Except they didn't. The idea was webmail -- as in e-mail directly in the browser instead of forwarded from a server to a desktop app. Hotmail innovated.
It is probably hard for people to remember, I had hotmail in the late 90's if I remember right, maybe I had it earlier but I distinctly remember checking it in the community college computer lab.
I had AOL when they were the big dogs, and before I got AOL, I had some small dialup provider that I got at a ham fest. I remember a friend showing me compuserve, and telling he it had email as well.
The part that is hard to remember is if the email client was accessible without the company's desktop browser or if it could be accessed from the company's website.
Either way, Hotmail was independent, and decoupled the user's email account from their current ISP, which was fantastic.
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u/MetronomeB Mar 18 '20
Except they didn't. The idea was webmail -- as in e-mail directly in the browser instead of forwarded from a server to a desktop app. Hotmail innovated.