Over on my Mac blog I’ve been pondering whether or not to renew the annual .Mac subscription:

Guess I’ll throw this out to anybody else reading. Is there some great value to a .Mac account besides the email and storage space that I’m missing out on? I don’t have a second Mac to sync to, so that functionality isn’t a big deal, but is there some other cool feature I just haven’t taken advantage of?

I’ve gotten a little bit of use out of it, but I’m not sure $108+ USD worth of use. To all .Mac fans, now is the time to remind me of all the great things I’ll be missing if I don’t renew.

I do want to at least keep my .Mac email address but I noticed that Apple makes the process somewhat convoluted to switch from full annual account to email-only account (accidental, ntentional?). It looks to me like I need to cancel the auto renewal by unchecking the box in the credit card section in Accounts and then wait for it to expire and then buy an email only account?

Confusing UI.

Any Mac readers actually make the switch from .Mac annual subscription ($99 + tax) to email only ($10)? What steps did you take? Feel free to put a link to your — or other — tutorial in the comments section or trackback from your site. No, I haven’t Googled this one or checked out the familiar Mac haunts. This might be really obvious but I didn’t see it on a quick review. Admittedly, I’m still a Mac newbie, even though it’s been almost a full year of Mac ownership. My infrequently updated Mac blog clearly illustrates my Mac usage patterns.

Should I keep .Mac? Why? Why not? You comments/feedback/advice are welcome, I have to make up my mind this week.

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