Comment by overgard

Younger people might not realize or remember this, but when GMail came out it was HUGE. Like, I remember it was invite-only for a while and getting an invite was a really big deal. In retrospect that was some genius marketing by them (also just a way better product, at the time)

Also switching email was a lot easier back then. Nowadays if you're using gmail as an auth provider it's very hard to completely abandon an inbox without a lot of friction. Back then all your logins were separate anyway.