According to this story, sometime next spring I will have to choose between paying $20 a year for Hotmail or giving up Outlook access to my hotmail account. I only access Hotmail from Outlook, I have disliked hotmail's web interface for years and it only feels worse now that I use Gmail so much. I guess I have time to consider the pros and cons. I guess the real choice (for me) is this: wean all uses of hotmail to Gmail (passport accounts, etc), or pay the fee.
[UPDATE: Only new Hotmail accounts will have to pay for the Outlook integration. Existing hotmail users will continue to get that service included for free.]