[governance] Blogpost: Gmail Hell Day 4: Dealing with the Borg (Or “Being Evil” Without Really Thinking About It

[Daniel Kalchev]

Disclaimer: I never ever use gmail, because in my opinion this is one of 
the stupidest thing a person can go. But then, I am able to run any 
number of my very own mail servers and this is apparently not like 
everyone else.

On 28.02.12 14:50, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> a) The problem could be addressed by empowering end users to switch
> email service providers without changing their email addresses. I
> suggested that CCTLD operators would be able to make a category of
> inexpensive third-level domain names available for this.

(with my ccTLD manager hat on)

Having your very own domain name is not a luxury or difficult task for 
years, already. It is still very difficult to persuade people to go this 
route. People just don't get it. On the positive side, the number of 
domain names registered for that very purpose is rising.

You don't have to use an ccTLD for this. Nevertheless, a number of 
ccTLDs have introduced, long ago 'private' (as for individuals) often 
lower-cost domain names. It is only natural to use the domain name for 
e-mail and other things.
There have been some gTLDs set up for such purposes, such as .name.. 
didn't work much for e-mail.

(with an additional mail server admin hat on)

Then, there is the issue that many (most?) e-mail providers have hard 
time handling virtual domains. Even Google had hard time figuring this 
for a long time.

Even if they figure out how to do it, it is either more complicated, as 
it involves cooperation between the provider and the customer, or there 
are other considerations, such as 'but they won't expose our 
(provider's) domain name to the world and thus will not generate free 
advertisement for our business'. This is also one of the reasons for 
sticking to gmail.com.

(all hats off)

The gmail phenomenon is part of the Internet phenomenon --- most people 
started using gmail just because it was fun, without putting much 
thinking on the "what if" part. Most didn't even realize it was Google 
behind that. In short, they took the bait. Then later, it was 
increasingly difficult to switch their e-mail address, because 
"everybody knows this address".

Google even used an (white?) lie to hook more people: they marketed 
gmail as the 'independent' service, seeking the market, where e-mail was 
offered as part of the Internet service by the ISP, but if you switch 
ISP you would normally have to change your e-mail address. The part they 
didn't tell people was that they will be hooked to gmail.com instead.

Daniel

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