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On Sat, 03 Dec 2005 05:04:51 -0600, Philip J. Koenig wrote:
The provider of the free service has
as much motivation to ensure reliable service and delivery
as you might expect from an entity that receives
-zero- revenue directly from users.
So, since Opera is now a free browser... :)
Indirect motivation remains in the reputation of the provider,
which impacts the number of users, which impacts the
effectiveness of the advertising, which impacts
the ad rates, revenues and profit.
Broadcast TV likewise receives zero revenue directly
from users, but: low ratings -> show canceled :)
By the way, Gmail was quite responsive to user input
throughout development -- compare that to Hotmail :)
Hotmail [lost someone's saved mail, contacts, etc.]
(a) Typical Microsoft [parent company] quality :)
(b) I use multiple providers [Gmail+Yahoo+Hotmail]
to save anything I deem important
(plus my own computer and local backups, of course)
(c) When I use Gmail for business, I am using it
only as my POP server, as I mentioned
(plus its handiness for any roaming access), so...
(1) It all still comes to my own computer,
and is backed up on my local file server, as usual.
(2) POP servers don't provide historical backup anyway
(usually not even current mail backup, due to volatility)
-[ ]-
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