A contemporary of mine recently mused on Facebook that after all these years he still has his AOL account (for personal use), and recently checked in to find over 50,000 accumulated messages.
Mine is more like 77,000. My current AOL email wasn't my very first email. It's altered slightly from the original after I was completely bombarded with early 90s vintage SPAM shortly after joining the pioneer Internet service, back when you still paid a monthly fee for dial-up access (remember the screechy sign-in noise, followed by "Welcome"?)
But I have used my vintage AOL email for decades, likely dating back to before my now-adult kids were born. The oldest message is from 2015, since it seems the company -- now a shadow of its once dominant, pre-Google self-- now has a cutoff deletion point.
While I also use several other gmails and one Yahoo account, for various purposes, I've never felt the need to stop using AOL, though I do remember the point of realizing it was ridiculous to pay the monthly fee and opted for the freebee account (now accessing the web via WiFi rather than modem.)
Why switch? I still have numerous logins linked to it and its how most of my friends and family contact me. And though a while back I opted to disable the signature "You've Got Mail" greeting after a milennial coworker shot me an amused glance at the office, I'm not ashamed of it, any more than I'm ashamed of driving a 90s Ford Tauraus. What's functional is functional.
If history is any guide, one day kids will snicker at people with gmail accounts. Remember when MySpace and BlackBerrys were cool, before Facebook and iPhones ate their lunch? It's just a matter of time.
My contemporary acquaintance noted that he was surprised to see a youthful job candidate's resume with an AOL address. I belleve my milennial kids still use theirs, in some form, as well. More power to them all, for standing by a simple but effective principle in life.
If it aint broke, don't fix it.
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