The confusing 'Account'

There is a generation of people (me included) who have grown up to understand that if you have an 'account' somewhere it surely means that money and possibly debt is involved. As the Internet and all things online have evolved there are at least three major institutions at which you can have an account and use it and pay nothing - absolutely!

These places are of course Google, Microsoft and Apple and another one called Zoho. These companies need no introduction to most of us but in my job I still come across people who have vaguely heard of them and don't understand how it works. I can be asked the question of the 21st century. "How do I get my pictures from my laptop to my tablet and keep them backed up at the same time and have the same pictures on both devices?". This is where I step in with the introduction of an account with one of the big three. 

I can feel me wandering into a different post here so I am going to keep this brief. In short when applied to the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple, you are given an account in the form of and email address and a password. If you compare these accounts to those of yesterday - before the Internet when everybody's records where in a file on a shelf or in a cabinet. Your home address was the means of contact and a unique number, your account number would have been the equivalent of today's password. So fast forward back to today and you now have a email address and password, you can't get in without your password. 

The reason these companies offer you so much for free is because there are opportunities to spend money within their infrastructure and they are global so they always have commercial customers who spend many thousands for standard and bespoke solutions, but for the man in the street who has purchased an iPad or a Windows laptop, MacBook, tablet or smartphone, each of these in the main requires that you have a basic account or ID so you can have the full basic experience of your device. If you then want some music you can then pay for songs, albums or subscribe to a service ran by them, or someone else too. With all three of these organisations you get a free allocation of cloud storage for your photos and documents, if you use that then once it's full you then have to pay for more space or manage it and keep within the limits of your basic allocation. They have already made some money as you have bought their product and one day you will probably buy another.