> We should be able to port emails like we are with phone numbers.
We already have that if the e-mail address was "yours" to begin with, you can buy domains and keep using e-mail addresses pointing to them, moving to whatever e-mail provider you prefer this decade.
From a consumer perspective the phone number model is much more usable though. You buy the service from a carrier but you can still keep your number when you change carrier due to it being regulated. No need to buy phone numbers separate from the service.
Those hundreds of millions of users would not switch providers anyway. Breaking protocols that lasted for decades for the sake of achieving nothing seems like an ineffective reaction to stupid corporate policies and a total lack of customer support.
We already have that if the e-mail address was "yours" to begin with, you can buy domains and keep using e-mail addresses pointing to them, moving to whatever e-mail provider you prefer this decade.