[rhazn]

(author here): Is this in agreement with the article? It reads like you want it to be a gotcha?

A government requiring emails and then giving complete control of the email infrastructure to two US companies (Google for Gmail and Microsoft for Outlook) would be exactly what I was trying to write about.

[Oras]

I hope you take my feedback with an open mind as I don't mean anything personal. Your article is an example of people who look at things through their own lens rather than the general one.

I'm certain 95% of the population would be using Apple or Android, and the instructions on the Gov UK site are made for the majority, not for the edge cases.

My comment falls exactly within that, for most people, they define email as Gmail or Outlook. There are people who use Proton, iCloud, or personal domain emails, but the instructions will always mention what the average person would know and identify.

[rhazn]

I can understand the feedback and I agree if you are building a product, you want to make it easy to use and intuitive for the majority. In my opinion, as a government you have an obligation to create processes differently though. You should provide and focus on a flow that is 100% in your/the citizens control with the messaging to match.

So in your email example, I think the governments messaging must be neutrally on email (and arguably the government should provide free Email accounts to citizens), but they could add convenience buttons to open GMail or similar.

But I recognize my opinion is probably an outlier, especially on hackernews. I can see your point as well and taken with an open mind :).