For the crappy service, they are going to charge at least $30. So for the low cost hosting plan prividers, there's a pretty good opportunity since $30 gets you an annual plan with hosting and email account at your domain. With proper strategy, you guys should be able to get a lot of new accounts.

Check the news at:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6445742.html?tag=mn_hd

"People who sign up before July 31 will pay $29.99 for a year of service. Those who sign up after that date, however, must pay $49.99 a year. "

ebird

Finger cross...

I signed an email address with them but never used it. Now for sure will never use it ;)

At first I thought you were complaining about the "crappy service", so I was going to say what do you expect for $30/year. That's like, what, $2.50 a month??? But then I wasn't sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying the crappy service is acceptable at that price, or that the service should be better? Just wondering.

What I mean is: I would rather to pay $10 for my own domain and get an low hosting plan for 20 or 30 per year, than paying $30 or $50 for the netaddress service.

Is it clear now?;)

ebird

That's a pretty big move on their part. I wonder if it'll works for them. I'm guessing you'll have a usa.net e-mail address?

I think ebird's point will be the way a lot of people go (though a $20-30 a year web account may have some reliability issues), with your own domain name.

Still it's not a big new thing really. More a reverting to the old days of the web when most things were 'pay for use'. Infoseek started out as a $20 a month service so you could search the net, and hosting used to be freakishly expensive.

Greg Moore