Sadly, I think it's time to leave FM

whuzizname · 26 Mar 2005, 01:14 AM

Fastem is a good service, but unless one is willing (or able) to pay on an ongoing basis, the storage limitations are simply too small to make Fastem a "keeper" for years of service.

I paid a one-time fee for the 16MB storage size membership. After only one year, and with constant deleting of messages, I now realize that 16MB is simply not enough to cut it. In these days of free 250MB and even 1GB free acounts are available, what's the "hook" that keeps me a Fastem user?

Sure, Fastem has some neat features and the other services have their downsides, but for me, storage is king. All of the other features may be important, but they are all icing on the cake (and many of them are of no use to me).

I have read these fora for a few days and find very little discussion of the miniscule storage limitation for Fastem's free or near-free accounts compared to Gmail and Yahoo.

"Style sheets" and such are cool, but seriously--storage size is king. This is why I will likely be switching to Gmail.

Is free storage the elephant in the room that nobody's talking about?

rmns2bseen · 26 Mar 2005, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by whuzizname
"Style sheets" and such are cool, but seriously--storage size is king. This is why I will likely be switching to Gmail.

Is free storage the elephant in the room that nobody's talking about?

As was discussed in another thread, it seems the whole storage "thing" is being blown out of proportion. I'm not sure all that many users really need 1GB of storage, and for sure the 600MB of storage in the Fastmail Full account should be ample for most people. It seems to my non-expert mind that the huge-mailbox movement is in a way a form of "needs creation"- people start telling themselves "I just HAVE to have 1GB of storage"- and just a form also of business "one-upmanship".
(edit) this is the other thread I was referring to: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/...threadid=34118

whuzizname · 26 Mar 2005, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rmns2bseen
As was discussed in another thread, it seems the whole storage "thing" is being blown out of proportion. I'm not sure all that many users really need 1GB of storage, and for sure the 600MB of storage in the Fastmail Full account should be ample for most people. It seems to my non-expert mind that the huge-mailbox movement is in a way a form of "needs creation"- people start telling themselves "I just HAVE to have 1GB of storage"- and just a form also of business "one-upmanship".

Sure, 600MB is probably more than I'd ever need and it's certainly better then my paltry 16MB....as long as one pays $20 per year. And please don't say "What's $20? Just pay it." since that would be missing the point.

The owners of Fastem are free of course to follow any business strategy they want (and I wish them well), but Fastem's free or near-free storage limitations are vestiges of the '90s.

registered_user · 26 Mar 2005, 01:43 AM

I think for people who use web mail, there isn't as much reason to stick with a service like FM. I for one, really don't like web-based mail interfaces. I like using a real email client and I especially like using IMAP.

You have to realize that FM doesn't sell any ads. They don't have any source of revenue other than subscriber fees. But they still have to pay their bandwidth bills, just like Google so their prices are more than reasonable IMHO. I've hosted my own mail in the past and I've administered company networks with mail and other services. I know just how much rackspace and bandwidth cost in the real world. I know how much Google must be paying to keep GMail operational (actually, I can't even fathom how much GMail must cost Google. They must make an ungodly sum of money on those little text ads or their losing their shirts).

And I understand how much it probably costs FM to do business. I know for a fact that if I got the same service and features from another service, it would cost the same or more. If I tried to do it myself, it would definitely cost more and it would take a lot more of my time. So for me, FM is chock full of savings, even at the enhanced account level (which is a fraction of what I used to pay for similar service elsewhere).

But not everyone has the same needs I have. If you use webmail instead of a client and you don't have a domain name to worry about or you don't want aliases, then FM might not be the service for you. It's your call, just so long as you realize that FM is providing a great service at a great price, just maybe not the service you need.

rmns2bseen · 26 Mar 2005, 01:45 AM

And...there's no need to "leave" Fastmail. You've paid for a Member account, which is "for life". So just use it in conjunction with some other free, large-capacity mailbox like Gmail or Yahoo, if you need more storage

FMRocks · 26 Mar 2005, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by whuzizname
Fastem is a good service, but unless one is willing (or able) to pay on an ongoing basis, the storage limitations are simply too small to make Fastem a "keeper" for years of service.

You are right, precisely because FastMail IS primarily a subscription service - that means pay on an ongoing basis. I have always felt that the free/Guest account is a limited trial account: except that unlike most other services, this trial is not limited in time but in features and resources. $15 one-time fee gives you SMTP access on FM's servers, the rest (the extra bw, and the extra space) are gravy. So yes, the subsctiption services are where FM excels, which is no surprise since it is a subscription email service.

**Sherry** · 26 Mar 2005, 02:47 AM

Hi whuzizname,

I think, if it was me, I'd continue to use the FM Member account with the 1 samename Alias and SubDomains. This gives you many addresses to work with. If the Alias starts getting spammed because of signing up for things on the web you could just delete it and make up a new one. You also can change the "From" address to one of the subdomain addresses. There are many other features I'm not even mentioning here.

As for the limited storage. You can easily tell FM to Forward copies of your email to a Gmail account for the storage. When you delete the mail from FM you still have a copy to refer back to when needed. That way, you can take advantage of both.

Welcome to the EMD Forums

Sherry

rmns2bseen · 26 Mar 2005, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by FMRocks
You are right, precisely because FastMail IS primarily a subscription service - that means pay on an ongoing basis. I have always felt that the free/Guest account is a limited trial account: except that unlike most other services, this trial is not limited in time but in features and resources. $15 one-time fee gives you SMTP access on FM's servers, the rest (the extra bw, and the extra space) are gravy. So yes, the subsctiption services are where FM excels, which is no surprise since it is a subscription email service.

And even so, one does not necessarily have to have a Full or Enhanced account to get benefit from some of Fastmail's best features. A lot can be done with a Member account, as pointed out by Sherry above

**psalzer** · 26 Mar 2005, 04:56 AM

Fastmail really isn't meant to compete with Gmail or the new version of Hotmail or Yahoo. It has no real revenue plan for free accounts. It's in the e-mail business.

If there is enough of a base of very serious users who want Fastmail's features, that's probably fine. I personally think that free e-mail, while not as good or nearly as feature rich as Fastmail's paid accounts, is still improved exponentially from where it was when Fastmail first went public. In terms of space, speed and reliability, free accounts are in a different leaque than they were just a year ago. Fastmail remains the choice of people who want really advanced features and the service that being a customer rather than a user brings.

If they needed it, though, Fastmail would probably have a bright future in providing e-mail hosting for businesses. It's already got the features. A user friendly administration interface and account geared to businesses and they'd be tops in that field in short order.

**CyberSmurf** · 26 Mar 2005, 06:22 AM

For me it's not the mailbox size, it's the bandwidth limitations with FastMail.fm.

note: I only have the Guest level account

Terry · 26 Mar 2005, 11:08 AM

Don't go out for a couple of weeks then you have enough money to upgrade, God its not that much or try gmail.

mikev99 · 26 Mar 2005, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by registered_user
I think for people who use web mail, there isn't as much reason to stick with a service like FM. I for one, really don't like web-based mail interfaces. I like using a real email client and I especially like using IMAP. [snip]

I disagree. One of the reasons I use Fastmail is that their webmail interface is supported by all the other features and none of the ads. I travel a lot and do not ever have to worry about an email client being dragged along.

yashsr · 26 Mar 2005, 09:05 PM

For $15, you get a completely ad-free mailbox, I know its not enough, but why leave if you don't have to pay anything more in your life, keep this too and use the free Gmail for storage....

rmns2bseen · 26 Mar 2005, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by yashsr
For $15, you get a completely ad-free mailbox, I know its not enough...

But more than he'd get from Fusemail for $15

yashsr · 26 Mar 2005, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rmns2bseen
But more than he'd get from Fusemail for $15

Actually I meant its not enough for him, otherwise the $15 plan in Fastmail looks good to me.

You have a good sense of humour though

26 Mar 2005, 01:14 AM	#1
whuzizname Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 5	Sadly, I think it's time to leave FM Fastem is a good service, but unless one is willing (or able) to pay on an ongoing basis, the storage limitations are simply too small to make Fastem a "keeper" for years of service. I paid a one-time fee for the 16MB storage size membership. After only one year, and with constant deleting of messages, I now realize that 16MB is simply not enough to cut it. In these days of free 250MB and even 1GB free acounts are available, what's the "hook" that keeps me a Fastem user? Sure, Fastem has some neat features and the other services have their downsides, but for me, storage is king. All of the other features may be important, but they are all icing on the cake (and many of them are of no use to me). I have read these fora for a few days and find very little discussion of the miniscule storage limitation for Fastem's free or near-free accounts compared to Gmail and Yahoo. "Style sheets" and such are cool, but seriously--storage size is king. This is why I will likely be switching to Gmail. Is free storage the elephant in the room that nobody's talking about?

26 Mar 2005, 01:43 AM	#4
registered_user Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 164	I think for people who use web mail, there isn't as much reason to stick with a service like FM. I for one, really don't like web-based mail interfaces. I like using a real email client and I especially like using IMAP. You have to realize that FM doesn't sell any ads. They don't have any source of revenue other than subscriber fees. But they still have to pay their bandwidth bills, just like Google so their prices are more than reasonable IMHO. I've hosted my own mail in the past and I've administered company networks with mail and other services. I know just how much rackspace and bandwidth cost in the real world. I know how much Google must be paying to keep GMail operational (actually, I can't even fathom how much GMail must cost Google. They must make an ungodly sum of money on those little text ads or their losing their shirts). And I understand how much it probably costs FM to do business. I know for a fact that if I got the same service and features from another service, it would cost the same or more. If I tried to do it myself, it would definitely cost more and it would take a lot more of my time. So for me, FM is chock full of savings, even at the enhanced account level (which is a fraction of what I used to pay for similar service elsewhere). But not everyone has the same needs I have. If you use webmail instead of a client and you don't have a domain name to worry about or you don't want aliases, then FM might not be the service for you. It's your call, just so long as you realize that FM is providing a great service at a great price, just maybe not the service you need.

26 Mar 2005, 01:45 AM	#5
rmns2bseen Master of the @ Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: USA Posts: 1,426	And...there's no need to "leave" Fastmail. You've paid for a Member account, which is "for life". So just use it in conjunction with some other free, large-capacity mailbox like Gmail or Yahoo, if you need more storage

26 Mar 2005, 02:47 AM	#7
Sherry Moderator Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: USA Posts: 8,687	Hi whuzizname, I think, if it was me, I'd continue to use the FM Member account with the 1 samename Alias and SubDomains. This gives you many addresses to work with. If the Alias starts getting spammed because of signing up for things on the web you could just delete it and make up a new one. You also can change the "From" address to one of the subdomain addresses. There are many other features I'm not even mentioning here. As for the limited storage. You can easily tell FM to Forward copies of your email to a Gmail account for the storage. When you delete the mail from FM you still have a copy to refer back to when needed. That way, you can take advantage of both. Welcome to the EMD Forums Sherry

26 Mar 2005, 04:56 AM	#9
psalzer Moderator Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,654	Fastmail really isn't meant to compete with Gmail or the new version of Hotmail or Yahoo. It has no real revenue plan for free accounts. It's in the e-mail business. If there is enough of a base of very serious users who want Fastmail's features, that's probably fine. I personally think that free e-mail, while not as good or nearly as feature rich as Fastmail's paid accounts, is still improved exponentially from where it was when Fastmail first went public. In terms of space, speed and reliability, free accounts are in a different leaque than they were just a year ago. Fastmail remains the choice of people who want really advanced features and the service that being a customer rather than a user brings. If they needed it, though, Fastmail would probably have a bright future in providing e-mail hosting for businesses. It's already got the features. A user friendly administration interface and account geared to businesses and they'd be tops in that field in short order.

26 Mar 2005, 06:22 AM	#10
CyberSmurf Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: British Columbia Posts: 4,011	For me it's not the mailbox size, it's the bandwidth limitations with FastMail.fm. note: I only have the Guest level account

26 Mar 2005, 11:08 AM	#11
Terry The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: VK4 Posts: 3,028	Don't go out for a couple of weeks then you have enough money to upgrade, God its not that much or try gmail.

26 Mar 2005, 09:05 PM	#13
yashsr Essential Contributor Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Mumbai, India Posts: 240	For $15, you get a completely ad-free mailbox, I know its not enough, but why leave if you don't have to pay anything more in your life, keep this too and use the free Gmail for storage....