Gmail loves me not
I was completely unphased when the recent discussions on Evolt.org’s thelist turned to Google’s new, invitation-only (for now) Gmail service. Evolt is, after all, a geek-driven organization, so naturally they would talk about such things. But in the past couple of days, however, discussions about Gmail invitations—who’s got `em, who wants `em, and why they are worth having—have all but taken over many of the mailing lists I follow, even the non-technical ones.
I’m now feeling like the only person in the world who hasn’t received an invitation yet—not that I’ve been expecting one. In fact, this blog entry is the first time I’ve even given the issue any serious thought. My Web-mail needs are more than adequately taken care of, so Gmail is not really very appealing to me, but the question I would like to have an answer to is:
When is Google going to get into the Web-hosting business, thereby forcing all other hosts to jack up their own services to remain competitive, as Gmail has for the Web-mail service providers? If Gmail can afford to offer a gigabyte or two of mail storage for free, surely these Web-hosting companies can offer more than the typical, fixed fee 100MB-500MB or so, right?
