My first email account was a hotmail account. It was the heady days of 1998 – I was 18 and about to go and follow every young Australian’s clichéd dream of backpacking through Europe. These were the days when finding an internet cafe was a rare occurrence, and even when you did you had to tolerate dial up speeds. Back then, I probably would have signed up for a hotmail.com.au email address if it was available. But that was over a decade ago, and today my hotmail account is a magnet for spam and newsletters I can’t be bothered unsubscribing from.
Honestly, this announcement is about a decade too late. Even though people still use hotmail, adding a .au domain in 2010 seems to be a little, well, ridiculous. Why has it taken so long? Does anybody actually care?