It's not just paid email addresses. It's paid anything. My father constantly pesters me to tell him where he can get free movies, music, software and so on. He wanted to know where he could make unlimited online backups for free and I told him that stuff costs money. Somehow people have gotten it in their heads that if it's on the internet it's free and they shouldn't have to pay for anything.
The VC funding model of investing for growth has helped to create this perception. The sad consequence is that this has made it difficult to run companies that don’t scale to sizes that interest VC investments.
After I started my job and the prices came down with the help of online music sales and streaming, I bought a lot of CDs and digitally distributed music. Most of them were albums that I already have, because I wanted to support the artists which brought that feelings into my life.
Same is also valid for software, movies, or anything. If I can justify price of a software, I buy it. Otherwise, I use something FOSS instead.
My point was that people aren’t willing to vote with their wallet, but being a loud mouth doesn’t cost anything.
And that’s how we end up with monopolies.
On the topic at hand I still remember the people crying against Firefox’s Pocket integration. Well, as Chrome crushes its competition, while becoming more invasive everyday, I hope they are happy with the outcome.
I think there's a confusion, by GMail, I've pointed to the free offering, not the GSuite, sorry for being not clear.
> My point was that people aren’t willing to vote with their wallet, but being a loud mouth doesn’t cost anything.
Because I think that the same people believe that their e-mail is not that private, so they don't feel the need for voting with their wallets, however they are loudmouths because they're bothered by the breaches or privacy invasions they read/hear. They feel they are either exempt from this or not affected as much, so they're not alarmed.
taint.net seems to be for sale.
That is a better way of living, but it’s a harder choice for a lot of people.
With recent political trends towards the far right, it could become a harder choice for even more.
Yes, you're right. The climate worldwide is not the kindest recently. BTW, with uncomfortable I didn't mean opinions or ideas, but anything which will embrass you or put you in a hard situation if revealed.
As a corollary, this means living an honest life and telling what you think. Generally violence doesn't born from ideas themselves, but the way these ideas are told. So talking politely and without attacking the other side results in a reasonable discourse in most cases. Disagreement is in the nature of communication, and if can be managed well, it's very beneficial to both parties.
Also, people (including me) think that some newsletters, some bills and receipts are not very personal, so people don't care.
I have two main addresses, one is from a local provider and my all financial e-mails and other stuff is coming to that e-mail address, however they don't encrypt anything.
I also just got a free Proton mail, and will upgrade the account when I'm a little better off. Paid e-mail addresses are not meaningless, but they're harder to justify in most people's eyes.
BTW, I never store anything which makes me uncomfortable, anywhere incl. my brain. That's a much better way of living. Not that privacy conscious people is hiding something, but that's my policy.