alt Hacker NewsMost internet services are very low cost to offer for any company that has some infrastructure setup already. So for instance 'back in the day', before Google hoovered up everybody's email, what would typically happen is you would get an email address with your ISP.
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RHSeeger • last Tuesday at 5:50 PM
But that also bound you to your ISP in a way, because switching ISPs meant switching emails. It is better to have then separated.
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> So for instance 'back in the day', before Google hoovered up everybody's email, what would typically happen is you would get an email address with your ISP.
Well, no, not even close. You'd get an email address from your ISP. You still do; nothing about that has changed.
Among the things that haven't changed is that you were more likely to use a free online email service, most notably Hotmail or Yahoo.