Editing 2822: *@gmail.com

When performing operations on computer files using a command prompt, the asterisk (*) may be used to represent a collection of items whose names match a particular format. For example, "*.txt" denotes all files whose names end in ".txt". This is called a {{w|wildcard character}}. Similarly, the e-mail address *@gmail.com, as illustrated in the comic, is a proposed feature from Randall that would send an email to ''every'' {{w|Gmail}} user, without having each and every valid Gmail address at hand (of which there are about 1.8 billion). For obvious reasons, this is not actually a feature, but Randall suggests that if Google ever wanted to shut Gmail down, they could either do it this way (possibly causing a service-ending overload of resources) ''or'' allow someone this one last boon (as a farewell gift, knowing that there would be relatively few additional repercussions to deal with).  Google does not seem particularly likely to shut down Gmail, as it is a source of information for their advertising and other businesses, but they are known for [https://killedbygoogle.com/ abandoning programs and projects] even after they have been found useful (by at least some people) for years.

When performing operations on computer files using a command prompt, the asterisk (*) may be used to represent a collection of items whose names match a particular format. For example, "*.txt" denotes all files whose names end in ".txt". This is called a {{w|wildcard character}}. Similarly, the e-mail address *@gmail.com, as illustrated in the comic, is a proposed feature from Randall that would send an email to ''every'' {{w|Gmail}} user, without having each and every valid Gmail address at hand (of which there are about 1.8 billion). For obvious reasons, this is not actually a feature, but Randall suggests that if Google ever wanted to shut Gmail down, they could either do it this way (possibly causing a service-ending overload of resources) ''or'' allow someone this one last boon (as a farewell gift, knowing that there would be relatively few additional repercussions to deal with).  Google does not seem particularly likely to shut down Gmail, as it is a source of information for their advertising and other businesses, but they are known for [https://killedbygoogle.com/ abandoning programs and projects] even after they have been found useful (by at least some people) for years.

A recurring phenomenon for email users, especially in the early Internet days of the 1990s and 2000s, was a reply all storm – someone would start a message to a very large group, perhaps hundreds, and even if only 5% of recipients replied to say something like “take me off this list“, a storm of dozens of replies would soon follow. Inevitably, new replies to everyone would start saying things like, “stop Replying All!” If this were done with millions of Gmail users instead of just dozens or hundreds, their result would be apocalyptic. A real-life example was [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-email-reply-all-down a 2016 incident involving 1.2 million staff at the UK National Health Service].

A recurring phenomenon for email users, especially in the early Internet days of the 1990s and 2000s, was a reply all storm – someone would start a message to a very large group, perhaps hundreds, and even if only 5% of recipients replied to say something like “take me off this list“, a storm of dozens of replies would soon follow. Inevitably, new replies to everyone would start saying things like, “stop Replying All!” If this were done with millions of Gmail users instead of just dozens or hundreds, their result would be apocalyptic. A real-life example was [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-email-reply-all-down a 2016 incident involving 1.2 million staff at the UK National Health Service].