[thelist] OT Bait & Switch - Mac.com Commentary

[Kid Stevens]

Can you tell me who if any actually uses .Mac.com?

At 7:20 PM -0500 8/1/02, Ray Hill wrote:
>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
>
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--
Sincerely,
Kid Stevens

"I would go without or show ...
sooner than lose for a minute the two separate sides of my head."
-Rudyard Kipling