In the last fifteen years, I've changed my phone number five times. I've switched countries, cities, apartments, and my beard style. But the Gmail address I got when I was in university? Still works. You can send me an email right now and I will (most definitely) reply. Unless you're being delulu, obviously.

I've also changed messengers more times than I can count: Telegram, WeChat (I lived in China for a while), iMessage, Viber, WhatsApp, ICQ (yes, I'm that old), Facebook Messenger, and probably a dozen others I've forgotten. Some of them don't even exist anymore.

But email? Email is still here. Email has always been here. Email will be here when we're all cyborgs arguing about neural-link etiquette.

Here's the thing: I can search my email and find files from 2009. Photos people sent me. Job offers. Apartment contracts. That one recipe for lemon cake my friend's mom sent me in 2013.

All official things come through email — documents, confirmations, receipts, that thing you need to prove you actually paid for something three years ago.

And there's another thing nobody tells you about email: it's how you talk to people who matter. Any time I read a book I love, and if the author is still alive and available online, I try to find their email and write them a thank you note. Most of them reply.

You can't DM famous people on Instagram and expect a response, but send them a thoughtful email and suddenly you're having a conversation.

Email is the infrastructure of the internet. It's not sexy, but neither is plumbing, and you definitely notice when that stops working.