 1997)?
If not, then why would anyone use AOL mail?
Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Informative)
From their marketing:
Unlimited storage, 25 MB of photo and video attachments, advanced spam filters, virus protection
I have no idea if that means 25MB per email or total for your mailbox. I'd hope it was the former. They support POP3 or IMAP.
Their current webmail client seems to be somewhat OK (if not cloned outright from Google and then had banner ads slapped in) - screenshot is over 2 years old:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/07... [venturebeat.com]
I don't think it means they're leading edge in any way, but they're not lagging behind nearly as much as I thought they were.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:What does it say about you? (Score:5, Insightful)
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but everything from Google maps
Google maps would have had trouble existing in 1997, but more interestingly, how do you think Google maps have declined over the past decade?
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Maintaining a consistent email address? Good.
Using a service that scans your correspondence to market directly to you? Bad.
People who value their, and my, privacy? Good.
I'd rather communicate with an AOL user than gmail user, and I'm not an overly private individual.
Worse is a company like Google opening up that door encourages other companies to start scanning what was previously considered private.
The Oatmeal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Oatmeal (Score:5, Funny)
Aol users:
Keeping the
"h...t...t...p...colon...slash...slash...slash...dot...dot...com..."
joke alive.
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Shouldn't that be "h...t...t..p...colon...slash...slash...slash...dot...dot...org"?
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"h...t...t...p...colon...slash...slash...slash...dot...dot...com..."
redirects to
"h...t...t...p...colon...slash...slash...slash...dot...dot...org..."
So? (Score:5, Funny)
My dentist uses an AOL email address and a website that probably hasn't been updated in a decade. I don't care: He's still a decent enough dentist for the occasional drill-and-fill.
Dentists: Another reason why birds are superior.
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Re:So? (Score:5, Funny)
on a Cobol devs resume however it's a good sign.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or that they have had the same email address for 20 years. Have hundreds of clients that have that email address and that sending a spam email to 5000 people saying "here is my new email address" is stupid and likely to cause them to lose business.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
But then you still have two email addresses you are giving out. Why bother? It's not like you wont get email if you use AOL.
Nothing I have seen gives a reason to change away from a service that is working for you. Gmail/other may be better at lots of things, but if you don't care about any other those things why change? This is especially true if your old email address is first.last@aol.com and the gmail suggestions are first793976.last63789534987435987@gmail.com
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
I do work in tech recruitment. But also I don't provide a persons contact details to a company until they have already had a first stage interview. So a persons email address isn't available to the company as a selection criteria.
When I am determining whether I will represent someone to a company I care about their work experience, what they have done, and who they have done it for. I then interview them to determine whether I think the culture will be a fit.
My experience is that often in technical spaces people can be very unaware of how certain things may portray them. People put photos on their CV, they put their marital status, how many kids they have, where the attend church, whole paragraphs about their hobbies, all sorts of weird things. Quite often the more techie they are the weirder the stuff they put on their CV.
Part of my role is to help people portray their skills and experience in the way that will get them an interview. From where I sit, if having an @aol address is a bad thing, it ranks very very low on the list of things that will cause you a problem.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Reason for leaving should NEVER be stated on a CV. It can always be misconstrued no matter what you write. "moved for a better opportunity" "approached by old manager" " poached by agent" no matter what there will be someone who reads that negatively. About the only thing that is ok is "Contract / Project completed"
If you are asked in an interview what the reasons for leaving were then you should treat it exactly the same way you treat the "So what are your weaknesses question" give them an answer which doesn't give them a reason to discount you and if you can manage it spin it into a quasi-positive.
If it was the case that your boss was a wanker and you had to get out, spin it into something like "I had spent a decent length of time there and I believe I accomplished all that I was going to. I felt that it was the right time for me to look for new opportunities and hence here I am. In particular I am keen to work on (whatever they just told you about)."
Nothing there is a lie. If your boss was a jerk you probably weren't going to go any further in that role.
RE: AOL email addresses (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Slashdot Readers (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it depends if Comcast has the monopoly... (Score:2)
where you live. I live in Seattle, and despite their government-granted monopoly for most of the city, Comcast typically only offers service in wealthy (read: profitable) areas. In much of the city, faster than dial-up is not available. I had 576 kbps DSL for several years, but it recently quit working so I had to back to dial-up. If you live somewhere with Comcast, then I guess AOL is much more popular in your area.
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That is nuts. I had high speed internet in Oklahoma 15 years ago, you'd think the home of Microsoft would have good connectivity.
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where you live. I live in Seattle, and despite their government-granted monopoly for most of the city, Comcast typically only offers service in wealthy (read: profitable) areas. In much of the city, faster than dial-up is not available. I had 576 kbps DSL for several years, but it recently quit working so I had to back to dial-up. If you live somewhere with Comcast, then I guess AOL is much more popular in your area.
I live in Seattle and I know for a fact that where Comcast doesn't deliver, there are other Cable providers that do. Faster then dialup is available for all of Seattle.
I hate Comcast, but fuck, let's not lie here. Lying isn't necessary because the problem is State/City allowed Monopoly of the Cable/Internet services, not the level of service in Seattle. Lying makes you look like an idiot and then invalidates what you are saying.
Now are you talking about something out of the Seattle city limits and call
most techies will perceive it that way (Score:2)
My parents and grandparents started on the internet for AOL and spend 5+ years regularly using it, signing up for sites, giving out contact info, etc. before getting cable and 9 or more years
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What about all the people that can ONLY get AOL in their rural areas (the Comcast "go fuck yourself" zones)? It seems strange to think less of them for living in the wrong place.
Well, people in the middle of their farms, milking their cow with a pitchfork sticking out their back pocket, aren't usually considered tech-savvy themselves, even if they DON'T use AOL. :)
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And AOL service prevents these people from using Google because...? Say what you want, Google usually delivers pretty spare websites. I don't think they'd be much of a problem on dial-up.
personally (Score:3, Interesting)
In the instance of AOL, I am surprised it still exist, and then I begin to picture a little old lady that doesn't know any better than to use it.
When it comes to Hotmail or Yahoo, it's so cluttered I can't see why anyone would bother with it.
That brings us to Gmail, I like clean lines, simplicity, what I don't like is UI churn, so that just as soon as I get it in my head where to go to get something done... it moves somewhere else.
Like some never ending game of "Where's Waldo".
Re:personally (Score:5, Interesting)
AOL still reaches people who can't get broadband and need to use modems. Poor sods.
The thing is, unlike with broadband, where AOL was just some walled garden app and some content sites, with modems, they're actually a real ISP. And they're really the only national modem based ISP still in existence worth talking about.
You don't have to be a little old lady to be using AOL. You just have to live far enough off the broadband network to need to use modems still.
And as someone who worked at AOL itself not so long ago, no one was more shocked than I was when the execs announced that they'd come to the realization that while dialup was declining, it wasn't actually doing so in a precipitous fashion any more. When you take away the loss of all of the broadband adopters, AOL still had a substantial business in dialup, and their dialup infrastructure was paid off and/or low maintenance. AOL, due to its size, is the last man standing from the dialup age.
Dialup will eventually end, but it could take decades to finally drive a nail in that coffin.
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With all the UI churn of not just Gmail, but every other provider, I've thrown in the towel, and just use a decent MUA (Thunderbird for E-mail, Outlook for calenders/meetings/tasks/contacts.)
A MUA is a lot more resistant against attack than a Web browser, and gives more options when it comes to rulesets (I can move vital E-mails that hit Yahoo to my hosted Exchange server which I actually look at.) Plus, I can use features like PGP or S/MIME quite easily with it.
I do have email bias (Score:2, Flamebait)
Like FB, it is another path of least resistance that the tech behemoths have herded Americans into.
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Ever since around 2009-10 my bias has been against those with Gmail accounts.
Why because using something different gives you a sense of superiority. AOL was an ad laden mess once it go big. It really was foolish to use it if you did not have to do so.
GMAIL's only real issue is privacy concerns. Which *is* a huge issue, but other services are far from immune to that as well; short of running your own mail server you can't really know and it does matter really because chances are the person you are mailing is using Google anyway.
The reality is GMAIL works well and meets a lot of pe
It doesnt suggest tech anything (Score:2)
Because anyone who deserves the label tech knows better, it does however suggest you're an idiot.
I use them all the time (Score:4, Insightful)
In my role as a professional phisherman and spammer, I find that using AOL and Yahoo e-mails enhances my target audience responses by 90%.
Besides, it's free and I can create hundreds every hour.
While I'm at it would you be interested in Penis Pills? I have a special on them two bottles for $19.99
Also please click on this link because I have important information about your Social Security benefits.
Horse hockey (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I finally got a gmail address was I wanted to be able to keep it through moving, changing ISP providers, changing jobs, etc. Having a consistent email address is a handy thing to have.
@aol.com back in the day (Score:5, Funny)
Used to indicate that you are a noob idiot with PC's on the internet.
Now it indicates that you are STILL a noob idiot with a PC on the internet with gray hair.
Early adaptors makes you a dinosaur? (Score:2)
If you have an aol address, it probably means that you have been online longer than most, and have no compelling reason to go though the considerable trouble changing your email address.
How does that make you "stuck in the 1990s?" Does an aol address force you use Windows-95?
Not hard to switch (Score:2)
If you have an aol address, it probably means that you have been online longer than most, and have no compelling reason to go though the considerable trouble changing your email address.
"Considerable trouble"? Basically you open a new account (Gmail or whatever) and then have that account check your old AOL account (via POP or IMAP) for a while. Anyone you actively correspond with gets replies from your new account. If you don't correspond with them via email within a year they probably don't really matter to you anyway. Shut down the old account after a year or two - or don't. It's not much trouble at all really.
What astonishes me is people who use AOL or Gmail similar accounts for t
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Yes, it can be considerable trouble to change to a new email address.
I have dozens of web accounts, for which I use my yahoo address. It would be a huge PITA to have to change everything. And besides, what would I gain?
Email has to work that's it (Score:2)
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Hey, we were having a nice heated discussion about the merits or demerits of using AOL or Gmail for your free email services, then you have to come in with your sensibilities and making a good point, and, well, now everything is ruined!!1!
Dinosaur? Hipster? (Score:2)
If I saw somebody with an aol.com email I'd wonder if they were a tech dinosaur, a total hipster, or somebody who had simply stuck with something that worked.
I've had my Hotmail email address since 1996, prior to Microsoft taking it over. I've stuck with it because it works. It does exactly what Hotmail promised from the start, providing email that is independent of my ISP or employer.
...laura
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I've only had three email addresses since 1994. And two of them still work. If you write me at any email address I've had for the last 19 years, it will still get to me.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I value consistency and reliability over the latest fad any day. I'd much rather hire a guy who still uses his old aol email address than some kid who changes his email address (along with his mailing address) every year because he's unreliable and unstable.
Real men... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Real men... (Score:5, Funny)
wrong
real men pay grunts like you to run their email
I *only* use an aol email address (Score:5, Funny)
It has a warm, true sound that you just can't get from today's CD's and digital music.
Hipster (Score:2)
Compuserve (Score:5, Funny)
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UUCP (Score:2)
No, bangpaths show that you're old.
{well known host}!mcnc!unc!scotte
https://groups.google.com/foru... [google.com]
Retro (Score:2)
Not a dinosaur... an early adopter (Score:2)
.
(and, no, my email address is not @aol.com, and never has been)
Darn new-fangled AOL address (Score:2)
ceres!rlp ;-)
"from Gizmodo to Lifehacker" ? (Score:2)
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This, and they're both competitors to AOL properties (Engadget at least)
What's that say about those judging? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an AOL email I still use depending on the need, and use it as a barometer to judge folks I give it to. If someone balks and throws a douche-fit about an email address I really am not interested in dealing with them. It has not caused me to miss out on employment or side work, but the mild concern is there.
It's been my email for about two-dog ages, and I rather not run the issue of changing over everything that goes there.. monitor it for another few months for stragglers.. and then close it.
It's an email address people. I never had the cool Transformer's lunchbox, or nor the best Saved by the Bell TrapperKeeper and I survived.
Betteridges law of headlines is wrong! (Score:2)
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." and this is a clear exception to that rule.
I guess this ends the Yahoo/AOL merger (Score:2)
In January, there was pressure from some activist investors for Yahoo! and AOL to merge. http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
I guess not so much anymore.
From an earlier /. thread... (Score:2)
If you remember owning a black and white television... you just might not be a digital native.
If you first learned to drive a stick shift.... you just might not be a digital native.
If you remember when there were only two kinds of coffee... you just might not be a digital native.
If you know what a pencil has to do with a cassette tape.... you just might not be a digital native.
If you have an AOL email address.
Pretty much (Score:2)
I don't know anyone that uses aol mail that is less than 70 years old.
I ran into someone that uses CompuServe email awhile ago... not just the web client either but the actual CompuServe email client that you have to install on the computer. The nostalgia with that is pretty funny. It looks just like it did in the 90s.
What I'd like to see more people moving towards is self hosting. Yes, I know that the ISPs don't want you to run servers on your internet connection but an Email server for ONE person is hardl
yup (Score:2)
Does using Facebook.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It means:
you can't make your own blog, let alone own website
you can't master the concept of an email list to forward all your important news to all your friends
you can't find free games on the internet
you basically need to pay a ton of private personal information that you can never get back, just to participate in the internet - a task that technically literate people can easily do without paying that very high price.
AOL is NOT oldschool (Score:4, Insightful)
From 71234.56789@compuserve.com:
That reminds me, I must get one of those new v.92 mod^D
Re:Usual answer to a headline question (Score:4, Informative)
Long time AOLers have been promoted to 'tech dinosaur' from 'king of the chumps'.
AOL always sucked, There were always better alternatives. Always.
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AOL always sucked, There were always better alternatives. Always.
Yes, but back in 1993 its not like you could just Google it. If you were not attacked to some organization with access, and your local public library did not offer shell accounts or something the big name BBS services (with internet gateways) AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy were usually the way to go. At least until you could find a local ISP.
Keep in mind most folks were at the time using DOS and Windows. So you also needed to bring some software to the mix, to do PPP etc. That stuff was no on the shelf at
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AOL was a _lame_ internet gateway, it was also head and shoulders more expensive then the alternatives.
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Even back in 1993, AOL was considered a haven for idiots and suckers. Anyone with half a clue went somewhere else. This even includes the "can't be bothered" crowd.
Not that PPP was that difficult to deal with. It came pre-packaged in the same kinds of automated software installers that AOL came with.
AOL really didn't solve any problem.
It was just pervasive. They went that extra mile to SPAM eveyrone.
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If by "early adopter" you mean "drooling, clueless moron", then yes, your translation is correct.
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Early adopters or Eternal September?
Re:AOL.com = No Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Even AOL employees shunned it (Score:5, Interesting)
AOL employees used to have aol.com addresses. No one took them seriously, figured they were crackpots/frauds/walkoffs. So AOL started giving employees a corp.aol.com address circa 1997. Then folks would start replying to their emails.
I worked at a .com startup and this happened to us - got some interest from some loser with an aol.com address. Ran into him again at a trade show, and he explained he actually worked for AOL. And we didn't get the sale. Go figure. Did have a corp.aol.com address by then, though.
Re:Even AOL employees shunned it (Score:5, Interesting)
As a former AOL employee - this is false. The corp.aol.com bit came around after 2006 - when company email moved off of aol.com and onto an internal Exchange installation. Those of us on the tech side of the business did often use @aol.net with internally operated smtp servers, however. In fact, it was very difficult internally to *not* use your "Business Screen Name" for official use internally - and that continued until after I quit in 2006.
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Been using your method for 20 years now.
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I was surprised at the price tag, but not incredibly. They are pretty big players in online advertising, and they do have some content that people look at regularly.
They haven't been a hot company for almost 20 years now, but it is amazing the number of assets and random shit you can pick up quickly which then slowly unravels as you wind down.
Just think of the shit Google is going to have once they start working their way down to irrelevance. Well, assuming they can make a profit on anything but search, t
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It's a chump list. Chump lists are valuable.
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I'm not going to flame, but I'm curious why you would think someone stupid for it. I still use gmail for the simple reasons that it always had more free storage than I needed, and now I'm stuck with it because it's been my personal address for almost 10 years. That doesn't make someone a moron (and yes, I'm aware of what they do with it, I put nothing of real value there that wasn't there over five years ago).
My hotmail account would have been it, except a short-sighted MS exec deleted a bunch of e-mails
gmail address == don't care if Google scans email (Score:3)
I don't have a gmail address, because Google admits up front they scan the contents of your email for advertising purposes.
No, thank you.
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AOL has always been the mark of an Internet dunce. There was never a time when it didn't have a negative connotation, among those with a clue. No self-respecting techie would be caught dead with an AOL Email address.
Gmail usually just means you're too lazy to explore your options, or to setup your own domain name. It doesn't really have anywhere near the level of taint.