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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Two takes on the .Mac renewal

We're getting close to the time when many people, myself included, will need to renew their .Mac subscriptions. Here are two interesting takes on this subject.

.Mac isn't worth the investment
"I'm sometimes asked if it makes sense for new OS X users to pay for Apple's .Mac ("dot Mac") online service ... Apple won't like what I'm going to tell you. The .Mac service is an expense you almost certainly can do without. The idea behind .Mac is about as lame as anything I've heard lately. You pay $100 a year for a small amount of online storage, an extra e-mail account, a virus scanner and a personal Web page ... You can see that I'm no fan of .Mac. I think Apple created it as a way to make a lot of money fast. The easiest way to tell Apple it needs to work a little harder for your dough is to avoid .Mac entirely."

Is it Dot Mac time again?
It's that time of the year again for many people -- Dot Mac renewal time. Dot Mac has been mature for long enough that there really isn't much to warrant another article over. However, there is one pernicious detail that will probably be the key reason people decide not to renew this year. It's Google. How does Google affect Dot Mac? As you all know, Google has started giving away 1 GB mailboxes with its new Gmail service. Yahoo has followed suit and now gives away 100 MB of mail storage and for $20 a year will give you 2 GB. How much does Apple sell for $100 a year? 15 Megabytes."

Both of these articles focus on the limits of Apple's online storage, and in the wake of moves by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, I fully expect Apple to bump up both its email and remote file storage limits. If this happens, I'll definitely renew .Mac.

[ Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink ]