If It Ain't Broke...

     I write you now, on a blog that was created as a requirement for a class, as a Graduate of that class (hooray!). But, like all good things in life, this space as an idea for musings has taken on a life of its own, and so I feel compelled to share another thought from the tech world I had: when did Gmail become the standard for online email? Seriously - in the Career Services literature that's given to every student following said class, this office - in charge of helping students find work in the field of technology - has this ("hot") take: 

Email Address(es): Should be @gmail.com @me.com or @customdomain. Avoid AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo email accounts because employers may view users with those accounts as out-of-touch or not tech savvy.

    Reading this, I felt the sting of injustice (actually, more like embarrassment). I use a Yahoo email account! In fact - I have since high school! And what's wrong with that? It works just fine! And as my Grandpappy used to say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Pictured: Grandpappy

    Okay, so, I hope you can see the jest, and where I'm going with this: I get it.
    I mean, I did feel the sting of embarrassment, but I also inherently "got" where they're coming from. Yahoo Mail does work perfectly fine for me - just as, I'm sure, AOL works perfectly fine for its users. But I know how I would react to someone who told me their email address ended in '@aol.com': I would look at them like they were my Grandpappy. Seriously, I would have trouble believing that they had never ventured beyond the "safe space" of their first-ever(?) email account, and would probably ask if the app told them "You've Got Mail!" whenever a new message came in.
    Is that how people look at me?

Am I the problem?

    Ultimately, I've sort of made my peace with it (/"sold out"). I also have a registered Gmail address, which (even though its mostly laid dormant since its inception, collecting spam and donation requests from various political candidates), still works just fine. In fact, this blog is technically registered to/associated with that address. See? old dog, new tricks! But, that didn't quell my curiosity: when did Gmail become the standard-bearer for online email? And, why? 

    There are a lot of good reasons to use Gmail. It's extremely easy to use, and was built to seamlessly integrate features from the other Google apps. Despite the software having been introduced with a feature to scan the text and display ads based on the contents of your messages, Gmail no longer does that - while Yahoo now does. In fact, it's relatively easy to have a completely ad free experience on Gmail, unlike Yahoo's full-length, right-hand-banner ads, which only go away with a paid subscription.
    

    So why, then, am I so dead set on Yahoo? In a word: resentment.

    As I mentioned, I've had my same Yahoo email address since High School. Which, to age myself, equates to a year before Gmail existed! As in, I remember signing up for my first email address, back when Gmail wasn't an option. 
    Not that I didn't want Gmail when it came out - I did! Very much! There was just one problem: I couldn't have one! As the above linked article mentions, when Gmail was first created, it underwent a "soft launch". What this meant was: everyone who received that first manna, I mean, account offering (directly from heaven, I mean, Google) could themselves turn around and invite four friends. Those friends could, in turn, invite four friends (or, as the second article mentions, sell to the highest bidder), thus creating a slow, gradual buildout of the network - rather than an initial system overload. For this to work/become financially viable, interest would have to build; if the invites just sat unused in someone's account, it would have amounted to little more than a blockade against a large portion of the potential user base. But, as is consistent with Google's success story, interest indeed built. Over time, rather than diminish outright, each user's allotment of invites kept being replenished and increasing - until Gmail did away with invites altogether in 2007, and it became the democratically accessible platform we know it to be today.

    I myself got a Gmail account while it was still only available by invitation (for the record: in 2005). But after I followed my invite, clicked all the links, filled out all the forms, etc, a kind of disappointment sunk in: what was I so excited about? It's just an email account. An account with an inbox. I already had one of those. One I was having enough trouble keeping up with as it was. Suddenly I was overwhelmed. Now I had two email addresses to give out and check; now I had two inboxes to monitor; now I had...

    Although I never relinquished my Gmail account (nor sold any invites to the highest bidder), it was during that initial disappointment that I developed (however un/consciously) my "brand loyalty" for Yahoo, and my aforementioned resentment toward switching. Gmail may have been offering an impressive free 1GB of storage to each account holder - but in response, Yahoo amped up its inboxes to a free 100MB per customer. As someone who had parsed through their account to delete enough messages to stay below the previous 4MB limit, this was a godsend! Although 1GB is, of course, 10x more storage, it never felt necessary. Besides, Yahoo eventually opted to offer their users unlimited storage (although that eventually was shrunk to 'mere' 1TB...which is still a heck of a lot more than Gmail offers for free).

    Clearly, through all this time, there was something in the air. It can't be a coincidence that the first two above releases(/declarations) by Yahoo coincide with major Gmail events - first the unveiling of the platform in 2004, and second of its availability to all (and not just to invite-recipients) in 2007. Still, during all this time, I let my resentment guide my decision-making. 'No thanks,' I kept thinking, and happily sticking-to/giving-out my Yahoo address.

    And y'know what, even after writing all this and acknowledging all my own outdated and unhelpful feelings that are keeping me (to borrow a phrase) "out of touch"? I can't promise I'm going to work on that habit either...
    I mean, if it ain't broke...