Many people use their old Hotmail account as a Burner spam dumping spot for businesses and websites they don’t want to give their current email address.
That makes it hard for them to implement a spam filter, when so many people are intentionally sending spam to that old account and never checking it.
Yahoo started in 1997, and everyone was using it by 2001.
Nobody has been using their ISP email since AOL tried that in the 90’s, especially not in 2008 like you claim. The statistics prove that incorrect, in 2006 Gmail already had 50% of the users as AOL was failing.
AOL and Hotmail are now commonly used for junk spam when a salesman asks for an email. If somebody gave me AOL or Hotmail I would consider blowing me off to a spam account.
I too got my kids gmail accounts for when they are older. Normal usernames they won’t be embarrassed to use in college or employers. But if Gmail stops being the best/normal option, then I would suggest they update, I’ll get them a normal account when it launches and give it to them when they are done with the goofy middle school username they created.
I too look at people with AOL or Hotmail and laugh. Or people who use their Comcast or AT&T account email.😂
But that’s how Aron Ralston’s mother found him, he told no one he was going 6 hours away for an 8 hour day hike on April 26, 2003. She was in Englewood Colorado May 1st answering the security questions to his email account, used his email to reset his bank account password, and found out his last purchase was at a grocery store in Moab Utah. She sent search & rescue to that location where they found his red Toyota truck was found 2 hour drive away near Blue-John Canyon National Park, sent up a rescue helicopter and he was lucky to be seen after amputating his arm to get out of the crevice 5 days after he was pinned under that 800lb boulder. Even a helicopter with a FLIR thermal camera likely would have never found him in that narrow crevice under a boulder.