Signal to Noise

The first Brown Minute of 2007 is going to be a gripe that’s been under my skin for a long time: the fact that well-established service often stubbornly refuse to adapt their offerings to the basic, fundamental needs (which always evolve) of their customers. Case in point: .Mac. After years of this $99 crapfest being available, Apple still is stingy with the storage space and doesn’t allow parking your own domain, making this completely useless for most potential subscribers. Moreover, all their iLife apps have .Mac-only features. For example iWeb can only upload sites to .mac. If you’re using FTP to upload your site, you’ve got to do it manually. I realize Apple was gambling on low support costs and high adoption when they introduced the service, but it is so useless now only the geekiest Mac users still subscribe, and they know they aren’t getting their money’s worth.