[thelist] Bait & Switch - Mac.com Commentary

[Ray Hill]

sWhile Hotmail & Yahoo continue to push their user more agressively towards the paid service option, Mac is taking a different approach with their free @mac.com email accounts.  They're simply cutting off all free services, and forcing users to sign up for the free service or lose their email address.

That much makes sense, as a business decision.  But here's the kicker.  They have no announced plans to forward email for the users who choose not to sign up (which they esimate to be 90% of the users).  And with so little time to get the word out to everyone who has their email address, many of those users will be losing contacts and a fairly large amount of email.

To illustrate the negative impact this policy will have on Apple's users, Kevin Fox produced a video commericial titled "Bait & Switch", in the style of Apple's recent "switch" ads, and detailed his objections to the policy in the following article:

   http://www.fury.com/article/1387.php
   http://www.fury.com/article/1386.php



Discussion Topic:

Why would a company with such a loyal fan base risk alienating their users by refusing to forward their mail through a 6-12 month transition phase?

Do they not realize how much of an inconvenience it is to lose your email address?

Has it not occured to them that forwarding mail and at the same time sending an auto-response similar to the phone company's "this number has changes... please make a not of it" message would simultaneously keep their customers happy and actually *reduce* the number of emails being sent to defunct email addresses (as people update their address books)?

Or have they simply not thought the thing through?


Here's to hoping they realize the error of their ways and keep their customer base happy.  I'd honestly hate to see their niche market get any smaller than it alreayd is.

--ray