.mac petition

ibeni · July 17, 2002 3:23PM

hi

there is a petition which fights to keep at least the @mac.com email service for free. Probably without success but you may wanna join anyway ?

<a href="http://www.PetitionOnline.com/iTol/petition.html"; target="_blank">http://www.PetitionOnline.com/iTol/petition.html</a>;

Sorry if that is old news for you, I'm a slow fool I know....

fight for your right to itools....

groverat · July 17, 2002 3:26PM

Did Jobs actually say it would be free for life?

willoughby · July 17, 2002 3:36PM

[quote]Originally posted by iBeni:



fight for your right to itools....<hr></blockquote>

Right? What right? Its Apple's hardware and software, they have a right to do whatever they please with it. They offered iTools for free when all the .coms were booming and offering free services. Its just not possible with 2 million users today, plus all the numbnuts who make 10 iTools accounts.

brianmacos · July 17, 2002 4:41PM

.Mac is here to stay so get over it. Personally I am not upset that we are going to have to pay fo these services. Apple has been giving away a lot of software that we use daily with no charge. Although $100 a year is a little much for people that are probably going to do no more than share photos and have email (I am one of them) but what can we do, NOTHING. I paid for the.Mac but I did not choose to have it auto renewal I figure I can give it a try for a year if I don't use it much than I will do away with it but I do share a lot of photos so I guess in a way it is worth me keeping it. Any way that is my look on it.

patchouli · July 17, 2002 4:55PM

I think this is a bit much. Apple certainly has the right to charge for these services. I think most people agree that there simply needs to be more choices involved. Apple is saying use all of the services for $99 or use none at all. Different levels of service with different pricing plans would be more appropriate and is what most (level headed) people are talking (bitching) about.

donny · July 17, 2002 5:51PM

I think Apple is taking a chance to anger many Mac users, and obviously, it is apparent many users are upset immediately. It would have been better for them to offer us choices. They gave us a do or die ultimatum. It is their company, software, and right (to do with it all as they please...). However, they are a company, and they depend on users who buy and use their products. Yes, Jobs did say we had the e-mail address for life. I have used this line to persuade many users to switch or consider the Mac platform. I try to show them how well Apple treats its customers.

I think Apple should have left the basic options of iTools alone as it starts .Mac. Then, they could charge for advanced, other, or broader services. No one would be upset. It would cost them the same amount of money as it is costing to maintain the services now. Plus, they would begin gaining additional income as people join. If the Mac population is angered to black-listing this service, it will have a hard start, and it may not be able to take off at all. The Mac user base is fickle and touchy about their products. For some reason, we take it as ours. We did not make the machine. We do not design the software. We just buy and use it. However, it is personal to us, and this spirt helps propel the Mac platform. It will draw people to it, also.

I think 100.00 will be great in a year or two from now. For now, it is ridiculous, and it is taking away something which was free at 8am today (well..'till Sept 30 midnight...). If the e-mail address, alone, was left untouched by the demand for a price on the service, people may complain (they always do...), but I doubt there would be a petition and such an outrage.

There should be several choices along a few price points. It is good business. The service should increase, and they could charge at this new level. They should not be making an underlying demand to their user-base. We have no other choice--pay or lose it. I do not use it enough to justify paying, and therefore if things remain the same, I will lose hours of work on pages, have to change my address over many web pages (where I am a member or receive aa news letter), and spend some effort backing up this data before it is gone. I have 75 days. It is plenty of time, and Apple has a right to make this choice. But I think it is a poor choice overall. We would be more likely to focus on the possible benifits if we did not feel cheated by it. I am not saying we are cheated by it. it was a nice gift to be free for so long. however, I do understand the outrage, and I cannot say I am happy with Apple's choice at all.

applenut · July 17, 2002 8:07PM

here's the problem. family computer... three people using it. me, my brother, and my mother. we all use mac.com e-mail and iTools. now we have to pay 300 bucks to keep our e-maila addresses. well actually 150 but you get the point.

it's ridiculous. they should at least allow multiple e-mail accounts or have a family plan.

willoughby · July 17, 2002 8:14PM

[quote]Originally posted by applenut:

here's the problem. family computer... three people using it. me, my brother, and my mother. we all use mac.com e-mail and iTools. now we have to pay 300 bucks to keep our e-maila addresses. well actually 150 but you get the point.

it's ridiculous. they should at least allow multiple e-mail accounts or have a family plan.<hr></blockquote>

I thought it was only 10 bucks extra a year for each additional email address. So you'd really only be paying 120 a year, well 70 this year.

nebrie · July 17, 2002 8:15PM

[quote]Originally posted by groverat:

Did Jobs actually say it would be free for life?<hr></blockquote>

He could just say it refers to the free 60 day trial. If you notice, there are many products out there that have a "free software included!" (like free AOL, free norton antivirus) and you buy it just to find out it is really a 30 or 60 day trial software. The practice isn't new.

eman · July 17, 2002 8:16PM

[quote]Originally posted by applenut:

here's the problem. family computer... three people using it. me, my brother, and my mother. we all use mac.com e-mail and iTools. now we have to pay 300 bucks to keep our e-maila addresses. well actually 150 but you get the point.

it's ridiculous. they should at least allow multiple e-mail accounts or have a family plan.<hr></blockquote>

Some kinda family plan's a good idea.

derrick 61 · July 17, 2002 8:29PM

Hey everyone...go <a href="http://www.apple.com/feedback/mac.html"; target="_blank">here</a> and let Apple know we want the basic @mac.com email to remain free!

luca · July 17, 2002 8:31PM

It would take a lot of effort and probably not be worth it, but you could theoretically keep your mac.com email address for only $19 a year ($14 this year) by getting together with nine other friends and paying $100 + $10 x 9 = $190 total. You get 10 email accounts for $190. Each person who got one of the secondary ones pays $19 to the person who ponied up the big bucks for them. Sure, you don't get extra iDisk space, but you do get to all have email addresses for pretty cheap.

$100/year is overpriced, especially when you can get email + unlimited dial up internet for about twice as much. Sure, there's stuff other than email, but who'll really use it? They just added that to justify the high cost.

groverat · July 17, 2002 8:36PM

If Jobs said "free e-mail address for life" then that isn't like bundling trialware, he (supposedly) said, "for life".

Not a legally binding thing, of course, but it would show bad faith for him to go back on that, using it to attract users knowing all the while that he was going to take it away.

Donny: do you remember when and where he said this?

programmer · July 17, 2002 8:51PM

Oh give me a break... how many times have I had to change email addresses because my ISP got bought or changed its domain names?! I've lost count, and I didn't even have the option to pay for keeping the old address. This is a fact of life on the 'net, live with it. Even the massive "@home.com" domain curled up and died. If you want one that is never going to change, then you're going to have to pay for it. With money.

Apple is a business and it exists to make money. Offering a free service like iTools costs a great deal of money. All of the Internet oriented companies have realized this, and that's why the age of the free Internet service is gone. If it can't at least pay for itself it is going to go away.

If you don't think it should cost what it does (or that it should do more than it does), then don't pay and get the service somewhere else. Money speaks louder than some dumb petition.

When you bought your Mac, you bought a Mac. Nowhere in the purchase agreement did it say anything about free iTools being guaranteed indefinitely, and if you thought that was implied then I will quote Robert A. Heinlen for you: TANSTAAFL.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

[ 07-17-2002: Message edited by: Programmer ]

.mac petition

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