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A paid-for option (proton, tutta,…) would be cataloged as elitist. People perceive email as free. The era of Pii as a commodity is coming to a close. The writ
by b112 3y ago
A paid-for option (proton, tutta,…) would be cataloged as elitist. People perceive email as free.
The era of Pii as a commodity is coming to a close. The writing is on the wall for this.
Once that happens, free email will vanish. Poof. Gone. So will many other "free" online things.
This period of most people getting free email is really quite short historically. A decade.
(Many people used to get email addresses from their ISP, which were part of their paid plan)
I wonder what will happen when gmail goes paid. It's going to happen, and I expect so regionally (eg, not the EU zone or some such) within 5 years.
A lot of people depend upon said free email, and as much as I dislike Google, they have absolutely zero obligation to give anything away.
They've spent the last few years moving classes of accounts to paid. They've been closing down accounts which seem dormant.
Soon... a year maybe?, I think we'll see some sort of precursor change. A reduction of storage for free accounts, or number of emails you can send, or something.
- briandear 3y agoHow poor are people that a low cost email service is too expensive? $5 a month for Europeans or Americans would be nothing. Think how much poor people spend on stamps.
- sp332 3y agoPoor enough that they don’t have a bank account to pay for the email service.
- ejb999 3y agoand yet we assume they are wealthy enough to own a mobile phone and/or computer/tablet to access that email.
- sp332 3y agoPublic libraries https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32304320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32304320 Subsidised phones and internet access https://www.fcc.gov/lifeline-consumers https://www.fcc.gov/lifeline-consumers
- iAMkenough 3y agoContrary to popular belief, most homeless people have cellphones.
- ejb999 3y agowell then however they are affording a mobile phone and the monthly service, they can probably figure out how to pay $5/month for email if they don't want to use one of the free options.
- b112 3y agoPeople can have an older phone, given free, cast off by people buying the latest-and-greatest, and use public wifi for everything. The phone can literally be free. This requires no monthly service.
- freetanga 3y agoIn many cases is the expectation of the service being free… If someone told you that checking the weather app is .50 usd per query, you probably would try to find a different alternative, as you expect it to be free.
- vel0city 3y ago> This period of most people getting free email is really quite short historically. A decade. I do agree from a long perspective free email has been somewhat short. But I'm not sure about scoping it to just a decade. It was easy to get a Gmail account in 2004, that's close to 20 years ago. And Gmail wasn't even the first free email host, loads of people used other free email services like Yahoo (1997), Hotmail (1996), Lycos (1997), and others. 1996-2024 is 28 years, close to three decades.