Have to pay for SMS, soon may have to pay for e-mail accounts. I feel cheated. I'm all for capitalism but I feel cheated. It's unfair.

The manner in which they did it was not kosher. First they advertised and lured you by saying 'FREE SMS' and got you addicted to it big time. You learnt how to type messages using the miniscule keypad, picked up that special SMS lingo (I read somewhere that the Gujaratis SMS Gujju messages in English, for e.g., 2 VIP 6 = tu VIP che, meaning 'Do you think you are a VIP?' Well, the Gujjus must feel worse than the rest of us). After all that effort on your part, the evil, evil mobile phone service providers just announce one fine day that you have to pay to send SMS. Now all of us SMS addicts probably have to go into rehab to combat the withdrawal symptoms and require therapy to get over the betrayal of the service providers.

It's absolute treachery on the part of the e-mail service providers. E-mail has been free forever. At least SMS is only a recent phenomenon. Our e-mail accounts (more precious to some of us than a bank account) have been private, safe havens of communication. Soon we may have to pay for it. Or keep changing our mail accounts to free services till they catch up. Where is justice in this world if one has to pay for e-mail? We who have forgotten the art of letter-writing, who feel that the pen and paper are akin to quill and parchment in our world of keyboards and monitors. Imagine the culture shock at having to compose full sentences, complete with capital letters, whole words and punctuation. Fie to the e-mail service providers!

As Hotmail suddenly sports a new look after years of looking boring, I feel shivers of fear. The new look is probably to get users more hooked to the service before Microsoft goes for the kill. Since Mr. Gates has promised to leave most of his wealth to charity anyways, maybe he should start with Hotmail.