Yahoo! is to start charging for its email forwarding and POP3 services. Users of the service have until April 24 to decided whether to cough up for the service. Yahoo! said it will offer existing users the service for a special promo price of $19.99 for the first year - a third of the normal fee of $29.99.
Yahoo! claims it is imposing the subscription so that it can "improve service quality...and reduce spam". The fact that Yahoo! lost $92.8 million last year obviously has nothing to do with it.
This seems to be the trend lately, with The Times saying this week that it will charge for content, and now the Irish Times is to start charging for premium content from the summer. Earlier this week the Oxford University Press (OUP) said it was making its vast library of reference material available online for a fee.
So is this the end for "free email" and services on the web? Will your credit card be your "flexible friend" for services on the web, or will web surfers just go to other non-paying sites until those too start charging.
Only time will tell. ;) But please, let us know if other services that you have used in the past (which were free to start with) are now or are planning on charge for that service!
News source: The Register
