[Emacspeak] Re: Loss of Access to Gmail - Text Mode

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, gopher still exists, as does NNTP. However, like horse and
carriage, the number of people using it is minimal and nothing compared
to what it was back at its peak. 

As for ISPs providing email - that was just a form of service lock in.
People often stayed with their provider simply because that was where
their email service was and they didn't want to have to change email
addresses. It was what made google, yahoo and other non-ISP based email
providers popular initially. 

There are still other alternatives to Google. However, if you really
want control, either you need to use a paid service (where you can
specify the service level you want) or you can run your own (you could
setup a mail server on linode or another cloud provider for less than
$10 per month). 

If you want to continue using a free service, then you are at the mercy
of that service provider, who is only going to provide the service based
on what is profitable to them. This means doing things like using your
data for marketing purposes or charging a fee. 

Despite the fact email has become so critical to many things, there
actually is no inherent right to have email. An argument could be put
that perhaps in a modern age, email should be an inherent right.
However, that debate has not occurred. 

"D.J.J. Ring, Jr." <n1ea(a)arrl.net> writes:

> Gopher still exists. gopher://sdf.org/1/users/djringjr/ 
>
> I remember it, here's mine.
> Gopher Hole:  gopher://sdf.org/1/users/djringjr/ (native or with Firefox's Overbite extension) or via http to gopher gateway
> The ironic part is that hundreds  of thousands of people (millions?) who get their Internet service with Verizon who USED to have
> email service, now don't have email service, but they charge for Internet access - as they should - but we have no one to call to fix
> email when it goes bad.
>
> I guess there's still panix.com 
>
> Thanks,
> David