I thought you said "make money." Webmail is free.
Yes, so free that it seems to have wandered off any number of sites that were former webmail providers. Much of what's left is either playing games with user agreements - so that you'll not only get spam, you'll have asked for it - or is devoting increasingly larger portions of your screen to horizontal and vertical banner ads, and taking care of any space remaining - you know, the place the webmail goes - with strategically placed pop-up ads.

Besides, no website is giving away the much-coveted, highly-prized Plastic.com accounts now being offered at bargain basement prices. Considering what I paid for carl@plastic.com, the token sum I'm asking for you to get your very own member_name@plastic.com is really quite paltry. Almost insignificant, really.

And what might this paltry, insignificant sum be? (And if it's so insignificant, why does it cost anything at all?)
Plasticmail is yours for US$30. for six months of service, which works out to US$5. a month, 17 cents a day, a mere rounding error by the hour. At that price, I can comfortably cover the costs incurred by the service with enough left over - "profit," I think I heard it called once - to continue running and developing the website. This is a good thing.

But I don't want your webmail, with all its elitist claptrap... A webmail with no ads? With no positively negative opt-outs to receive periodic special deals and offers from a long but selective list of partners and affiliates? That isn't "free," with an asterisk? Sounds positively un-American. What I want is a Plastic t-shirt. But not made out of plastic. Made out of cotton.
If you sign up for a year's service for US$60., you'll receive a quality heavyweight 100 percent cotton screen-printed Plastic 't,' as a token of appreciation for supporting the kind of specious, questionable thought and delusional, self-important blather you've come to expect from Plastic. And yes, of course - they'll be available in S and XS for the ladies.

So US$60. for a lousy Plastic t-shirt.
No, US$60 for the kind of exclusive email address that tells people you've managed to peck out 'I liek Pokemon' or suitable variant enough times to earn the positive karma needed in order to qualify for a Plasticmail account - and you had 60 bucks. The t-shirt is my gift to you.

Why the positive karma requirement?
Spammers. I don't want them as Plasticmail users, don't want to devote a lot of time to dealing with those who would abuse the service. I figure anyone who's been on Plastic even for the short time needed to earn a karma point or two realizes that a sanctioned venue for all your mindless rambling is readily available.

Alright, I might be interested. Where do I go to take a look at Plasticmail?
Though I've now gone through two months' testing on the various components from which Plasticmail will be assembled - so that I could be sure of the quality of the service, and of its pricing, before offering it to you - I would like some assurance of a real demand for Plasticmail, before building out a suitably robust system (as opposed to a simpler setup, "good enough" to satisfy my needs).

Because of this, I'm asking for those interested in Plasticmail to subscribe now... which will make you a beta tester for the service (and also give you the opportunity to see that the final product meets your expectations). As a beta tester, you'll be using Plasticmail while it's in beta - obviously - but we won't start the clock on your subscription period until the service officially launches.

What I'm looking for is 100 put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is subs - if Plasticmail can't make three digits, your money will be refunded, and the service won't be offered.

So basically, Plasticmail is vaporware.
No, not at all - I have no desire to develop a web-based email client, whether now or in the distant, far-off future. Patching up Plastic messages was quite enough, thank you. Plasticmail is componentware.

At the core of Plasticmail will be a full-featured commercial webmail package comparable to any of the popular webmail services. Out-of-the-box, it's got everything you'd expect, including full support for MIME messages and attachments, easy mailbox and folder management, user-configurable mail filtering, personal mail templates, an address book and quick contact list, the choice of basic (compatible with most browsers) or enhanced (WYSIWIG editing, dynamic controls) interfaces, spellcheck, search, and so on. Plastic's license includes source, so I'll be able to integrate Plasticmail with Plastic as necessary. (Currently my only plans are for a 'new mail' indicator on the website, similar to what we currently have for Plastic messages.)

All incoming messages are scanned for viruses; I'm currently deleting infected attachments at the server, with the remainder of the message converted to plain text before it's delivered to the appropriate mailbox. The virus scanner is automatically kept current via a subscription virus update service.

Spam filtering is accomplished through a series of customized plug-ins, including SpamAssassin and Razor – I've had incredible results using the two of these in conjunction. Plastic will also have (user-optional) community-based filtering (because it's what Plastic does, that) for spam, which I expect to have ready for user review and testing shortly after the initial launch. (I hope to put us in several groups - so that, for example, those of you who've been grousing over the free registration for the NY Times on account of the subsequent marketing email can together choose to filter what you consider spam.) What happens to mail tagged as probable spam is your choice – it can be deleted at the time of filtering; filed into a separate "junkmail" mailbox; or you can use the explanatory headers and subject line prefix added to suspected spam, to filter, file, or further process the mail as best suits you.

And remember, no ads.

Hmm... Speaking of Plastic messages, if I just get all my friends to sign up for Plastic accounts and we all use Plastic messages, isn't that like getting Plasticmail for free?
You're on Plastic. You don't have any friends.

You have 'pals.'

But. For the conspiracy-minded, Plasticmail won't negatively impact Plastic messages (or any other part of the Plastic website). Plasticmail is being offered to support the website - and give Plastic's members a smart alternative to the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. It just wouldn't follow to subsequently cripple or impair the existing website, in order to (somehow) diabolically compel users to embrace the paid service. I'm smarter than that, you're smarter than that, we've all got better things to do than play shell games with Plastic features, and - this is what it really comes down to - I certainly wouldn't want to be treated that way.

I assure you - if I it were my intent to destroy Plastic in order to save it, I'd have spared myself the last six months and a bit of sanity besides, and not bothered fixing things in the first place.

Use Plastic messages all you want. Knock yourself out.

Your Plastic messages are weak, anyway. I bet Plasticmail never really quite works right. Just like Plastic.
Why do I get the feeling I'm being questioned by someone who never seriously entertained subscribing to Plasticmail in the first place?

And aren't you the same person who said I'd be the death of Plastic?

It'll work. A decade ago I was paid for doing this sort of thing, as a sysadmin. (I've done a lot of things, mind you, and that was in another recession, so don't hold it against me.) I continue providing email and email-related services for myself and others to this day; I've even done some weird things with email, like writing the world's first email narrative (also in the early 90s). And I'm quite familiar with the technical and economic issues faced by webmail. So.

If you do take a chance on Plasticmail and it doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work for you - your subscription amount will be refunded, with my gratitude and thanks. For giving me the benefit of the doubt, which is all I really ask. I know what it's worth, to earn someone's trust - and know far better than to give it up, in exchange for a few dollars.

Ok, then. But I trade a lot of ripped Eminem tracks, as attachments in email. (They just sound better that way.) How much storage space is included with my Plasticmail account?
Probably 10MB, possibly more. We'll decide this in beta testing, based on client/server performance when dealing with very large mail spools. Also, it'd be much more efficient - and far more wrong - to swap bootleg Mathers MIDIs, instead.

But will Plasticmail include all my favorite acronyms?
It will try. Beyond the webmail interface for your Plastic.com account, you'll also be able to use Plasticmail as a web client for any other POP3/IMAP-enabled email accounts you may have. Or you can set up any standard email client, such as Outlook or Eudora, for your Plasticmail account, if that's what you prefer.

Plasticmail will likely support all of the following for (varying degrees of) secure transactions: SSL, POPS, IMAPS, APOP, SMTP/Auth, POP-before-SMTP. I'd also like to see Plasticmail support S/MIME, though since I don't yet have experience with that, it may not be part of the initial Plasticmail release. However, I'd certainly like to encourage the routine encryption of email, and will do what I can to make it simple to so, in Plasticmail.

In addition, I could set up an SMS gateway and/or a WAP interface to Plasticmail, if there's any demand for it. Sign up and let me know.

Can I get a Plastic email address which isn't based on my member name?
Sorry, no. I'd like to avoid the headache that could easily come about from supporting a second namespace. If there's an email address that you'd strongly prefer over your existing Plastic member name, though, you might want to register it for your use - we have a procedure, now, that lets you change your member name, while retaining the status and settings of an existing account.

(Oh - and if you have an older member name with 'funny,' non-email-friendly characters, drop me a note, we'll work something out. For those with spaces in their member names, they'll be automatically translated into underscores.)

I think you should be able to pay month-to-month. For example, if I died five months from now, I wouldn't really need the sixth month.
I'm trying to manage the transactional costs. Above and beyond the fees Paypal charges, there are costs incurred when receiving funds (and yes, I'm aware the transaction itself can be automated). As Plastic's accountant, I'd like to do what I can to simplify the books.

Well... I might sign up, but not through Paypal or anything ridiculously simple like that. Do you take Flooz?
Paypal is strongly preferred, for the same reason as above - it keeps things simple. However, if you can't or you won't do Paypal, but you'd still like to sign up, email me; we'll make other arrangements.

So you know what comes next, don't you?
I think we all do, yes.

So you know I'll never pay for Plastic? Not ever ever?
Not even if it contained gobs and gobs and big slithering stacks of cheap, high-quality net p0rn, yes.

Because there's plenty of other places that are almost nearly just about as good as Plastic, and they're still free, mostly kinda? And Plastic's been headin' down the crapper for a while, now. The only reason I still hang around is that I enjoy farce, and swirlies.
Um, we're not charging for Plastic. Plastic's still the same great content - which last I checked, you, as a member, provide, so don't blame me - at the same great unbeatable price. What's being offered, again, is Plasticmail - webmail that hates spam as much as you do, whether it's in your mailbox, or merely surrounding it.

And I know the comparisons to Salon Premium and Slash Subscriptions and Kuro5hin Premium (where only the rich can spel) are all coming next, so let me try to set out, as best I can, why Plasticmail is worlds apart. Here's what it comes down to: Since adopting Plastic, I've endeavored to dramatically improve Plastic's reliability, its ability to self-recover and self-correct, replacing the complex and monolithic with the simple, compound, and many; striven to significantly reduce the time demanded by recurring administrative tasks, relying less and less on authoritative, objective policing by a single individual (me), more on the collective decision-making that comes from the transparent and participatory (all of you); and sought to build simpler, more responsive tools, less literal and more contextual, replacing interface (buttons, pulldowns) with intelligence (conforming to implicit expectations), helping place focus on issues and ideas, rather than menus and mechanics.

Which is all a fancy way of saying that much of my time over the past six months has been put into making Plastic require less hardware, less bandwidth, fewer staff, less time. Consider something as simple as the fact that Plastic no longer requires an administrator to effect a ban on a user - the membership is now empowered with this task, though even then the "ban" emerges from the group's normal activities. (Before you concern yourself over unwittingly participating in mob rule, the tribe has spoken only on one occasion, so far, and I think fairly.) Oppose that to (the smaller-than-Plastic) Metafilter, which yet relies on its originator delivering regular lectures to the community's non-conformists - as he recently did to address MeFi's slide into chaos during a short absence. Take Plastic's voluntary dispersion of power and multiply it out by all the activities that Automatic Media's staff performed (at its height there were over 20 on the payroll, but make it the bare-bones half-dozen toward the end, if you like), and I think we have quite a lot to be proud of, here. You're doing a great job of running the site. Excellent, really. Thank you. I'll continue to do what I can to facilitate that.

Plastic's approach isn't necessarily better. However, I do feel it's necessary. And that's nothing to do with ideology, with what's the right way or the wrong way; everything to do with what, at least in my opinion, is both reasonably pragmatic and fiscally responsible. And so here we are: Plastic is the community which came together to run itself. I've done everything I know how to do to see that the bar is now set arbitrarily low. Plastic is poised for "profitability" - positioned to be the poster child for sustainable growth in a post-boom economy.

Plasticmail, at least in my opinion, is a good value - a useful service at a reasonable price. And because of what we've been able to accomplish, this needn't be the first desperate appeal of many - even a modest response will allow Plastic to stand on its own, and proudly.

But when I do the math, I don't see how it's possibly enough to pay your six-figure salary.
You might want to check your numbers - you've likely neglected to factor in the value of "endless pursuit" and "needless distraction." No, we haven't yet arrived. (If we're lucky, maybe we never will.) But let's not use that excuse to fail to pick ourselves up, here, now, and get moving.

And thank you. Thanks to all the editors; everyone who's submitted a writeup, made a suggestion, or posted a comment that's made us all think, or laugh; everyone who's taken the time to send in a complaint, or a bit of encouragement; everyone who's felt their time was just as well wasted on Plastic as anywhere else. All told, I think it made a difference.

So. Send in your US$30 or US$60 for Plasticmail already. There's so much yet left to do.

Your pal,