Email Evolution

I've maintained an e-mail account with the same service since 1998. It is the second primary e-mail account I established (the first being a student account provided by the college).

When I signed up for the service, the account was free. And it was one of the better free e-mail services--several megabytes of storage (5mb?) and more features (forwarding, POP access, and others).

Within a couple of years, a basic account was free; an ad-free interface, additional space, and most of the features were a subscription service.

In another year, the company went entirely subscription with their e-mail service. I made a decision to pay for e-mail service.

Since that time, there has been continual development of the interface and service. I've used the same address as my primary personal account for 6 years. I've used it for personal correspondence, discussion and announcement lists, and e-commerce with trusted companies.  At this point, I have 25 mb of space and better spam control than any other mail service I've experienced. (I can go for weeks without having to deal with any spam, while the service is accurately filtering out dozens of messages.)

I got to thinking about this history when I received an announcement today that announced an upcoming doubling in available space (a response to Gmail?) and other enhancements, including "disposable aliases." I'm looking forward to checking out these new features.