The Cult of the Cool Mac: Made with 100% USDA real meat!

At last week's Macworld keynote, Steve Jobs announced that Apple's iTools service was being renamed .Mac ("dot-Mac") and that users would hereafter be charged $100 per year for use of the service.

Some upgrades will be made to iTools -- including virus-checking software, larger iDisks and e-mail mailboxes, shared calendars and automated backups, but arguably it is the same service that was free last month...

DEFINE "FREE"

But was it really free? If you examine the packaging and promotional literature for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, you'll find that iTools was advertised as a part of the system. Apple's promotions promised users that they could "keep it as long as you like." The cost must have been at least partly defrayed in operating system sales. Apple also used "free" iTools as a means to recruit PC users to the Mac by promoting the integration of Macintoshes with a broad range of easy to use online tools. Surely some of the expense of iTools was budgeted as an advertising expense.

FAIR VALUE

When introducing dot-Mac, Steve Jobs said, "You used to be able to get free services like crazy ... and all that's gone. We're going to have to reflect that too,". According to Jobs, Apple is just joining the crowd of sites like Yahoo!/Geocities and Hotmail. This odd rationale misses two obvious points, namely that limited free services are still available at most of these sites (while Apple no longer offers any part of the iTools suite for free) and also that Apple has long promoted itself as the "Think Different" company, which makes Apple's management look either schizoid or thoughtlessly opportunistic.

Apple's iTools have never lived up to the standards of other online services. Apple does not disclose their complete privacy policy, they censor e-mail without notice or public disclosure of their standards, services go offline without prior or present notification, they offer only limited online tech-support and they do not guaranty up-time. As a "free" service, these oversights were forgivable, but for a pay-service such limitations are deserving of reproach.

For $120 per year or less, a user can subscribe to an Internet service provider that gives users e-mail, web-space and community-features as well as supplying an Internet connection. Apple's $100 fee does not include an Internet connection. Moreover, Apple's much-touted iDisk is nearly worthless without a high-speed connection such as a cable modem or DSL line, which typically cost $400 dollars or more per year. Add access charges to Apple's dot-Mac fee and dot-Mac sounds both redundant and expensive.

Free services for online storage and e-mail abound. Cheap hosting plans are available that give you your own domain with substantial e-mail options for less than you would pay for dot-Mac.

As an incentive to move to dot-Mac, Apple has offered to existing subscribers the opportunity to move to dot-mac at half-price for the first year of service. It comes with one e-mail address, but for those users who currently have more than one account, they can retain additional e-mail address at the rate of $10 per year -- each. Users have until September 30, 2002 to take advantage of the half-price offer.

After September 30th, all iTools subscribers who have not paid for dot-Mac will have their accounts suspended and homepages removed.

REAL-WORLD TROUBLES

I had 2 iTools homepages and also maintained 3 different e-mail addresses. Under the existing price-plan, I would owe Apple $130 dollars just to keep the minimal services that I presently use. Additionally, I maintain homepages for two other members of my family who are not comfortable or knowledgable about computers. Each of these accounts would require an additional $50 dollars this year. Next year, the price goes up to $430 dollars for us. I do not consider my use of iTools abusive or excessive because I did not over-exploit iTools. I used e-mail-forwarding so that I could have mac.com addresses and I set up small personal websites that didn't hog bandwidth. And Apple recieved free advertising with every e-mail that I sent and every time that someone viewed one of those websites.

UNREST AMONG THE MASSES

With the dot-Mac price-plan, iTools has become prohibitively expensive, both in immediate dollar-cost and in the cost of time and energy to move myself, my family members and a number of friends to alternate and free service-providers.

I am concerned that Apple did not indicate earlier that they were going to start charging for iTools/dot-mac accounts, and also that they did not decide to charge pro-rated fees for users who do not need or use every dot-Mac tool. Many users had iTools accounts just for the status of the e-mail address. Unfortunately, the tarnish of Apple's egregious fees has probably damaged the value of that e-mail address beyond repair. Mac.com has become a joke.

There has been tremendous backlash from previously loyal Mac enthusiasts who would probably have been willing to pay a reasonable fee for the mac.com e-mail address, but who find the cost and rationale insulting. An online petition against Apple's overpricing has garnered over 28,000 signatures to-date.

At last count, 53% of all new Macs were purchased by existing customers. It's difficult to imagine any company so stupid as to alienate their existing user-base when they depend on such fanatical loyalty for their income. Yet that is exactly what Apple has done. One can only hope that Apple reconsiders their present policies, or else comes up with incentives that overcome the distrust they have just engendered.