Yahoo Mail Goes Infinite
Now this--this is just silly. I remember working on a Web e-mail review years ago in which the fact that Yahoo Mail gave you a generous 4MB of storage gave it an edge over Hotmail's Scrooge-like 2MB. Then in April 2004, Google launched Gmail, with a 1GB capacity that seemed so absurd that even seasoned industry experts (er, like me) thought it might be an April Fool's Day Joke.
Eventually, after several baby steps, Yahoo matched Google MB for MB. Then Google introduced a weird, weirdly compelling system that lets you watch your Gmail allowance grow moment by moment. (At the moment, I have 2833.40496GB--waitaminnit, now it's 2833.40454GB.)
And today? Yahoo has announced that Yahoo Mail's new limit is...well, it has no limit. You get infinite space for your e-mail. Let me repeat: infinite space. As in you can store all your e-mail. Even if you have an unlimited amount of it
The company says not all users will get limitless storage immediately--it needs time to roll this new feature out. One can only imagine: It must take awhile to buy and install an infinite number of hard disks.
(The official announcement also makes vague reference to "anti-abuse limits in place to protect our users." Presumably such abuse doesn't involve exceeding one's quota....)
I don't claim to be an expert on Yahoo's Web infrastructure, but it seems reasonable to assume that the company has an extremely large number of hard disks, capable of holding a very sizable amount of e-mail...but that neither the quantity of disks nor their capacity is in fact infinite. (No matter how much space Yahoo's server farms occupy, unlimited storage would tend to eat up a lotta real estate.)
At any given point in time, then, there must be a number--it may be measured in Yottabytes, which I just learned about--that describes the total theoretical capacity of Yahoo Mail.
I wonder if anyone at Yahoo knows what it is? And if so, if they'd tell us? Or would doing so tend to acknowledge the fact that they're really offering an unspecified very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very large amount of space rather than unlimited room?
And as long as I'm wondering: What's the most e-mail that any of Yahoo Mail's hundreds of millions of users will actually store? Multiple gigabytes is a given. But will anyone actually leave a terabyte or two on Yahoo's servers now that it's a possibility? Is it now possible that a small country might share one Yahoo Mail account and leave all its mail there?
Or how about a large country? Hey, it's infinite!
Still wondering: Will Google have to respond to this? And given that simply matching infinite storage would be sort of boring, will it need to go to infinity...and beyond?
Note: I'm the sort of guy who likes to use my e-mail inbox as a massive database myself. It's a sign of the genial good humor of PC World's IS department that nobody there has strangled me for the massive, server-choking size of my Lotus Notes mail file.
As for my Yahoo Mail account, I currently have 17,020 messages in my inbox, consuming 48 percent of my current 1GB allowance. I know because Yahoo Mail has a little capacity meter--which has me wondering yet again: How can a capacity meter show what percentage of infinite your e-mail is using?
I end this blog post with a mention of a fact I've brought up before: Yahoo Mail's slick new interface has been in beta forever...by which I mean since September of 2005. And it remains so.
In other words, Yahoo Mail may be infinite...but it still ain't perfect.
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This whole thing is crap, why dont these guys focus on allowing us to send big attachments through e-mails. They should remove that teeny weeny 10 megs attachment limit. We dont want infinite space. Cmon guys do something different!!!!!
Its all a game of statistics, probability and the crunchability of hard disk space.The 'infinite' amount space certainly has reference to maximum probable limit a user is likely to store without losing himself in the mountain of mails. After all searchibility is so important too. This is where Gmail steps in and provides its competetive edge. Coupled to this Yahoo can also have some fineprint that says about logging in your account regularly to keep it active.
So if you actually happen to examine it, it might not be a bad idea after all, and quite feasible too.
Infinte email capacity??
Only one thing in the universe is infinite: the uncontrolled, automated spam on the Yahoo chess boards.
YAHOO CLEAN UP YOUR CHESS BOARDS!
I read this as infinite SPAM. Yahoo is probably one of the worst web mail providers in terms of spam control - OK I'm mad. Given that I'm already lost in my 22,000 pending messages (with about a couple worth reading) I practically have infinite space already. Here's a litmus test for Yahoo mail: The day I don't receive mail from the FUTURE (year 2038), I'll believe Yahoo has gotten its act together. Spammers, with Yahoo's cooperation, send mail with future date so they show up at the top of your list. Not to mention that their new BETA mail interace is really PRE-ALPHA.
I read this as infinite SPAM. Yahoo is probably one of the worst web mail providers in terms of spam control - OK I'm mad. Given that I'm already lost in my 22,000 pending messages (with about a couple worth reading) I practically have infinite space already. Here's a litmus test for Yahoo mail: The day I don't receive mail from the FUTURE (year 2038), I'll believe Yahoo has gotten its act together. Spammers, with Yahoo's cooperation, send mail with future date so they show up at the top of your list. Not to mention that their new BETA mail interace is really PRE-ALPHA.
I read this as infinite SPAM. Yahoo is probably one of the worst web mail providers in terms of spam control - OK I'm mad. Given that I'm already lost in my 22,000 pending messages (with about a couple worth reading) I practically have infinite space already. Here's a litmus test for Yahoo mail: The day I don't receive mail from the FUTURE (year 2038), I'll believe Yahoo has gotten its act together. Spammers, with Yahoo's cooperation, send mail with future date so they show up at the top of your list. Not to mention that their new BETA mail interace is really PRE-ALPHA.
I don't understand how they can enough disks or infinite or large amount of space in just over 2-3 years. Is the technology getting is advance so quickly? I remember 3 year ago Yahoo was struggling to give 4 MB of space, now they are giving 2 GB, which is 500 times as much.
Then I see YouTube, which has millions of Videos which takes so much memory to store them in their central system, I just can't understand how small advertising on the top of the page bring them money or profit to afford all memory space.
your spamming also...
an infinite amount of space isnt needed, i thought 2gigs from gmails was enough (how big can emails be!), now if they wanna give us some more space, then thats cool, but that money could go towards other uses.
regardless of infinite space, ill stick with gmai
Upfront disclaimer — I work for AOL and lead the Mail Product Management & Business teams.
With all the talk about Yahoo and Gmail, I thought I'd jump in and note that AOL has offered unlimited email storage to its users since 2005. AOL is free to everyone via AOL.com.
"At the moment, I have 2833.40496GB--waitaminnit, now it's 2833.40454GB."
So, Google is taking away your inbox capacity?
No way, i don't believe it. Where did you get your sources? I am not convinced that this is true. Since it is most likely true though I would not use all that storage space ever ,ever ,ever.
Ok, so how do they pay for it? Will the attachment capacity change? How will they keep all this stuff? Plus how will they prevent spam huh? This is carap , It can't be true.
The email file attachment size limit is 20mb, not 10mb. In reality, it's actually more like 18+ mb, because the limit also has to account for encoding.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/bizmail/send/send-51.html
Who Cares!! I hate Yahoo..
I'll add some more to the Yahoo SPAM problem: Whenever I report SPAM coming from a Yahoo Mail account, I get stupid responses asking for Full Headers, and providing instructions on how to send the full headers FROM THEIR OLD INTERFACE! The "beta" interface doesn't forward full headers - so why are they asking for them? Didn't they write the software? Should THEY make the full headers be included in forwarded messages?
To top it all off, when I complain that their help is helpless and their support is non-supportive, I get a message saying they cannot assist me unless I provide my "security password". *I* have to provide ID in order to report SPAM from their system! Good thing Yahoo Mail is free - if they were charging for it they would be out of business!