That article, the article that inspired it, and numerous comments here are all wrong about one thing. Gmail didn't win. Yahoo Mail has almost 15x the customers, and over half of the web mail market.
My favorite quote, in reference to email services, "when Google made its move, Yahoo! could not compete." If being unable to compete means having a 15x userbase (some of whom are paying you, unlike your competitor, who has only free customers) then I sure hope every business I ever run cannot compete.
