The world of email providers is an interesting study in the "target audience" area.  I am baffled to this day that Yahoo somehow manages to stay afloat when faced with the easier, more streamlined Gmail.  Not only is Gmail much simpler to use, but it also boasts an enormous amount of storage space and access to the whole plethora of Google applications.

Yahoo's persistence is mainly due, I think, to their targeting of a certain segment of the internet population.  The simple fact is that they have made a name for themselves in day-to-day speech.  When the "average" person, unsavvy to the internet, sets out to create a browser-based email account, the first thing that occurs to them is the name "Yahoo", simply because they have heard the company's name mentioned alongside "email" for years.  Yahoo has very effectively presented themselves as the novice's email service.  They boast ease of registration and use.

Unfortunately, I don't find Yahoo to be very simple for new computer users to work with at all.  The mail page seems unnecessarily cluttered, and the function buttons seem unnaturally placed on the page.  It's unfortunate that Google is known to be almost solely for "techie" people or "geeks", because the facts speak otherwise.  Google never ceases to amaze me with how many useful, user-friendly programs they continually put out there on the Web.

My take: Gmail betters Yahoo in almost every possible area.  You won't find a better email provider out there than Google.