That's exactly why I said "It sounds silly to the technical demographic".

Many people on HN just straight up won't understand what I'm talking about.

To a normal person, "@gmail.com" doesn't say _anything_. Give someone a different domain and they will literally look at you funny.

Mine is [email protected], never had that problem. Plenty of email addresses require spelling out the part before the @ anyway, spelling the part after it out too poses no fundamental challenge to anyone I interacted with (who asked for my email address, that is).

It's not a problem, but it does send a signal--probably one that is a slight benefit as an adult in a technical line of work, but it might send a different signal for let's say, a teenager who is already struggling to fit in with peers. It may be a stereotype, but stereotypes exist regardless of how easy you or me think it is to register a domain. Sure someone could follow just a few simple steps found on the internet, but why does that person even care to?

Although, teenagers exchanging email addresses has fallen out of style recently in exchange for sharing Discord tags or Snapchat usernames/showing snapcodes.