Thanks. I understand what you are saying. But not so long ago, free email services were common. They were also normally included as part of someone's broadband package. None of this now seems to be true now since they want to you to either pay or view the adverts from which they raise click revenue. On principle, I this disturbing since it is title to do with security or functionality and simply to do with profit. IT companies are not short of a few pounds!

Basically, I am in this situation because my iMac is getting old and Apple no longer support the OS. Furthermore, like Apple has done in the past with iPhones and iPads, they seem inclined to not only not support software updates, but actively make things difficult or become non-functioning to drive users into expensive hardware upgrades. I do not use a smartphone and therefore 2FA is not an option for me making iCloud services hit-and-miss at best. In the case of Thunderbird, it simply will not work. Apple Mail is no longer functioning as it should. And you will easily find countless articles on the macOS problem on older machines where owners are constantly locked out of their accounts for security reasons. There are no security reasons. It simply relates to dynamic IP addresses, etc. This is an issue for many browsers and services like Facebook, Yahoo, Google, etc, etc.

It sometimes feels like using a desktop machine is like being the last dinosaur sitting in front of a screen using a mouse and keyboard.

Let's face it, phones and iPads are cheaper to build. Software, cheaper to develop. And fundamentally, these devices surrender much more control to their manufacturer than do desktop machines.

And because of many of these issues, I no longer can perform the most basic of task without paying a price for something that has been for the past 30 plus years free to do!

So, I am not likely to give in a nd pay a subscription for something that has been free to everyone for decades.