dot Mac discount $59.88 - maybe I’m not “too cheap”

As many of you know, I have recently fallen in love with Macs. The “It Just Works” mantra is really true. It allows me to easily do the things I’ve been buying PCs to do over the years (but never actually did them.)That’s why I’m re-thinking the whole idea of not buying a .Mac subscription. Especially since Amazon.com sells them for $69.99 (No tax) and Free Shipping.  Found a cheaper price: $59.88 thru MacWorld Price Grabber.

• Sure - I can use Picasa Web Albums instead of .Mac. Picassa even has a nifty iPhoto Uploader. But it’s not as well integrated as .Mac.
• I will probably continue to use my Gmail account for mail - though I may switch the configuration to IMAP on my Crackberry. (Currently I’m using the web version of Gmail which doesn’t allow me to email stupid pictures I take with my phone.)
• Bookmarks sync can be done thru the Google Toolbar, but only if you’re on Internet Explorer or Firefox. As much as I have tried to use Firefox for both PC and Mac - I really like my Safari. And Safari has a PC version too.
• iDisk can be replaced by a FREE 1GB version of Box.net (an  online WebDav server). Dreamhost offers a killer 500GB WebDav server too, for $7 a month - a service I will probably look at instead of buying a $400 TimeCapsule.) The benefits are offsite backup instead of on-site. I really want my Pictures and Files backed up off-site (not as much for my iTunes collection). However, now that we’re starting to look at alternative lifestyles where we live on a boat for 3 days a week, I want to make these things readily accessible to my MacBook if necessary.
• I also like the idea of a web gallery of videos that works seamlessly w/ .Mac. I would love to show off the videos I made for my mom and my best friend for Christmas. This can be done for free via YouTube too, though I don’t really want it that public.
• Bac to My Mac - another valuable feature that can be nabbed w/ a Dynamic DNS subscription plus some complicated config. The cost? $25 a year. I would certainly love to be able to login to my home Mac Mini right now - would love to see how big my iPhoto album really is. This will be a key player in deciding whether the 10GB .Mac subscription is sufficient enough for me.

In all - now that I’ve found the $40 discount thru PriceGrabber, I’m wondering what’s holding me back. The $60 version you can buy every year so that you’ll never have to pay the $99 version - ever. Like everyone else in this PF blogsphere, I want to make sure whatever I bring into my house, I’m going to really get good usage out of. It’s yet another thing to manage in my life, and I need to make sure the benefits far outweigh the inconvenience.$59.88 / 12 = $4.99 a month. Yeah - pending my iPhoto library will fit in there, I think I’m going to go for it.