A bomb of an e-mail

Vipin Kumar

``HI guys, please note my new e-mail ID. I am switching to this new ID because my present e-mail has become a paid service. From today, please don't send your mails to my old ID, send them to this new ID'' -- an e-mail that probably all of us got recently.

This is a cruel world where you get nothing free. Not even an e-mail. In the past few weeks, many e-mail service providers have told their subscribers that the free-ride is over and it is time to pay up. In the coming months, many more are likely to follow suit.

But will it work? Will anyone be ready to pay for their e-mail when choices of free-e-mail service providers, including biggies Hotmail and Yahoo!, are aplenty? Discussions have started all over (mainly through free-e-mail!) about the viability of the paid e-mail services, prompted by recent announcements by companies such as NetAddress and even our own 123India.com to make their e-mails a paid service.

This kind of a discussion may not have ever occurred in the so-called Old Economy, for the concept of free services or goods seldom existed there. Even if the service is provided by the State, the people would pay for it, albeit at a subsidised rate. But in the case of the Internet, it was totally different, right from the beginning. Virtually everything is still free on the Net, be it e-mail, content or sometimes even the access. Thanks to the stiff competition among a multitude of players, the concept of free services still holds goods in cyberspace.

Against this backdrop, one must say that the move by NetAddress and 123India.com is indeed bold. After all, they are trying to change the rules of the game. Let's look at what 123India.com, which claims to have two million registered users for its e-mail service, is trying to do. After deciding to do away with the free service, 123India.com is now introducing what it calls `premium service'. From August 1, members will have to pay Rs 999 for a year or Rs 599 for six months to avail of this `premium service' which includes a customised page and new calendar. Also, there won't be those nagging advertisements on your e-mail, and that means faster downloads.

``We have had good response since we made this announcement,'' claims a company spokesman. ``There is already a feeling among the users that all e-mails will eventually become paid-services. Lakhs of users are now checking out our new service for the trial period.''

The official doesn't believe that the company's ad revenues are going to be hit. ``There won't be ads in the e-mail box, but the homepage of our portal will certainly have ads. In fact, we expect the ad revenues to go up since our e-mail users now will be a very discerning group, who are willing to pay,'' he says.

Nevertheless, not many share his optimism. All those whom eWorld sounded out on whether they would pay for their e-mail replied in the negative. ``Who will pay for e-mail when all I have to do is switch to Hotmail or Yahoo!'' was the general reply.

Besides the availability of free e-mail providers, another reason for their disdain towards `fee-mail' may be that one does not really use all the additional features that come with the e-mail. Basically, one opens the mail box, checks the mails, reads them or deletes them and sends the reply, that's it. In spite of its heavy use worldover, e-mail is largely a tool to send personal mails, jokes and other common messages. So although e-mail is fast becoming a killer application tool for marketing, still its use is very personal.

There is another critical issue. When an e-mail service becomes a paid one, will it ensure that the service is never down, it is absolutely secure and the users will never confront any hiccups? (Remember, the Messenger service by MSN was down for a couple of days recently?). Once an e-mail service starts charging its customers, they won't tolerate non-performance. So you have to ensure that the service is absolutely reliable, secure and consistent, and that means more investments. If some sort of hacking or breach of security takes place in your system, be prepared to face not only the wrath of your subscribers, but also some legal notices.

One last question: Will Hotmail and Yahoo! also start charging their subscribers? (Yahoo! has already introduced a paid service) Perhaps not, at least in the near future. For a company like Microsoft, Hotmail is just another tool to attract users to its portal, MSN. Yahoo! too is unlikely to disappoint millions of its e-mail users by charging a fee.

Don't lose hope. The end is not in sight for freebies in the cyberworld.

Please e-mail us at bleditor@thehindu.co.in if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using the computer.