• @gedaliyah@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    5610 months ago

    I bought a gmail invite from a message board. If this sequence of words makes sense to you, you’re old too.

    • @QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      10
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      I got an invite to Gmail when I was in university. Sadly I was at inbox zero for quite some time so I don’t have the Welcome to Gmail email anymore. It’s more than likely my oldest active account. I do have a Neowin account that still works from 2002 but I don’t frequent anymore. Macrumors is my most active old forum account, that’s from 2005. I had an ancient AIM and ICQ account but there’s no way I could remember the account details.

        • Sean
          cake
          OPM
          link
          fedilink
          110 months ago

          I still remember when AIM shutdown for good. That was a sad day.

      • Sean
        cake
        OPM
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        I mean you could always make a new account to get the welcome email and photoshop the dates and times to make it look like it’s older. I imagine the look of the email now is different from 2003, tho.

    • sag
      link
      fedilink
      410 months ago

      TIL G-Mail was invite only back then. I am too GenZ to undersand this shit.

      • SanguinePar
        link
        fedilink
        510 months ago

        A pattern they repeated with Google Wave and Google+, neither of which took off, partly because there weren’t enough people using them.

        I genuinely thought G+ could have been a FB killer, if they hadn’t made it hard to join.

    • @s3rvant@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 months ago

      Ditto - oldest email I still have in archive is from Nov. 2006 so at least that old

    • @Odo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 months ago

      Mine was from a chain of random people posting their invite links on Slashdot. It feels like ancient history now.

    • Sean
      cake
      OPM
      link
      fedilink
      110 months ago

      Shiiit, actually that does make sense. I remember when Gmail gave you 10 invites for new accounts and you didn’t even get them right away. You had to earn them over time. So yeah, invites were regularly sold on the message boards I used to frequent.

  • @Volkditty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3410 months ago

    My Hotmail account, which I’ve had since high school. Oldest email in there is from 2002, but I think I opened it up in 2000.

      • @HexagonSun@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        210 months ago

        All my friends and I used to have Yahoo! email addresses. But for some reason around 2010 almost everyone’s accounts seemed to be getting compromised and sending weird messages around to their contacts… and now I don’t know anyone with a Yahoo!

        I never figured out what was going on and why Yahoo in particular seemed so affected by it.

  • @ccunning@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    2510 months ago

    Probably my 2004 Gmail account, but that’s pushing the definition of “still use somewhat frequently”. I do still have my email forwarded to my current address, but most senders have been updated with my current address.

    I lost control of my Hotmail, AIM, ICQ accounts years ago.

          • @Nibodhika@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            310 months ago

            Oh… RIP 170538332 (I forgot the password for my first one and had to create a second one, and for some reason that’s the number that stuck with me)

          • stinerman
            link
            fedilink
            English
            210 months ago

            Somehow I can never seem to forget my ICQ number. 28493804. I have no idea why that’s always in my brain, but it is.

      • Sean
        cake
        OPM
        link
        fedilink
        210 months ago

        I think my AIM account is still technically active even though they shut it down. Don’t know what they did with all the accounts.

      • @rezifon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        9
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Usenet was the golden age of Reddit for its time. Before the binary newsgroups drowned everything out and web 1.0 captured everyone’s attention.

        In a way, it was a lot like Lemmy. Federated servers all inter-exchanged posts to a giant, global message board of newsgroups (roughly analogous to a subreddit or Lemmy community). Anyone could create a newsgroup and there were a lot of them.

        When it was good, it fostered the same kind of genuine conversation that Reddit and Lemmy do when they’re at their best. It was full of memes, too, although that word didn’t exist then.

        • @Crackhappy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          110 months ago

          I haven’t actually used that account other than to verify it is still there on my old university’s servers, in almost 20 years. I probably should try it out again.

      • @czech@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        510 months ago

        Usenet? Most new media can be found there. The most copyright-contentious files are not on there for long so most folks use automated downloaders.

    • @Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      210 months ago

      Same. Got in early, and it’s just my first and last name. I use it now as a bin for accounts for websites i dont want in my main inbox.

      I also have an aol email address from around the same time that im scared to open.

      Who knows what’s in there.

    • Sean
      cake
      OPM
      link
      fedilink
      110 months ago

      Hotmail was one of my very first email accounts but I believe Microshaft had already bought it by the time I signed up. I think I was about 12 or 13.

  • @ulkesh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    8
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    A four letter .com domain name I registered in 2003. Supposedly worth $5000-6000 presently.

    Or my eBay account I’ve had since 2001.

  • CaptainBasculin
    link
    fedilink
    710 months ago

    Steam account. Made in 2007, back then i used for a random game i bought having a cd key; but I still use it frequently.

    • SkaveRat
      link
      fedilink
      510 months ago

      Next month my steam account will be 21.

      Created it shortly after steam launch.

      I had to wait over night in a download queue to download the stream client bundled with cs 1.6 (which then also took a couple hours)

    • borari
      link
      fedilink
      210 months ago

      Yeah steam for me also, back in 2004 so about to hit that 20 year badge. I technically had an older steam account with the OG HL, CS, and DoD on it, but my current account had HL2 and CSS on it so I stuck with that. I think it’s even older than my Gmail account tbh.

  • @Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    710 months ago

    I joined a forum about 30 years ago, and I am still a regular. I can’t say the exact date I joined, nor can the forum admins, as things like that were not tracked back then. Even them having my email was a way later add-on.

  • Angry_Autist (he/him)
    link
    fedilink
    610 months ago

    My hotmail account.

    Signed up for it in the closed beta way before Microsoft bought it, was fucking pissed when they did.

    It’s my 2fa for most of my games and the emergency email for my other emails.