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Australia’s internet providers are ditching email, to the disgust of older customers (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Err...

Users will keep their exisiting (sic) email addresses on this service, and would get it free for the first year. After that, there will be options of paying for a service, or an ad-based free service after that.

So, what's the problem, exactly? Just take the ad-based free service. Gmail, Yahoo, etc. are ad-based free services too. Nobody is forcing them to change anything.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

People who use the default email their ISP gives them don't like change. The new service will probably have a different login screen and that's going to upset aunty Ethel and uncle ron. And then a different colour background. It's the worst thing that anyone could ever do to them

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I can understand the pain, though. Moving accounts to a new email is not a fun process. Especially if someone has an email for years, decades even, that's a lot of stuff that could be registered with that email. And trying to save emails isn't necessarily straightforward. Migration, if it's even available, isn't foolproof or easy, either.

While I've grown up with the Internet, I think I've only changed my main email like 3 times over ~30yrs. The last time I did it was over a decade ago, to Gmail from my family's then ISP-based email. I think I'm way overdue to do it again, at least moving my important accounts like banking and government stuff to a new email address, but it's just so time consuming.

And I say all this as a tech person. I work in IT. For someone who's not particularly tech savvy, forget about it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

But they aren't getting forced to change accounts. Their service continues just under another provider.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm about the same. Last switch was yahoo to Gmail and now I'm in the process of switching from Gmail to Proton Mail. The most difficult part was the mental switch - which email you start giving out when you sign up. Second was migrating services. I made it a point for a while each time I logged into something knew I would switch the primary email. Its been a long process!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, I agree with the antiboomer sentiment.

But at the same time, it is annoying when you've had an included service for decades that will now be worse or cost money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Sure, but the core complaint of the article -- that folks are forced to changed ALL their e-mail based authentication to a new address -- is without merit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My GM still uses @aol.com. I have no idea how he accesses it and at this point I'm afraid to ask.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Probably at www aol.com?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Yeah, my mom has been using AOL.com since the 90s. When the dedicated client went away, I pointed her at mail.aol.com and she was fine. She's still using it today.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

An older family member of mine rang yesterday asking about what to do after they read the announcement.

I have been telling them for years to change to a proper provider but they weren't interested. I told them this would eventually happen, but the change wasnt worth the hassle for them.

Now the change is forced and its just increased the stress.

Im hoping the prospect of only being a year for free then ad based means I can just get them onto fastmail or something that I can administer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

YSK: Aunty Ethel isn't with Uncle Ron anymore. She's with Herman now. They fell out over her planting sunflowers in the yard instead of begonias. Ron smashed her garden gnome in anger and that was it for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yes and it's fun getting Windows Live Mail 2012 to keep working at the best of times.

Every year or so, have to add these registry entries to revive it

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail]
"RecreateFolderIndex"=dword:00000001
"RecreateStreamIndex"=dword:00000001
"RecreateUIDLIndex"=dword:00000001

They'd prefer Outlook Express.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

For everyone's sake it might be best to refuse to support the application because of the security risks with such an outdated program.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The problem, presumably is that they will be canning IMAP/POP/SMTP and will be implementing a sucky web-only interface

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wtf, that's evil

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A lot of places no longer have staff that understand email systems or routing.

Even technically-inclined Universities like Purdue have abandoned their on-campus email systems and now rely upon Office365 and GMail.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Fair enough

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Didn't even know this was a service to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

It used to be quite a big deal, back in the day. The other day I read a really old thread on some local forum here in NL, and it said that you couldn't sign up with an "anonymous" email address, such as hotmail or gmail. Only provider-issued email addresses were accepted there so "they had an idea who they were dealing with". Times really did change a lot.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It was the main introduction to email for a lot of Australians, they've been using it as is for 15-20 years.

It's more than just one generation that uses it, I know people in their thirties who use theirs via the Gmail app as with any long-term email their is no need to change address.

I remember only signing up to Gmail because it felt new and techy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Hey, that's why I set up a Gmail, too! Hahahaha

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

Simon too says he is not happy about the sudden shift, describing the move as “shrinkflation” given the change didn’t come with a reduction in his internet bill.

Even Google appears to be feeling the pinch, messaging its customers in recent weeks saying that accounts deemed inactive in the past two years could be deleted beginning 1 December 2023.

Legacy systems, particularly those managed under a variety of absorbed companies, as with TPG, can over time become more at risk of a cybersecurity attack or breach.

Randall Cameron, the director of sales and marketing at AtMail, the parent firm of the Messaging Company, says there’s been a good opt-in rate for users wanting to keep their existing email addresses so far.

While the company did not answer questions on how many still remained seven years after it stopped offering new accounts, the chief executive, Vicki Brady, said they were still very active.

With the rise in data breaches, and the avalanche of spam and scams, the shift offers people the opportunity of a clean email slate, according to Andrew Williams, of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.

Saved 83% of original text.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Also happening in the UK.