[AoyW] Yahoo Will Whack Your Email

A few years back, I set up a Yahoo email account. I hardly ever used it, accumulating at most a few hundred kilobytes of data, including incoming attachments. I logged in pretty infrequently. The last time I logged in I received this notice (click for full size):

The key elements:
- You have not logged in during the past four months
- All email has been deleted and cannot be recovered
- Subscribe ($19.99/year) to prevent another four-month whack

"This email will self-destruct in four months." Cool feature. Now, how do you feel about Yahoo as a potential provider of online desktop applications, for which they store the data? For that matter, how do you feel about Google or Microsoft, or anywhere?

If you use online apps that store your data, you don't own your data. That fact has not escaped the mass market, and no volume of hype will hypnotize it to the contrary. The always-on-you web, which puts your data in your pocket, is the only suitable method for web apps that rival the desktop in the mass market.