I'm still using an email that is one of the AOL domains, mostly for accessing legacy sites that were around at that time.
I lost access to it during an iPhone upgrade, I paid $12.95 or something for a 'premium' membership that allowed me to have the password reset by a REAL LIVE PERSON.
I think my mom spends several hours a week talking to a live person at Compuserve because she lost her password or various other reasons. They don't seem to be under any time pressure and are happy to chat with her as long as she wants.
Better price than better help. Probably better than better help’s counseling, too
> I'm still using an email that is one of the AOL domains
ProTip: Honestly, just buy your own domain, control your own email address(es)...
> > mostly for accessing legacy sites that were around at that time.
So change the email address on those accounts?
That's not always possible.
It is almost always possible.
Email was often used as a primary key on older websites
Originally websites had usernames and passwords. Username was used as a primary key (such as this website).
Using the email address directly as the username/key is a more modern trend (mid-late 00s). I believe this coincided with the dominance of gmail where people would have a forever email address. Before that, your email address would regularly change if you moved ISPs/schools/jobs so it wasn't a good identifier.
Yes, and it's possible to change that e-mail. The only place I've encountered which doesn't is Alibaba.
ChatGPT is another.
Bambu Labs online account has the same restriction for some reason as I found out the hard way, though I had thought that was extremely rare.
Wow way to miss the point
My domain registration is just over 25 years old... I guess I'm also "legacy"?
I don't think I'm missing any point, thanks.
> My domain registration is just over 25 years old... I guess I'm also "legacy"?
Mine too -- I mean, I had domains in 1994-1995.
Most people who have legacy AOL emails have them from more than 25 years ago-- indeed AOL was in decline by 2000.
And "protip: go back in time 30 years ago and tell your kid self how to get a domain name, and navigate internic's overcharging" isn't quite as practical to implement.
A lot of these old services used the email address as the fixed user identifier making it much less likely (certainly for those bucket of services) that he'd have a user-facing option of changing it.
Any recommendations on registrars?
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