What if .Mac is just the tip of the iceberg?

[bassi]

I was having a chat with a sharp guy who used to be a lawyer and now works in PR consulting. I outlined the .Mac stuff and how some people are really pissed etc. He's a PC user, doesn't care for Apple and Mac OS in general, but he did tell me that this new Apple phenomena sounds like classic bouts of "consensus terrorism" and "coercive massage". Basically he broke it down like this:

1) Apple introduces a fee for some web based services, email, web site, backup, blah, blah, blah.
These services are a luxury, we don't really need them. As we hashed it out, you can backup using other software (basically toast, burn in finder and retrospect are just as useful or better than Macbackup), you have email from your own ISP with space for websites and antivirus, what's a Mac virus?

2) If some people pay for these services, we're all in the loop. The consensus will force our personalities, to a lesser or greater degree to join the bandwagon. He said look for leaks on the positive takeup of .Mac by old iTools members and new Mac users. They'll be lies but will get the ball rolling. If they get even 10-20% of the user base of iTools it's worked, a once free service is generating capital. Now comes the massage.

3) Now the OS has tightly integrated one or two programs to .Mac, lets say, iDisk utilties, BackUp, iCal and mac.com in Mail.
Once this is complete, expect an upgrade to the software (10.5 or even point releases along the way) which will enhance your .Mac experience the the nth degree. These will compel new users to subscribe to .Mac because the OS experience will appear to be substandard if you don't. My example to him was like getting XP home and XP professional, maybe this is wrong. Anyway, in our case this will be Mac OSX and .Mac OSX.
The initial takeup of .Mac will provide no real enhancement to the user experience, but the subsequent OS updates along with .Mac updates will dramatically effect the user experience. This isn't bait and switch folks, it's Gruen Transfer. Victor Gruen was the inventor of the shopping mall. To quote "the Gruen Transfer is the moment at which a person trying to purchase a specific product changes into an "undirected impulse buyer.""

What you'll be buying is a collective experience of the new .Mac OSX (or XI). He was quite impressed with himself and Apple. He's a smug bas**rd, but he's not been wrong before. Basically, my conclusion was that the new killer app for Apple is .Mac.
He was worried about the niche market after I told him about the professional users and 'nix heads, but after I mentioned the PC switch ads he laughed out loud.
If this pans out .Mac is primarily targeting one of a two-tiered user base. The pros who use Macs for graphics, work, webdesign, science etc. may not be interested in this .Mac stuff at work, but will be more interested once they get back home, they're likely to use Macs there as well. The new switch users are the prime target, along with your granny (his quote). Apple must be really expecting a rise in their PC switch user base, if this doesn't pan out then .Mac will die a death.
He did go on to talk about digital rights management and Microsoft's Palladium using similar concepts but I was too drunk to care at that point.

Now imagine if you will, a time when you pay through the nose for the cool Mac experience, and then pay an additional fee for the web based services per year. Not only do you upgrade hardware and the OS every year or so, but you convince a user who probably won't bother to do either for 2-3 yrs to pay an additional fee on top. That will generate heaps of revenue.

Now my response is two-fold. One half of me thinks I'm gonna pay, I'm 1/2 herd follower at heart and I have a feeling .Mac will kick ass by 10.5.
On the other hand, we're being played here, .Net and .Mac basically means .$100 a year on top of all the rest for hardware.
Most of the world doesn't have a PC. Hell, how many people in the world have a phone line at home. My work requires my Mac, and maybe the services on top are just conspicuous consumption.
Going back to the herd follower, what will be our reactions if we click Go in the Finder, and see all these services we can't use online? How will we react when a new Forum will exist here alongside Applications and System called .Mac? What happens when email w/ mac.com from friends and coverts tricke in? Will sublime justification for these services make our .Mac experience an inevitability?

[JayBee]

Steve Jobs is gonna make you his bitch :)

*notices leash round neck*

Damn...

[sbur]

The only way that the above senario works is if Apple becomes an ISP. The average user can't afford $100/year for these services and $40/month for broadband access (needed for backup, etc). Especially when your ISP usually gives you email and limited storage space.

This is a niche thing, and the typical user will stay with AOL (or whatever) for their online services. I think the professional users are more likely to jump on the .mac bandwagon than the Switcher who are home users.

[Phil St. Romain]

bassi, I don't follow at all how .Mac will become essential or else one will have a substandard experience of OS X. I bought .Mac to keep a few mac.com email addresses going and because Virex alone is almost worth the subscription price. And all in all it's a nice service, especially for users who just want to share photos, back up documents, and construct simple web pages. Apple makes this easy for them, especially in OS X, but there are alternatives to all of the above besides .Mac and will be as long as there's the net.

To me, it all comes down to whether one thinks the service is worth the money or not. Apple doesn't really owe millions of people free e-mail or web storage, even though they made it available for free for awhile.

Just my two cents, fwiw. :)

Phil

[Thundarr]

I have an e-mail address with yahoo, and while it is still free, I have to pay now for POP access and forwarding ($29.99/year). They also offer 100MB of storage ($49.99/year).

I have three e-mail addresses with iTools. To maintain one of those, it would be $100/year for .Mac (plus $10/year for each additional e-mail address). But along with the $100/year, I do get quite a bit more.

As I see it, Apple is beginning to fall in line with other similar services. However, Apple's service will be tightly integrated with the OS, which will have some definite perks. My work e-mail address cannot be accessed from home due to security reasons, and I like to keep it solely for work-related correspondences anyway. So, because I use my mac.com addresses for things that I like to keep separate from my work e-mail address, things like personal correspondences, e-TOC delivery, websites that ask for e-mail addresses, etc, I would love to maintain my .mac.com addresses. Thus I am evaluating .Mac as something to keep and if it would be in line with the expenditures I would not ordinarily mind, such as maintaining a bunch of separate family addresses, a family website, etc. I do wish Apple would have kept a free 5MB e-mail address option, like yahoo. But yahoo, and others, may not stay that way forever either. I also wish Apple would have provided various grades of payment options -- $X/year for basic e-mail, an additional $Z/year for every additional 20MB storage, an additional $Y per year for extra options like backup or virus protection capabilities, etc. But maybe they want to keep it simple now, then make it more complex later.

[mervTormel]

tightly integrated services can also have a downside. when you're dependent on the service most is when it will glitch or go down. murphy something.

i think apple will probably listen to feedback and may tier the service at some point in the future, if it can be reasonably managed. with complexity comes cost. if i were managing this business, i'd say, "let's deploy a simple, single tier, make some money to buffer the sunken costs and evaluate building the tiered system."

[daimoni]

Originally posted by mervTormel
tightly integrated services can also have a downside. when you're dependent on the service most is when it will glitch or go down. murphy something.

i think apple will probably listen to feedback and may tier the service at some point in the future, if it can be reasonably managed. with complexity comes cost. if i were managing this business, i'd say, "let's deploy a simple, single tier, make some money to buffer the sunken costs and evaluate building the tiered system."

I really hope tiered pricing (especially 'family pricing') beomes a reality.

This is Apple's 3rd attempt at web services.

The first was Applelink (in partnership with GE) which was prohibitively expensive for non-Apple employees (it was free for them). They spent tons of money on it... no-one could afford it... and it went under.

The next was eWorld (in partnership with AOL). The problem with eWorld was that they could never be 'first' in technology since they licensed it from AOL, and since they licensed it... they could never be 'cheaper' either. And so it too fell.

And now Apple is flogging .Mac

What's curious about this (besides the exorbitant price for new users) is that despite Apple's partnership with AOL with iChat, etc... they didn't inform them of their plans until after the .Mac announcement.

I think Apple missed an opportunity here. They could've easily had an AOL or a Yahoo, etc. handle the hosting of disk storage, publishing etc. (it's what they're good at). And they could have tiered it out, and still make a lot of money without shouldering all the overhead and risk.

I know for a fact that many people at Apple (internally) are not thrilled with the whole .Mac scheme. Well, I guess we'll have to see how it all pans out.

I considered being a chump and ponying up $50 each for me and my wife to keep our mac.com accounts... and stave off the 'big decision' for another year. But I don't want to reward a company (even one I love) for what I believe to be a bad business move. I still have a couple of weeks to make the final decision... but right now I'm looking at http://www.he.net for hosting.

[Phil St. Romain]

Actually, daimoni, you don't need to pay $50 for both you and your wife to keep an account. See the other thread in this forum where I discuss how you can combine several accounts in one. You could all keep your email addresses that way and share one storage space.

Phil

[daimoni]

Originally posted by Phil St. Romain
Actually, daimoni, you don't need to pay $50 for both you and your wife to keep an account. See the other thread in this forum where I discuss how you can combine several accounts in one. You could all keep your email addresses that way and share one storage space.

Phil

I read your other thread, thanks. But if my family combines all of our accounts... only one account (the 'master' account) can publish via iPhoto, correct?

Picture a family situation where mom wants to post photos, the kids want to publish their homework, and dad wants to publish his resume. This is what I mean by a shared, 'family account'. In .Mac's current form, the only way to do that would be to create a single 'master' account that everyone in the family knows the name and password to.

Too bad my wife and I didn't come up with a more generalized name (instead of using our real names for each of our accounts). But I guess we could always register a brand new account... for $100. ;)

It would be cool if Apple could offer something like:
http://family.mac.com/~username

(replace '"family" with "group" or "cult", etc.)

with 5-7 email address included. Now that would be worth $100 per year.

[Phil St. Romain]

Yes, that's correct, you'd have only one account to publish iPhoto images, but there's no reason why you couldn't set up folders for Mom, Dad, kids, etc. to store their information. Of course, you'd all have to honor that arrangement, as I don't see any way to password protect individual folders.

In my case, family and friends were only using the email options, so bringing them all into one account was more advantageous to them.

[Danihilist]

Steve Jobs is gonna make you his bitch :)

*notices leash round neck*

Damn...
JayBee.
You nailed it.
Join AOL too.

[Craig R. Arko]

You registered here in order to resurrect a 2-year old thread and make a 3 line post?

An interesting world, in which we live. :)

[Caius]

lol.

I bought (well 'forced' dad to buy it for me) as i want the easy access to the Webspace, and I already had an iDisk, and Oh and well I sope I am a sheep aswell :(

But its by apple! and its so great! :D