10x More Productive Blog!

I'm in love with web applications.

I use multiple computers, running multiple operating systems. so I find it extremely convenient to access my mail through the GMail web interface, I do all my blog reading through NewsGator online, and I am in awe of Writely, which could be my single content repository for all my articles and writings once they fix a couple of things. I am keen on sharing my photos with my family through .MAC and iPhoto's photocasting feed. I use Yahoo Unlimited for my music needs, it's great to be able to stream and download my music through the web, from anywhere.

The thing is, I am starting to feel the limit of free usage, and now that I am thinking about subscribing to all the services I'd like to use, it would just cost too much.

I enjoy Backpack, it is convenient that I can store my notes online, securely, sharing it only with trusted people. I have lost my local OneNote notes, my Palm notes, primarily because I am retarded when it comes to migration between PCs and I am sloppy with backup. The "Pro" account which I would need would cost me 9$ per month, 108$ per year. Let's assume that I want to use this webapp for 3 years, this is reasonable for most of my desktop apps. To host these 100 note pages, it would cost me more than 300$ for 3 years.

I am really keen on iPhoto's sharing features, it would be a great way to share my kids' photos with the grandparents privately - a .mac account would cost me 100$ per year, or 300$ for the 3 years timeframe.

I am sure Writely.com will have pricing similar to Backpack, so I expect that it'd run me again 300$ for that service. Yahoo Music is about 60$ per year. Actually I think given the value it provides, its pricing is the most realistic from all these services I am using.

So a full "Web 2.0" lifestyle, with web-based apps instead of desktop-bound applications would cost me more than let's say an iBook with some cheap software per 2-3 years, for sure.

Now I am totally accepting the fact that I will have to pay for someone's effort to implement all the RoR-AJAX apps, run the services, provide reliable backups, and so on. I don't mind paying for value. I think what needs to be done though, to make it actually feasible to choose the Web instead of the desktop, is to bundle these services as affordable packages rather than paying to 10 different sources for services.

Now some of that is already happening, as Yahoo! and Google is buying up services, and many startups are working towards the goal of this happening with them as well. However, there should be a way to provide lower cost bundles of independently operated "Web 2.0" services as well. Maybe Internet providers, maybe media companies, maybe even payment providers like PayPal should step in, and provide this aggregation and provisioning services to new startups.

This would drive more users to the new services. I would be more keen on trying new stuff, if I would know that my low cost "gLife" subscription would cover 10 different services, and I don't have to commit one more item to my monthly service charges. Keeping the overall costs low and bundled would also mean that I don't have to be worried about being cut off from my documents, photos, websites, if I have a bad month financially.

I don't want to see a "Walmart of Web based services" that would totally suck out the revenue from the little guys really, I want a convenient mall where service providers could rent space - and I could shop around without too much hassle.