Re: who cares
I care because I use my ISP email account, and have done for over a decade. I doubt that I'm particularly unusual in that respect.
Having a ISP email is not critical by any means - and yes I know many people who just use the likes of Google Mail or Hotmail (Outlook.com) exclusively and are just fine with that. But just because you can get a free (or chargeable) one from various places online why wouldn't you expect your ISP to provide one or more email accounts for their customers?
Besides, you could do that in the 1990's as well if you wanted to, it's hardly a new thing - my Hotmail account certainly predates this century.
Many ISPs will automatically give you an email address (or have you create one) when you sign up anyway, whether you use it or not is up to you.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
