But the choice never was "gmail or your own domain". Pre-gmail it already was likely to be one of a few large providers, (and to a good degree still is). The argument sounds a bit like "gmail won because gmail won": For gmail to be the default assumption, they already have to have won.

Arguments from networks effects are basically "X won because X won".

The argument is that, at some critical point, X became the default choice, and stayed that way.

Why it was gmail was interesting at the time, but isn't anymore; now it's literally just "people pick gmail because it's gmail".

> the choice never was "gmail or your own domain"

Before I had gmail, I used my ISP email address. While using my ISP email address, I set up an email server with a dynamic hostname -- homeip.net at the time. It 100% worked.

There absolutely was a choice. You just had to be technical to know it existed in the first place.

You misunderstand what I'm saying. There was no binary "gmail or own domain", because there always was "large mail provider or own domain", which turned into "large mail provider, large mail provider N+1 (gmail) or own domain"

I don't understand the issue at all. Never in my life have I ever used @gmail.com email address, and never have I experienced even the slightest inconvenience caused by that decision.

Is this an american thing? At least in Norway, it’s not uncommon with personal domains, work emails, using your internet provider emails or using hotmail or icloud.

It seems strange to me that gmail would be the default anywhere.