MEGA: Slow

Like (apparently) a million other people from around the world, I decided to sign up for Kim Dotcom’s Mega service to see what the fuss is all about.

So far the best word to describe it is…slow.

Apparently that’s thanks to unanticipated demand (where have we heard this before) which seems a little silly given that Dotcom is a mega-internet mogul.

After a beautifully simple signup process, and what looks like an elegant file manager, clicking on ‘New Folder’ delivered a spinning circle of inaction for the next twelve minutes. It’s still going, that little circle, round and round.

While 50GB of free space sure is an attractive proposition, especially when Google Drive and SkyDrive and DropBox and Box (how many of these services are there out there? Seriously?) provide anywhere between 3 to 7GB of free capacity before payments kick in, capacity is only as good as speed.

Sure, you can pay for faster access and more capacity, but let’s face it, on the internet first impressions matter and this market just isn’t what it used to be back in the heady days of Megaupload.

There’s a lot of competition out there; competing with the likes of Google, the arguable king of the ‘free stuff’ business model, is always going to be difficult.

Hopefully Dotcom gets it sorted though, and soon, because I want my free 50GB, please.

Update: the circle stopped spinning; I have created a new folder in my Mega. About 15 minutes for that operation…