KAI RYSSDAL: Imagine you’re a loyal employee of America Online. You’re feeling pretty good, because the company made big news yesterday. It’s going to start giving away its service for free and turn around a big drop in subscribers. So you sat down at your computer this morning . . .

[ E-mail sign-on: “You’ve got mail.” ]

Sadly, it’s a pink slip.

From the Frank Stanton Studios in Los Angeles ,I’m Kai Ryssdal. It’s Thursday today, August 3. Great to have you with us.

There was a fine how-do-you-do for employees at America Online today. Bosses said 26 percent of workers would be out of work by the start of next year. That’s 5,000 jobs. Rafat Ali at paidcontent.org says there’s a whole group of people he figures can be cut now that AOL’s going to be free.

RAFAT ALI:“My sense is that it’s going to be customer service people, people who used to take your calls when you used to call America Online about any kind of trouble with your dial-up service or your e-mail.”

You get what you pay for I guess.