An open letter to Yahoo! Mail

Dear Yahoo! Mail:

I have been a loyal member since college. I have touted your usability, your excellent spam filters, and your prompt technical support staff. After bouncing between email providers, you have fulfilled every email need I ever had. Your service has been the best, and I have recommended you to countless others.

So why do you insist on alienating me? Sending me arm-twisting emails to get me to upgrade to a new version of your webmail which, I can assure you with utmost certainty, will most likely NOT work on my antiquated machine? Not kosher, my Yahoo! peeps. I have no other Internet option but dial-up, and it takes plenty long enough for my connection and my faithful Dell to load your Mail Classic, and yet you insist I must upgrade?

You may think me paranoid, or frivolous, or un-techy, but I bravely tried your new version when it was in Beta testing, and I spent over two hours — yes, TWO HOURS — waiting to even see my Inbox.

Dear Yahoo! Mail, I do creative freelance work when I'm not manning either of my two day jobs. That means answering, sending, and receiving myriad emails in my evening hours. It is unconscionable that you would dare to take that from me. That is like tying a boxer's arm behind his back. That's like asking a concert pianist to play Rachmaninoff's most difficult concerto one handed. It is hard for me to believe that you would develop a product that handicaps users such as I. One of the first rules of web design is accessibility — and you should strive to develop sites that are proven to work on all Internet speeds and monitor resolutions. Surely your developers remember this from Web Design 101?

Sadly, it appears you have forgotten. And I am afraid, my dear Yahoo! Mail, that if you persist in this ill-conceived plot, I will be forced to withdraw all my recommendations and take my own membership elsewhere.

Sincerely,

A creative freelancer and adamant email user.