I'm curious to hear if anyone has any thoughts about the value (or lack thereof) of providing free email as a web-based service.
It seems like there are a million-and-one people doing it, and they must see some profit or benefit from the practice or they wouldn't keep doing it. That said, I'm not sure I see the point. With yahoo, hotmail, msn, and many other "name brand" providers of free email, why would a customer want to bother with a free email address at some mediocre, unknown domain name? I even see a lot of sites offering free email at a whole bunch of different domains, and I just have a hard time seeing why anyone would care. I don't personally know anyone with one of these email addresses. In my experience, people either use their job-based address, an ISP-based address, or a yahoo/hotmail-type name brand address. I don't know anyone with an address @free-email-4u.com, for example...
Obviously GT thinks there is and will continue to be a demand for this, or they wouldn't have bothered releasing GMail. Any GMail users care to comment on their success (or lack thereof) at providing free email as a service to their users? Anyone else feel like weighing in on the subject? Just curious to hear some opinions. Thanks.
Fractured Atlas :: Liberate the Artist
Services: Healthcare, Fiscal Sponsorship, Marketing, Education, The Emerging Artists Fund
It seems like there are a million-and-one people doing it, and they must see some profit or benefit from the practice or they wouldn't keep doing it. That said, I'm not sure I see the point. With yahoo, hotmail, msn, and many other "name brand" providers of free email, why would a customer want to bother with a free email address at some mediocre, unknown domain name? I even see a lot of sites offering free email at a whole bunch of different domains, and I just have a hard time seeing why anyone would care. I don't personally know anyone with one of these email addresses. In my experience, people either use their job-based address, an ISP-based address, or a yahoo/hotmail-type name brand address. I don't know anyone with an address @free-email-4u.com, for example...
Obviously GT thinks there is and will continue to be a demand for this, or they wouldn't have bothered releasing GMail. Any GMail users care to comment on their success (or lack thereof) at providing free email as a service to their users? Anyone else feel like weighing in on the subject? Just curious to hear some opinions. Thanks.
Fractured Atlas :: Liberate the Artist
Services: Healthcare, Fiscal Sponsorship, Marketing, Education, The Emerging Artists Fund
Value of free email