I've seen it enough different places to believe it. Here's one: http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/05/14/gmails-users-fewer-but-younger-richer-than-yaho

I've seen it enough different places to believe it. Here's one: http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/05/14/gmails-users-fewer-but-younger-richer-than-yahoos-hotmails-2/ http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/05/14/gmails-users... or this http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/09/single-ajax-interface-for-yahoo-mail-im-coming/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/09/single-ajax-interface-f... Here's one about maps: http://manojjasra.blogspot.com/2008/01/mapquest-vs-google-maps-google-closing.html http://manojjasra.blogspot.com/2008/01/mapquest-vs-google-ma... Just google "[google's product] vs [competitor 1] vs [competitor 2]" and you'll see the same pattern. I think most Hacker News readers can't believe this because most of the people we know (heck, even our customers) are technically savvy. Go pick any random group of non-geeks (like say school teachers, firemen, visual artists, secretaries, parents of college students, etc) and ask them which site they use for email. Take you for example. In order to use PikLuk, you have to a) have kids, b) have computer/internet, c) know that bad stuff is on the internet, d) be concerned about your kids finding bad stuff on the internet, and e) be willing to spend time screening sites and setting up a whitelist (or however it works). Pretty much all of those skew towards upper-middle class educated people. Besides, how worried can you be about your kids finding bad stuff if you can't even find a mail program better than Hotmail?