Why do people bother using AIM?

I honestly don't understand why people in the U.S. want to use AIM. Everywhere else in the world, practically everyone uses Windows Live Messenger or Y! Messenger. Windows Live Messenger beats out AIM in many ways:

1. You can play games - and they're really great games too. It's so fun. The ones on Yahoo! kind of suck and take too long to load

2. The ads don't pop-out - On AIM they do sometimes. On Yahoo, they're ok. They need ads, or else it's hard to keep up the costs of maintenence for the messenger

3. Webcam chats actually work on WLM - they work very nice, and more cams are compatible with it. On AIM, it just takes too long, and on Yahoo! it's pretty tough to find compatibility sometimes

4. It's not AOL - the last time I remembered, AOL was the least favorite company we can all think of. I mean doesn't anbody remember the yucky adware it installed in your computer?

5. Status messages - you can type your own personal message, and have lots of options of being away, (cont.)

Why do people bother using AIM?internet

I totally agree with you. I use MSNM/WLM all the time now. Its so much better than AIM and I can talk to all my friends who don't live in the US. =D

AIM isn't that great, but lots of people use it.

Y!Messenger is compatible with MSN too. I talk to some of my friends from Y! from MSNM.