I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they’re quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.

I left for mailbox(.)org and haven’t looked back. It’s great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today’s Internet is on its way to being alien too.

By virtue of having a disproportionately beneficial EU membership agreement, they actually caused friction with later EU members that received the standard agreements later on.

It’s hard to overstate how catastrophic the UK fucked up by leaving the EU. They joined on the bottom floor, had the leverage to negotiate a deal that gave them more benefits, let them keep their currency instead of promising to one day adopt the Euro, and had access to all the immigration controls they needed to deal with the ‘problem’ Tories perceived.

It’s incredible, really. Part of me still can’t believe they tossed all of that away. It’s got to be one of the biggest peacetime geopolitical fuckups ever.

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