I think the GP was saying that email was already popular before Hotmail entered the picture. I agree with the claim that it didn't need centralized players to become popular.
I don't think this is accurate though. I wouldn't call the internet popular when it was just nerds on it. At least not in the context of what we're discussing (communication clients). That's not popular until the masses join. It is clear that the masses did not join until there were large centralized services like AOL, Netscape, Yahoo, and Hotmail that provided email services. I am fundamentally disagreeing with the premise that email became popular before large centralized players provided the services.
And you’re wrong. Email was the main selling point to get non-nerds online in the late 90s. It was how we got my mother in-law online, my uncles, and my non-techie friends.
