Re: Why does everyone have so many
Well, I started with just a Compuserve email account, but that went by the wayside when Compuserve did. Then I went to an actual ISP, and used their assigned email. Decided that I should have a second account from them for activities that seemed likely to generate spam (oddly enough, those two accounts have since swapped places).
Then I got a laptop in addition to my desktop computer, and it became awkward to keep the ISP email accounts in sync. So I opted for a Yahoo email account, followed shortly thereafter by a second, for the same reasons that I have two ISP accounts (also oddly enough, those two accounts have NOT swapped places - say what you like about Yahoo, but their spam filter performs pretty well). Then my employer got all electronified, so I have a work account as well.
Then came the mobile revolution, and I got an email addy from my wireless provider - though I never actually use it for anything; it seems to belong more to my wireless account than to me personally. And of course a gmail account was required, soon to be followed by a second one (see reasons noted above). And now that I've acquired a Windows tablet, I've also acquired an outlook,com address, but so far I've resisted the temptation to actually use that one.
So that's how I wound up with nine more-or-less active email accounts, plus the forlorn ghost of a Compuserve account, condemned to forever wander cyperspace in silence.