Whuuhh, my thoughts about Gmail account were right. Through out my day I had mixed reviews. Few of my friends to whom I forwarded the news that I have Gmail account to auction came back to me, some bidding money and while some offering me slabs of beer knowing that I am a non-alcoholic.
Now the truth part, this Gmail auction thing was just a trial thing which I wanted to do and see what the responses were like. Although I was not going to take money from anybody, I wanted to see what public reactions do I get. To start with, I had a bidding price which was way above the bidding price they had at Ebay, which was nearly $15 AUD, but I intentionally had it higher to see what public reacts with.
The few reactions and email I got were from people I knew and those were the people who did the bidding on money and beer. I did not get much response on my blog though, not even many bad flaming comments. I am sure if the heading said, free Gmail account, than the blog would have been flooded with comments, but not in this case. Here are my conclusions:-
- People don't like to pay for things that they know will be of free of charge one day
- I know many people who pay $25-$50/year on a paid hotmail service, which at the maximum will only give them 25 MB of space, but they won't like to spend $55 on a Gmail account which is 1 GB and no other fees after that for the life time (not till now); because they know that I am getting free invite and I should be giving it away for free and also they know that it will be free email facility one day.
- One person commented on my blog saying “pathetic“ and did not tell me why.
- People want few things,just because others have it , even though they won't be using it much. To give you an example, Ketu who commented on my blog and bidded money, has only one personal email address since he has known internet and it is a 2 MB Hotmail email address. I asked him why he wanted a Gmail account as he has only used 20% of 2 MB in his hotmail account and the reasons in his words are “ I want it because, I know a person in my office who has a Gmail account and he keeps showing it off“ (Ketu I am just giving example and not picking on you here) and I can give some other reasons like this.
- People love freebies.
Yes, about Gmail invites, I invited two other people and Ketu and used my three invitations and this all was free of charge. I am sure they will enjoy Google now.
Tejas Patel