Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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The movement of a majority to gmail makes some sense. Android (and all other google services) basically forces users into making a google/gmail account. Not to mention people tend to flock to the same services once they start snowballing in popularity.
Before gmail, everyone (that I knew) was on AOL, which (probably) got its users from requiring accounts to use their network back in the day. I don't remember it that well though, so I might be wrong there..
You're very much right, and it is an unfortunate truth....
Gmail had huge momentum prior to Android even being launched, though, and this in the era when Google was still Doing No Evil(tm). Google did begin to strong-arm their position later... but, so much of that is people's ignorance and laziness (and that's not meant to be criticism) - the majority just don't take the time or have the desire to understand how any parts of the internet work, what a standard is, and why things being centralized (everyone flocking to a single email service) is actually a terrible thing.