Dear Apple, (mac.com email)
I have been a faithful Macintosh user since I bought my first Mac, a LC III, in about 1990 or so. Since then I've gone through countless other models, and am currently using a PowerBook G4.
I have followed all of Apple's rules, in the interest of supporting my platform of choice. I adopted OS X as my primary OS, and have written emails to developers asking them to speed up OS X support.
Now I wonder if my patronage is being taken for granted.
When I bought my Powerbook, I was guaranteed "free email, for life". Having cancelled my AOL account, I figured "Great, finally, a spam-free POP email account that I can DEPEND on!" I frequently change my ISP, so this account was exactly what I was looking for.
I sent my new mac.com email address to my clients, my family, my friends. I sent it to people whose email address I have on record, as well as to those I don't.
I get email on my mac.com email address daily, and it has been indispensable tool.
Now Apple has redefined "for life". I guess it means "for the life of our profit ledger" or "for the life of our whim".
I'm currently struggling as a freelance designer and cannot afford the horrendously expensive $99 a year Apple wants to charge for this "free" email account (I don't need the other .mac services).
It looks like I'll have to take my business elsewhere, unless Apple can explain why certain marketing promises were broken.
Best regards,
Xxxxxxxx
I have followed all of Apple's rules, in the interest of supporting my platform of choice. I adopted OS X as my primary OS, and have written emails to developers asking them to speed up OS X support.
Now I wonder if my patronage is being taken for granted.
When I bought my Powerbook, I was guaranteed "free email, for life". Having cancelled my AOL account, I figured "Great, finally, a spam-free POP email account that I can DEPEND on!" I frequently change my ISP, so this account was exactly what I was looking for.
I sent my new mac.com email address to my clients, my family, my friends. I sent it to people whose email address I have on record, as well as to those I don't.
I get email on my mac.com email address daily, and it has been indispensable tool.
Now Apple has redefined "for life". I guess it means "for the life of our profit ledger" or "for the life of our whim".
I'm currently struggling as a freelance designer and cannot afford the horrendously expensive $99 a year Apple wants to charge for this "free" email account (I don't need the other .mac services).
It looks like I'll have to take my business elsewhere, unless Apple can explain why certain marketing promises were broken.
Best regards,
Xxxxxxxx
Comments
<strong>
When I bought my Powerbook, I was guaranteed "free email, for life".</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where? Do you have a scan of the document that said this? Or a screenie of the web site?
I remember Apple saying that you would have a Mac.com e-mail for life but I didn't hear Steve say it would be "free for life".
I'm sure if you read the Terms and Conditions when you joined iTools you would understand that Apple is quite at liberty to do this. Apple is Apple Computer Inc, not a charity.
J :cool: (A .Mac user and proud of it)
The more I think about it, the more I think $99 is reasonable for .Mac's current services, but I do agree Apple needs to provide a cheaper membership level or two...one with perhaps only e-mail, and one with e-mail and a small iDisk.
None of these services would be free. Perhaps Apple was naive in offering you free services for life, but you should have expected its demise from the very beginning. Free things don't last because they are abused if unchecked...and it's very hard to police subscribers of services like these.
They are making a dumb move however by canceling free e-mail. Free e-mail isn't so hard to provide, is it? Plus, considering it's at @mac.com, it's free advertising. I just barely signed up for iTools before the keynote and was disappointed, but now I realize paying for .mac and Jaguar are reasonable. However, free e-mail is a good promotion tool. Even though I think this MWNY was great, Apple is getting as much bad press as it is good press from this MWNY!
well, if it is truly "indispensible", then you should be willing to pay for it.
and hey, you're a current user. it's only $49, not $99. and if you can't swing that working as a freelance designer, then you're not much of one.
word to the wise, folks: never rely on a "free" service. if you do, then you're just plain stupid.
Hotmail and Yahoo get away with free webmail because it's inconvenient. I always hated webmail only accounts. I don't use any of the ones I signed up for.
When you compare .Mac to Yahoo Geocities, .Mac actually looks quite good. For 25 MB and 5 GB monthly transfers, Geocities costs you $60 a year. For a single POP e-mail address, Yahoo charges $30/year.
These services obviously cost money to maintain. I'm not even sure if Apple could safely offer POP/IMAP accounts for ≤$20.
Apple will eventually offer e-mail only accounts. It's a no brainer. They just won't be free. I don't expect them to be under $25/year either. Add on a 20 MB iDisk and you will probably be paying $50/year after Apple fleshes out .Mac to include some more perks.
Mr. Everybody,
Thank you for your letter, however we have decided no, you must pay. Thank you for your patronage.
Sincerly, SJ & Friends.
PS, Please buy Jaguar also.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
After all iTools was supposed to be a FREE benefit of owning an Apple product.
It was free although not indefinitely.
Wow, that's clever.
Someone goes out today, buys OSX and can't get iTools even though it says it's free. Odd, isn't it?
But this is Apple, so it's perfectly acceptable.
<strong>BTW, iTools is now defunct. Apple broke no promises regarding the length of time your account would be free. As long as iTools was around, so was the free service. No one complained when iReview went under.
Amen. If you use a service you should pay for it, IMO. But then again the internet has unfortunately spawned a culture of people who exect everything to be free. Software, OSs, email, backup, webspace, everything. And the world doesn't work like that. No, I probably won't pay for .Mac because I don't need the email, virex, iDisk, or homepage. The backup is a nice idea, but I don't use OS X, so that's out too. (iCards are the only thing I'll miss, but it isn't worth $50 for the first year and $100/year after that.
<strong>
Wow, that's clever.
Someone goes out today, buys OSX and can't get iTools even though it says it's free. Odd, isn't it?
But this is Apple, so it's perfectly acceptable.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Are you disputing the facts or are you just stating that we're more forgiving because it's Apple? Either way, you've not really made a point.
iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, ect. are all advertised as advantages of buying a mac, but what if Apple were to suddenly start charging for those too? The development costs of these are pretty high, why shouldn't Apple make money off them too? Well because these apps are what help attract people to the Mac platform just like iTools did.
How soon before we see Apple charging for all of the "free" iApps? In a way we kind of are right now by having to pay full price for Jaguar. The cost of many of the new apps they have developed (iChat, Shelock III, ect.) are being factored into the cost of the upgrade so not only are these apps not really free anymore, we are being forced into buying them if we want Jaguar.
As a shareholder I want Apple to make as much money as possible, and the extra revenue Apple gets off .mac and Jaguar will probably make me more money off an increase in share price than how much money I would have to spend on these, but still I think Apple's pricing is totally unfair so I have to say something.
<strong>Well, all I can say is, it should scale.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's true, I was going to address this in my post, but I got distracted. I am currently using the webmail so that I can pop my email while I am on vacation. But I don't go on vacation that often, so I don't use the webmail that often, and therefore I don't need it enough to justify $50 for it. And that's fine with me. There are a lot of things I can't justify spending money on right now.
If I didn't already have another email address and I had been using the mac.com one regularly, then it would be important enough to me to pay for, but now it's not. That's not to say, however, that I wouldn't reconsider if they offered a mail only version for cheaper. Who knows.
[ 07-22-2002: Message edited by: Stroszek ]</p>
still, i would imagine it would be easiest for apple to continue to have these be free, or included in the cost of OS upgrades.
why?
because apple really can't make you pay for them. if you really wan them, get them from a friend or pirate them in some other fashion. apple really can't stop that.
one thing you can't pirate though, is a service. and that's what .mac is... a service. and THAT is the reason behind it.