why doesn't apple offer free email?

It used to be free along with iDisk.. It was a real shitstorm in the Mac community when they announced that they were going to start charging. Lots of people were abusing it by having multiple accounts.

I doubt that Apple would put advertising on it so I don’t think that they would even bother with it. So, free didn’t work and I can’t see them using ads.

Because people like yourself continue to pay for it, no offense.

Companies rarely give away what people are willing to pay for.

your right about that, I hand a gmails account and continue to pay for iMac, how dumb is that? I do write it off though and I like that its integrated with OS X seamlessly

I started my account when it was free, and called iTools. I was upset when the started charging for it, but have continued to do so. I am glad that they didn’t raise the price with the recent iDisk size increase, and it seems that they are adding more ways to use it, such as the iPhone’s ability to send your photos to the Web Gallery.

.Mac customers also get a few other perks, such as the free Backup and Garage Band goodies. I am hopeful that with Leopard there will be even better integration and value with the .Mac account. Go to the Member Central page to learn about all the features… there may be some you weren’t aware of.