I was at the original MacWorld San Francisco where iTools was first announced (2000), and I signed up on the spot for my mac.com email address. So now I have the same one with functioning me.com and icloud.com variations, all of which can be used to log in to my AppleID account, as well as my previous non-Apple email address which was my first username for…maybe eWorld? I can’t even remember now.
(Raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember eWorld!)
It’s confusing that people who sign up these days get icloud.com but not the predecessors mac.com and me.com. I guess people like me are grandfathered for the sake of backward compatibility. The history is actually pretty complicated, as I was reminded by this article.