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Should Apple make .Mac free?
Moby Cock writes "The recent display of iLife '06 at Macworld showed that the suite has a very fine integration with .Mac, Apple's subscription-based web portal. In a recent post to his blog on ZDNet, Dan Farber argues that a .Mac subscription ought to be included with the purchase of an Apple computer. There is no doubt that web portals are huge revenue engines, could Apple be missing an opportunity here?"
Let them charge, they have a lot to make up for since giving all of those schools Mac computers in the 80's and 90's. The IPOD is giving them new life but they need all of the help they can get. Also, it just helps Microsoft the better Mac does - Microsoft investment dollars at work.
To get the "full value from Mac" really means you have to pay for Adobe CS(n), Office 200x, the Final Cut Suite + Aperature, etc, which costs several thousands of dollars a year.
Also, to fill your iPod costs 99c times the 10,000 songs or so that will fit. (just ask Napster!)
This is why Mac users have to be affluent and have a higher education, because they spend close to 50,000 a year just to keep their Macs going.
When you buy a $500 Dell, you get all the software you need bundled, and it never needs to be upgraded. You can also buy the Dell DJ, which only cost $5/month from Yahoo to listen to all the music you can (well it did at one point anyway).
Of course, truely l33t users simply use Linux, which is free from any costs apart from the "free time" required to configure things, which is free and abundant prior to turning 25.