I'm not sure you can compare cable to email. I may be in the minority here, but I agree that email is not really a pain point for me. I pay $50/month for cable because that represents a choice of having ready access to television or nothing.

The idea that households would pay $50/month for email is a bit of a stretch given that the alternative is free email that works pretty damn well.

I am not talking about email as you know it.

I am talking about this service that pg thinks needs to replace email. I do agree with him that people currently use email in a way it was not intended to (todo list, sending files, etc), and that surely there must be a better way of doing these tasks, that would be worth $50/month, while getting rid of the limitations of email such as attachment size limits.

In fact I know I am right, because the reason we, in 2012, still have no easy way to share large files between friends and family members, is precisely because the storage and bandwidth costs are higher than the cost of email.

You honestly believe there are a lot of families that would pay you $50 a month for a service that enables them to easily create todo lists and share attachments? You're a pretty optimistic person.

How many services do you yourself pay for today on a monthly basis? I can count mine on one hand. To get $50 from me every month you better have a life-changing service.