Approaching its second birthday, Gmail has caught a break.  On April 1, 2004, GMail burst onto the scene with some cool new features that redefined free online email services.  Its gigabyte storage and Ajax interface gave Gmail an edge on its well established competitors; Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL.  They have all spent the last 2 years furiously working to develop slicker interfaces, matching the storage quotas, and working hard to retain their customer bases.  And in my eyes, they have been effective.

Now, after all that hard work, Yahoo and AOL have announced a plan to charge a fee to ensure email delivery.  I am a longtime Yahoo Mail user.  Actually, I am a Yahoo Mail Plus user, which means that I pay money for my “free” email account.   Yahoo and AOL claim that this plan will help stop SPAM, but in reality it will hit mailing list owners and legitimate ISPs the hardest.  It will also give major corporations a major advantage in communication and the little guy will be silenced.  Oh, and one more consequence, if this plan is successful, I will be heading to GMail. Because even though GMail could not tempt me away from Yahoo, Yahoo certainly has found a way to drive me away.  And I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only one.

Read more about the plan here.