Is .Mac a tax on Mac users?

Chuck Toporek is less than thrilled with the $99 price tag that accompanies a .Mac account, and he is an expert on the product. Not only has he been using it since it was called iTools (remember that? It was free back then) but he has literally written the book on the service.

So what's Chuck's problem with .Mac? The way he sees it he pays for yearly iLife updates ($79), yearly OS updates ($129) and a yearly .Mac account
($99). The problem is that lots of features of the first two require that .Mac account to take advantage of.

Now, Chuck isn't proposing that .Mac should be free (though I think it should be, or at least every new Mac should come with a year subscription) but he does think there should be a bundling structure where you can pay the OS and .Mac for a smaller fee.