I wonder what's the current usage breakup of 3 major webmail providers - Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail! But having used all 3, Hotmail is the crappiest of all. And this news about POP3 doesn't belong to this century. If they made this announcement in late 90's it would have made sense.
Hotmail survival is the same story as IE being the most popular browser - the MS factor! Success of both proves that the smart people are way outnumbered by stupid people on earth!