After a year of .Mac…. I decided not to renew my .Mac subscription. After thinking long and hard about it, I can’t justify paying $99 for an email address (daniel. andrews@mac.com), bookmarks synching (which Google does for free now), photo galleries (flickr does it easier and better), a backup utility, and a few other goodies.

Having the iDisk was the one thing that almost made me renew – basically iDisk is a webdav-enabled local disk, that whenever you update, add or delete a file, it syncs it with a server. You could use rsync to perform the same action, but it was so damn easy. I used it between work and home a lot, and I’ll miss the ease of use there.

However, I just couldn’t justify the $99 for slow up/download speed, wonky synching between computers at times, and tons of downtime with email on the .Mac servers. Apple needs to rethink their strategy here, and start offering something pro users would be more interested in. People with multiple computers may still be willing to shell out the hundred bucks to keep their info sync’d, but it’s only because there is no competition in other areas. They’re getting their butts handed to them by competing (and usually free) products, but still have the gall to sit on their ‘laurels’ and rip customers off.

I won’t be sitting around for another year of it. Oddly enough, Steven Frank was asking the same question today.