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I am struggling to understand why this would be the case.

Maybe if a large majority of people do not own a device and have to use a borrowed computer, this could be a problem.

But (as far as I know) most Android phones ship with a mail client, and so does Windows.

There are several scenarios I can think of where it people would not be able to use IMAP or POP to get their mail, and you touched one of them: people without their own device.

There is also the matter of having to set it up, which is not accessible to many people who can't (or don't want to) handle the cognitive load required.

They can use the free webmail: https://mail2web.com/webmail/

Android nowadays only ships with Gmail app. It can do generic IMAP but it's never been clear to me if the process is entirely on-device. I'd rather not keep Google in the loop.

That said there are some generic mail clients for Android. Not many are good, but they're out there. K-9 has recently received some love again.

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