Gmail is a hot seller in eBay!

[Nacho]

http://search.ebay.com/gmail_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQfromZR8

So, if Gmail is a hot seller in eBay when it's in BETA mode, why would Google give it away? Ads=revenues, right? However, people are clearly paying for it and not bothering with the ads.

What do you think? Should google give it away or pile it on to their revenue streams?

[seobook]

I think Google is a company that understands you can pave roads and people will drive on them. you can add toll boths, but that is against what they have done so far.

when I get gmail invites I give them away. I would feel a bit sleezy selling them on ebay, though they are worth buying since time is money and gmail can help save time.

Google is aiming to make profits while providing the best products they can and trying to save users time.

<fun speculation>I wonder what will happen to sites like match.com after google opens up their free dating site.</fun speculation>

[Dodger]

I read an interesting article somewhere just a couple of days ago, and it had to do with Google having a userbase. Right now, they do not have one to speak of, even though they have the most popular search engine -- that could shift.

With Microsoft for instance, they have Windows machines and HotMail -- all of which means userbase that can have MSN Search applied to it. Yahoo is right behind them mail, groups, portals, stores, etc.

Google will need these little niches in the future if it wants to stay alive in the long term -- they need the userbase for their search if it loses ground to the other two. The userbase will assure them 'x' amount of core searchers and even if the engine goes second rate to either of the other two ... it will still be a decent search appliance regardless.

I voted NO.

[rustybrick]

There is the sense of "I owe you nothing" when you produce and give out free stuff. Google has that attitude with its search engine, API, toolbar, gmail, etc.

There is comfort in that for Google.

And the end user lives with it.

Google the search engine is less like the above examples.

So by making people feel like Google doesnt owe them anything, they do not have to have high customer support for the products. They have email support that normally gets responded to with a canned message. If someone was paying for gmail or search, it would be very different.

They wont be selling gmail accounts in the near future.

[seobook]

There is the sense of "I owe you nothing" when you produce and give out free stuff.

...

So by making people feel like Google doesnt owe them anything, they do not have to have high customer support for the products. They have email support that normally gets responded to with a canned message. If someone was paying for gmail or search, it would be very different.

They wont be selling gmail accounts in the near future.

they are all about automation. paid email & customer issues would not support their automated ideas.

[rustybrick]

they are all about automation. paid email & customer issues would not support their automated ideas.

I was going to add that later. Thanks for picking up where I left off.

[Alavina]

I think there are two reasons for Gmail. One is getting a user base (as already mentioned). This is to make sure people keep using Google... The other one is of course money. Disk space isn't that expensive, and even though you're offered 1GB, many people won't fill up this space so easily (that is, of course, if Google deletes junk rather than archiving this, too).

[Nacho]

Here is a very interesting active thread posted by eWhisper posted at WMW:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum100/97.htm

Centralizing the post on the following comment:

Is Google this smart? Or a case of engineers wanting a limited beta test, and just getting lucky the demand was created?

[Nacho]

Funny to see that prices used to go from $10 p/Gmail to now around $2, but with "932 items found for gmail" there is definetly a market for it.