People are creating emails by the millions each day all over the world. As much as you are made to believe the non-importance of email, statistics prove otherwise. It is mind-boggling how many emails are created every single year.
Accept my indulgence for a little email history. A decade or two ago, if you ever needed an email, the only email service that comes to mind is YAHOO.COM. Current millennials have no idea what yahoo.com is now – at least some know it is an email service and others know it is a news portal.
A few email services that dominated the internet were yahoo.com, hotmail.com that also owns outlook.com, and msn.com. Microsoft owns the last three, and there was also AOL.com.
Then came the almighty GMAIL.COM email service by Google, and everything changed. I want us to briefly look at what made GMAIL email address so successful when it launched in 2004.
Email server space
In the early 2000s, email server space were not that big. You couldn’t get 1 GB of email server space from any email provider unless, of course, you buy it. Gmail changed all that and provided 1 GB plus more up to I think 5 GB for free.
What less email server space means is that you cannot keep lots of email messages with attachments in the form of documents, images, texts, etc. Your server space will be full, and you’d have to create another email or delete some of the messages in your email account.
Max allowed attachment size
Apart from the limited space for each email account, you cannot also upload files beyond a certain file limit. For example, yahoo emails don’t accept attachments of files that are more than 3MB or 5MB.
This posed a big challenge for people who want to store files a bit larger than the small allowed file size limit. But, GMAIL came to the rescue and gave people the ability to attach files larger than one can imagine.
Slow email software
Email servers and the interface software provided by other free email service providers on the internet were slow to load. One reason for this was that many internet services all over the world (especially in third-world countries) were connected by “Dial-up” telephone service, which was very slow to load up web pages.
And the email interface software used was not really optimizing their online images and programs to load faster in those conditions. Hence, the slow load time.
Somehow, GMAIL found a way to create an email interface software that loads fast regardless of the slow internet the world uses.
Slow Browsers
Website browsers on people’s desktop computers the world over were also slow to load website pages. The technology wasn’t just mature enough at that time, and it affected many free email servers operating at that time.
Internet Explorer, which was the most popular browser in the early days alongside Netscape Navigator, all suffered in the hands of impatient internet users. And now in 2023 IE is still struggling to capture a little browser market share – and it’s now called Microsoft Edge.
GMAIL opened shop in 2004 the same as the Mozilla Firefox browser provided a much better browsing experience than previous browsers. GMAIL also released the Chrome Browser later, which still captivates the world and still does.
Android OS
That start of the smartphone market with Android software by Google further sealed GMAIL fate, by ensuring that Android users access various Google services on their Android devices with a GMAIL address.
Services such as the Android Google Play Store, Chrome browser history, email notifications, and YouTube, require GMAIL email addresses.
Conclusion
GMAIL won the browser war. Their timing was right with the advancement in technology’s hardware and software. Who says timing and luck are not necessary to be a winner? Ask again and look around you. Gmail has won the email service provider war all over the world.
End of our little history lesson. Go get yourself a GMAIL email address as soon as possible.