I don’t know why I even bring it up again, but somehow it just makes me angry. I’ve had a hotmail account for ages, and I had it even before Microsoft decided to buy the service. Now, back then I didn’t know too much about the Internet, so I can’t say if Hotmail would have sucked as much as it does now, but its current state is simply unbearable. Robert Scoble, famed Microsoft blogger, yesterday posted a piece on Hotmail and the advantages it has over a service like GMail (from a marketing perspective). I’ve been reading Scoble on and off, and while most of what he writes has absolutely no relevance to me, I’m almost always irritated by the things that have. One of those things that irritate me is his unconditional love for Hotmail, which is clearly going down compared to most other webmail services, especially GMail.
When GMail started its beta service offering 1 GB of storage, Hotmail was quick to announce that they’d update every account to 250 MB of storage. Of course, that’s not as much as 1 GB (well, today it’s more than 2 GB at GMail), but it showed good will. My account hasn’t seen that upgrade until today, and it’s been about a year since their announcement. So, what gives? What the hell is wrong with these people? And what is wrong with people who think that getting more users per day is more important than actually providing a good service? Well, I guess that’s a question only a marketing guy like Scoble can answer.