Google is doing everything to become the king of the Internet. The holiday promotion of Google Check out is targeted towards eBay’s Paypal; in the search market it’s continuing gaining market share from Yahoo, although I still like Yahoo Mail better than GMail 🙂
eBay is not standing still, it’s raising the listing fees. As a seller on eBay I certainlly don’t like them raising fees. But if I am eBay share holder, I will love it 🙂 Seriously, in today’s world, raising fees without losing customer is always a good sign of competitive edge. Not many companies, online or offline, can do that easily because customers are expecting more while paying less. Remember the Oracle’s 50% off Linux support (vs. Redhat)?
Yahoo is a different animal. I noticed when I logged into my Flickr (a Yahoo subsidiary) account, I received a note saying it will only show last 200 photos I uploaded if I don’t upgrade to the Pro account (a Pro account cost $2.99 per month). I have not upgraded yet, figured I could use Yupoo, the Chinese version of flickr. But I will continue to use Yahoo Mail. Maybe one day when I log into my mail, they will say if I don’t upgrade, they will only show 200 last messages 🙂