I have had web mail for years and actually have not put any email on my server or my own home computer for about 4 years. Email is becoming less and less important for my own communication as I blog to blab, instant messaging to share an idea and actually move back to the phone, what with flat fee unlimited long distance, and even letters to keep up with pals. I have been moving things like account confirmations to one of my Gmail addresses as I try to remember where they are. As I do this, it is becoming more and more apparent that I basically have a spam barrel there at elal-at-isn-dot-net and there is a big sluice of horse pucks coming in from the hundreds I can only think of as a unified army Nigerian penis-conscious caps-lock-fidgetty crap vendors.

Time for it to go. Gmail has won. Why?

• They offer you more and more accounts to share and I do...but with myself. Some for this blog. Some for the other. Some for pals. Some for strangers. So many me's. The opposite of identity theft is identity obfuscation. I am legion through Gmail.
I have little worry that someone will make something of my identity through the Google servers. Most emails are pointlessness incarnate.
Gmail is very useful in terms of structuring archives. I like labels over file trees. It is a flat hierarchy that allows me also to give single emails more than one label allowing it to be called up with the archive of either. I can also retroactively label and unlabel easily. A pain to do with a file tree. Shouldn't all documents on your computer be handled this way some day?
The way that address book analogy has been overcome is very useful. Microsoft Outlook also tells you similar names to pick from as you start typing out a name but Gmail seems to give you a better selection. If I put in the letter "a", for example, I get all the first names with "a", the last names with "a" as well as the domains starting with "a" all in a handy dropdown.
It is free without pop-ups and without click-through ads, the bane of Yahoo, the company that should have done this five years ago. Gmail ads are visually discrete.
Emails stay on threads which can be expanded or part expanded with each email in the thread not immediately showing all the repeated content of earlier emails carried over.

In the end, Gmail is starting to look very much like a personal intranet. I would not be surprised to see a calendar and events posting sort of tool soon. Then an integration of various Gmail threads and users into central hubs. Then the borg begins.

So soon you may find a deadend at elal-at-isn-dot-net. Sadly, they will not give out elal@gmail.com as they require 6 characters to the left of the "@". I have grabbed "elalelal"...but that just looks dumb.