The "provider" that's already running the rest of your servers can also run fetchmail or Thunderbird. Or you can use any VPS like even the free Oracle ones.

Who asked for this form factor?! If you really need to move a computer between workspaces (or work/home) a much more convenient form factor is just a Raspberry Pi (in a case) size (and easily achievable nowadays even in Intel/AMD world). But nobody wants that, everyone wants a laptop, that can be used by itself too without any shenanigans.

This has been tried in many forms, with Samsung's DeX (Microsoft Continuum and some other attempts earlier), Android Desktop now, whatever Apple's equivalent is too - it's a much more compelling proposition to just dock the phone for any "desktop" work, which is certainly possible nowadays (and it's been for a long time), except that nobody does it competently.

I want Clippy back!

I think that would depend on how the numbers work out: the current situation is one where there isn't UBI; but there are programs aimed specifically at dependent children, certain classes of disability that preclude regular employment, and some supplementary assistance for people who are working but earning below a certain amount.

If anything, a switch to UBI would seem to make spawning for profit less attractive: as it stands dependent children reliably qualify for certain welfare benefits; while working age adults without substantial disabilities typically qualify for relatively little unless they are working but earning a pittance(eg. the food stamps as a de-facto subsidy for walmart payroll situation) or they can prove an active but currently unsuccessful search for employment, in places that have some sort of job-seeker's allowance. In that case someone who thinks that they can parent on the cheap does potentially have an incentive to pop out a bunch of dependents.

If you qualify for UBI just because the "U" in "UBI" stands for "Universal", though, pumping out children looks like an arduous real job that you no longer have a direct incentive for: unless UBI is a cardboard box and 1500 calories of nutri-gruel a day, you can skip changing diapers and listening to screaming children and just UBI whatever hobby you actually enjoy, since now you automatically qualify without needing to make some dependents.

If it turns out that (contrary to what we've seen basically worldwide once people get a little money and some options) it was really just work-life balance depressing fertility rates and UBI makes people breed like rabbits into a populationpocalypse then perhaps we have an issue; but, in terms of breeding just for the welfare money, the fact that you can get the UBI without the hassle seems like it would actively discourage anyone who doesn't specifically want children from having them for financial reasons.

"His first objection: if AI can truly do everything, then everyone can have everything they need, making the question of who owns the robots somewhat moot."

Ah, of course. Because a wealthy society is automatically an egalitarian society; as anyone who takes a quick look outside can clearly see.

If anything, the threat of utopian abundance rendering wealth nigh-irrelevant will probably encourage people who wish to retain the feeling of being wealth to double down, since the only way to know that you are ahead will be the option to look down on the huddled masses being kept in line by securibots.

That's the cost to the business, not the salary to the employee.

The cost of payroll + benefits + management overhead + office space + heating/cooling + parking lot + etc, is typically twice what the employee is paid.

An AI doesn't need any of that stuff, doesn't take vacations, or sick days, or weekends, or need sleep.

Why should I care?

What bad thing will happen to me if some random business knows what brand of tea I drink?

30 million American adults use their phone as their primary means of accessing the Internet.

Half of those don't even own a computer.

So, yes, websites offering basic services dang well better work on a small screen.

A Dell customer might think about the brand only when considering a new laptop.

But the marketing department sees the brands a dozen times a day, gets tired of them, and lobbies for a refresh.

Rebranding is almost always a mistake.

It might be about money but related to what's spent with the infrastructure needed to check every few minutes the pop3 accounts people configured even 20 years ago or so, while they login to gmail every once in a while, potentially nearly never (hence their move to delete inactive accounts, but still after years of inactivity, and even so I think they can't bring themselves to do it). Sure, it might not be so huge in Google's great scheme of things but such corporations are great at nickel and diming (while at the same time great at crazily spending for some moonshot).

For sure the vast, VAST majority of such customers just have random free accounts, and from the potential custom domain customers if they do it via POP3 it means they ALREADY have a fully-fledged email system hosted somewhere else (paid or not, self-hosted or not). Now if they already have it it's not much of a deal to get their emails from there to gmail (if there's such a great value to have everything together), via forwarding or just some way to drop it directly in Gmail's inbox via IMAP (yes, you can just upload your emails too via IMAP, and you can do it automatically from another inbox with anything from fetchmail to even full blown Thunderbird).

Alternatively one could use something like Cloudflare's email routing (free, needs domain hosted with Cloudflare) that involves no (other) mailbox but that's not going over POP3 so it won't be influenced by this in any way.

What can that achieve? IMAP isn't supported even now (and never was for this workflow, TFA is misleading).

Retrieving email from other accounts via IMAP was never supported so there's nothing to kill there.

Thank you Daveid.

It's not like there's a history of microsoft interlinking technology being a festering security issue that should trouble us when they report on ChatOLE or GTPCOM.

It's perfectly normal to go around spitting in people's faces, hoping for them taking a punch at you. Longing for it. Very normal. Lots of people live that way.