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Charging Does Help Yahoo Make A Profit
Meshach writes "The globe and mail has an article about how yahoo is starting to charge for their email service. Payment is not mandatory but if you don't pay you have many restrictions on your accont. It says that while many are angry about the change enough people are paying that it is helping Yahoo rebound from their slump. This seems like a recent trend in e-business." The conventional wisdom around web stuff that's been free, but converts to pay is that "they die off, no one wants to use it anymore etc etc", but I think what people fail to realize is that for many businesses, less people is *just fine*, if those people are paying.
Money is good for buisnesses profits.
I was sure that this was going to happen for years. Email is perfect for this -- high barrier to change. Get 'em hooked, then milk 'em.
However, I expected that Yahoo was going to offer better service. I would assume that IMAP support, Yahoo not selling your information, etc. would come with this.
There are better email providers, if you're planning on paying money. Take a look at the links on this page, ofr instance.
I expect MS will collect a lot more users on Hotmail from this...
May we never see th
My E-Mail address is far too important for me to lose it. The address didn't change the last 3 years, and I would be happy not to change it in the near future.
My problem is that the address is from a Freemailer service (GMX). So if they start to charge for their mail service, and I want to keep my mail address, I will have to pay.
I think that's true for most people using Yahoo's mail service.
Two Worlds - One Sun [Spirit]
Right now all a subscription gives you is ad-free pages. But, honestly, yes, I think for most people who have paid, myself included, the main motivation is some form of loyalty and desire to help out.
:)
Slashdot definitely has its annoying faults, but there isn't a single website I spend more time on than Slashdot. Sometimes I find myself reloading the front page only a minute after I last viewed it. I am probably the kind of user Slashdot normally hates (frequent reloader), so I am only too happy to pay my share. I'd rather lose $50 than Slashdot, even with all its faults.
Jason.
As has always been the case with core internet services functionality. There is a bloated way and a smart way.
.. you just have to pay extra to get them
In this example
If you want:
1. Virtually unlimited storage space
2. Mind bending number of filtering options
3. OS / Platform / Device independence
4. No cost or cost included with monthly access charge.
Than go get a POP3 account from your ISP and only be limited by the limitations of the interface your choose to use.
If your ISP does not have such a service, than there are a small number of free unix workspace accounts out there that do offer it.
Yahoo / Hotmail / AOL email all have variations available for this
I'm just waiting for the day when Yahoo makes YahooGroups only send to yahoo addresses. On that day there will likely be an exodus of group participation and a sudden interest in majordomo. If anyone here has tried to follow a mailing list of any particular length via the yahoo web interface they will know what I mean.
To Yahoo's credit, when they recently downgraded new email accounts from 6 megs to 4 of storage, they did grandfather people over the limit in with the old limit rather than the new.
I wanter her to change for a several reasons.
She was on Netscape mail. It sucks over there! No filters, no checking pop mailboxes, spam up the wazoo, and no customiztion. I could send her a message, and she couldn't find it, buried under all the other messages.
Yahoo is good for people who like their own 'space'. You can change up the background, theme, and mail folders - Netscape had no options whatsoever. She now is changing settings all over, and customizing stuff like crazy. This is good, because she's getting less of a 'I hate computers' attitude, and more of a 'This is cool!' attitude. (Every little bit helps ;)
With all the Klez and its ilk, nothing like having all that NOT on my local machine. I don't have to worry about if Norton got his coffee today. Outlook finally doesn't matter since I can check a couple of pop mailboxes too.
Yahoo is making constant visible improvements to the mail system, making it easier to use, spam free, and nicer to look at.
I recommend it highly. And I'm just using the free service!
Now, the Yahoo Groups on the other hand, parcel info out like its methadone. It makes navigating to find a nugget of what you're looking for into a painful experience. I try to avoid YG and Geocities pages whenever possible.
The mail is where its at.
Multi-tiered services can work if the pay service offers significant value over the free service. Hook us on the free service, then entice us with goodies to get to our bank accounts.
I'm relatively cheap so I subscribe to very few web sites (but I do pay for a few). One thing that doesn't work for me is to simply take away the ads. I use Eudora for my email client, and I'm very happy with the ad-sponsered free version. The ads are relatively non-intrusive. So why would I pay for Eudora's ad-free version? There are no additional features, so I don't see the point. As a rule I do not give handouts to such high-tech charities if I don't get significant value in return, so Eudora loses, especially during the advertising downturn.
Web sites and software writers who are contemplating free and premium versions of their products and services need to be sure the free version also provides good value without being obnoxious. Of course, most reputable shareware authors learned this long ago. Don't nag too often or you'll chase away your prospective customers.
Yahoo is providing a service here in the form of email. That provides a logical reason for someone to want to pay them.
They are not charging for content, that is what fails. Many places that gave it away do find themselves in a lurch when they think they can charge for it. The problem most of those sites have is that they don't offer a compelling reason to pay.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How long have you been with your current ISP? Yahoo's advantage is that it's let me keep the same address for years, through a couple moves and a few ISP collapses. It's friends I haven't talked to in years, finding my adress with old papers and still being able to get a hold of me. They do work great as throw-aways, but that isn't their only use.
Yes, +5 funny, I know, and yes I can take a joke, but...
I subscribe to slashdot because I read and use it every day, both for personal and professional reasons. As a (yes, employed) programmer, I appriciate the time and energy it takes to no only write and maintain this site, but also supply it with a constant source of usually interesting and relevent news.
I really couldn't care less if there are typos in headlines - Slashdot (for 4+ years so far) provides me with an insanely inexpensive yet invaluable service. The charity here is not you giving to them, but them giving to you.
http://kered.org
In a world full of companies like Microsoft, yahoo isn't really that bad. When I first moved out of my parent's house, I needed a new e-mail address, and one that would stick with me whenever I changed ISP's. I found out that yahoo provided free POP3 access (this was 1999 or 2000, btw) so I went with them. I was able to get a short, easy-to-remember e-mail address, with free POP3.
So I was happy.
Whenever it was that yahoo first announced they were no longer offering free POP3 access, I wasn't put off. I know many people were, but really, it was like 10 bucks per year; even my broke-ass can afford that.
True, yahoo mail has a SLEW of spam. But they also add a header XYahooFiltered Bulk to each message with their proprietary filter deems as spam. I've been able (quite easily) to configure Mozilla mail and Evolution to filter based on this header, and dump all the spam in the trash. It works like a charm.
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
So I spent a few days whipping up a small perl script which works reasonable well, find it here
It actually works better than POP3 because it lets you d/load messages from different folders separately (even the Bulk folder, which as you noted is *very* useful).
Bottom line, if you're already using linux/*BSD, you might want to check Freshmeat.net before going out and buying or coding something that may not be necessary.
Exactly. I'm a paid Yahoo mail subscriber and I'm sure they give my information out to everyone under the sun. I didn't realize that way back when I signed up. Now that I've fully read their agreement, I think it stinks, and that's stopped me from going with Yahoo's other services such as DSL or Yahoo auctions.
Yahoo provides a great service -- I don't know why they feel they have to invade your privacy *and* take your money. Because of this, I may not renew my email service next time around. But still, it's better than Hotmail.
My solution to the whole email fiasco is to buy a domain name. I bought mine a few years back, and hosted the site on my own system until I moved to an area of "less connection integrity". But anyway, I just use constant email forwarders from my domain to whatever my current ISP is, that way I never have to inform people that I'm changing addresses.
:-) Much better deal, I think.
Or- I pay $10 a month, not just for a silly email service, but for an entire webhost including unlimited email
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send