AltaVista Gives Up On E-mail [Updated]

One krow (and a flock of others) wrote with this news: "According to this article, AltaVista is ceasing to provide e-mail (stranding a million users who use the service). So what does it say that a company the size of AltaVista calls it quits with a service like e-mail?" One thing is sure: old e-mail addresses, like old physical addresses, are a pain to reconcile with everyone who wants to send you (flowers / letters / bills). Update 0819 US EST by Roblimo: As a number of readers have pointed out, Altavista is terminating its free (ad-supported) ISP service, not its email service. If you have an Altavista email account, relax. We regret the error.

Comments

tanstaafl

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know what most large companies like to do with personal information these days. Sell Sell Sell.

This was happening with all the free services already. Not only do they sell your personal information, but some even force you to fill out forms, etc. They constantly display advertising.

tanstaafl. For those of you who don't read Heinlein, that means "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Just because you aren't paying them in cash doesn't mean you aren't paying them. They are getting money from displaying ads to you, selling your personal information, etc.

Obviously in this case, they weren't getting enough money from doing it. But if they were getting none, they wouldn't have done it in the first place.

Personally, I'd much rather pay an ISP in cash than deal with more online spam, snail-mail spam, and telemarketers. And even advertisements. I hate banners ads.

Our rights

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

but we don't pay. We get this for free.

We (at least some) contribute work in posting stories, commentaries and moderation. I think this gives us the right to at least protest. The editors also contribute. But the site needs both types.
__

Defending Slashdot

[DoorFrame]

First off, 66666 is a damned good slashdot id.

But to the real point, Slashdot gets a bad rap in the comment sections a lot of the time. I know because I run a webpage that's got a similarly vocal clientel from time to time. You've got to understand that even though these guys may be getting paid to run this website by somebody out there in the real world, it is not by any of us. Sure, if we were paying for it we'd have the right to yell and scream, but we don't pay. We get this for free.

Even with the grammar and spelling errors, even with the repeat stories, even with the poorly checked links, this website is much more than I'm paying for it.

As much as it's annoying to see the same story twice, it's not a big deal. The same thing goes for a story that doesn't quite boil down the essence of the link perfectly. Sure, ok, they made a mistake here. So point it out on the talkback zone here, but there's no reason to attack the owners of the site personally. If it's incorrect, tell us what's right, don't act as if you're so high and mighty.

It's a mistake, treat it as such.

Slashdot fans... be patient and say thank you CmdrTaco and Hemos once in a while. It's not often on the web that you find something anywhere near as wonderful and useful as Slashdot, and when you do you should appreciate it. Attempting to tear it down piece by piece just shows how little respect you have for this service.

Thank you Slashdot folks, I appreciate the hard work you do and thank you for your effort.

Re:Defending Slashdot

[American AC in Paris]

Even with the grammar and spelling errors, even with the repeat stories, even with the poorly checked links, this website is much more than I'm paying for it.

I agree completely with that statement; it's one of the fundamental reasons I love the whole concept of Free software and Open Source.

That said, one of the greatest problems I see with the Free mindset is that people use that freedom as an excuse for mediocrity. When one begins to excuse mediocrity, what happens to the drive to improve? If the Linux team responded to bug reports with a curt "Hey, you get what you pay for," what do you think the state of Linux would be today? If Slashdot really is the labor of love I percieve it to be, Taco et al. should be (and likely are) constantly searching for ways to make Slashdot even better. Excusing mediocrity does not contribute to the improvement of the site.

It's a mistake, treat it as such.

If I grab a paper grocery bag by one handle and pick it up, causing it to tear and spill it's contents, I've just made a mistake. I apologize to the guy next to me for dropping a can on his foot, gather my stuff, put it in a new bag, and carry it (by both handles) out of the store.

If I do this once or twice a year, it's no big deal. People do indeed make mistakes. However, if I do this every time I go to the grocery store, it becomes a problem. I'm not learning from my mistakes, I embarrass and delay myself every time I go to the store, and the store staff generally roll their eyes at me and make jokes about me behind my back.

On average, Slashdot makes at least one glaring error (spelling/grammar mistakes, recent reposts, gross editorial inaccuracies) on their front page blurbs on an almost daily basis, sometimes three or four times in the course of a single article blurb. This has been going on for months now. If Slashdot has been learning anything from these mistakes, it has yet to manifest itself on the site.

If I didn't care whether or not Slashdot looked foolish every time this sort of thing happened, I wouldn't be making noise about it. As it is, though, I really like Slashdot and want to see it get even better. This means helping to identify and point out the problems I see. One of the most glaring problems I can see is the general lack of editorial quality; thus I make a point of it when I see it. I consider it my contribution to the improvement of Slashdot.

I thank you, Slashdot team, for all of your obvious hard work and dedication to what I think is a really good geek news resource. That said, though, there are things that are in dire need of attention, and the editorial quality has been too low for too long for me and many others to keep quiet about it. Make it a rule that editors must spell-check every blurb before posting; make it a rule that editors must triple-read or quadruple-read posts before setting them live; make it a rule that editors must read and fully understand related links before commenting editorially on the submission. Build a SQL statement that queries against all the links in the story database to search for sites and articles that have already been posted in other stories. Restrict editorial comments and titles to stories posted under editorial sections. Make editorial quality a priority. If there really is a copy editor, as the FAQ claims, then that individual sure as heck isn't doing their job. At all.

I can think of precious few cases where Faster but Wrong is better than Slower but Right. Slashdot, do it Right first, Fast second.

$ man reality

Comments and general bitching.

[iamsure]

First, I'll comment on the editorial question "what does this mean"..

Them ending free dialup means that they obviously learned that it wasnt worth it. The average dialup costs around $7-9 per month to service and maintain (I worked at a national isp, thats the numbers we had).

With those numbers, with a million users, they were spending $7 million roughly PER MONTH. Thats a nice fat national television ad run. Its an easy choice to stop services like that when budgets are tighter.

Now, some bitching.

The first line on the page of the article, IN BOLD was:

"update AltaVista is terminating its free Internet access service, making it the latest company to exit the market."

NOT email.

In the last two weeks, we have seen over eight stories that were old submissions with NO changes, three that were updates of old submissions that didnt mention the original (sony walking robot), and plenty of spell-checking problems, and crap like this.

Not to mention the Bruce Perens article that practically insults him. Now, I dont get around much, but in my limited dealings with the OS/FS/Linux community, he has been wonderful, open, and very accomodating.

What the hell is up guys? Now that you got paid do you just not give a damn?

Now, dont get me wrong, I am not saying "Its not like the old days", cause I wasnt on then. :)

However, in the last year, I can definitely say that they dont do nearly as much editorial checking.

Hell, Bruce submitted his story HIMSELF, TWICE, and it was rejected, but then it was submitted with that rude editorial attached.

I just .. dont get it.

Wake up guys, RUN YOUR SITE!