However, all my friends who use AOL said they did not receive this message and that they are still using the free version without issue.

Well, that’s exactly what happened, so I signed up with them. Some months ago I received a message from AOL saying that if I did not move to their new AOL Desktop Gold product (for $4.99 a month), then I would be dropped from their service. Then I was told that a free version was available, and I switched to that - and I kept using that version for years. In the beginning I was paying $40 a month to use the service.

Q: I have been an AOL user since I acquired my first computer in the '90s.