Gmail's Achilles' Heel?
I wondered what would happen when I reached the limit of my Gmail account, and now I know: I can buy more space. When I checked my account just now I found the message above and this one at the bottom of the page, in scary red:
By clicking on the purchase link I'm taken to a Google Accounts page, where I can buy more storage at the following rates:
- 6 GB ($20.00 per year)
- 25 GB ($75.00 per year)
- 100 GB ($250.00 per year)
- 250 GB ($500.00 per year)
Seems pretty reasonable -- at least the 6GB one (and a kink in the armor of Google. As Google Operating System blog points out, Yahoo Mail is unlimited for free, Flickr is unlimited for $25 a year, and there's Microsoft SkyDrive.
So I signed up. The confirmation page had the sort of thing that reminds you you're dealing with a company that still makes its money from selling you ads:
And don't expect the storage to appear immediately. Mine took two days and three emails to customer support for the order to be processed. Then a bar appeared below my inbox like this:
While it's good my problem's been solved, it does indicate that Google aren't just going to keep going releasing space to heavy users. I can't imagine a lot of people using the space, so they can't be expecting it to be a big earner. It'll be interesting to see whether power users decide to jump ship to something cheaper. I won't -- for now.
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