https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN37104.html is incorrect. This only works for the current browser pane. EVERY time a user loads the mail site, they have to carefully select the control (only a few pixels wide) to hide the enormous (and almost never useful) right pane. "Hiding" it needs to be something that is remembered for the next site access.

Is the ability to permanently "minimize" the starred/contacts panel? By putting it behind the "PLUS" subscription you are tacitly admitting that it is a user-hostile and unwanted "feature" that people will pay to remove/fix. If we're paying to remove it, at least let us actually remove it without having to click the minimize thing every single time