Yes and no. It was already rejection at the selection stage back then, but you luckily never had to. You got one from your ISP, or your university, and you just used that. Sure, some techies had their own mail server or so but it’s just mail, just use what you got was enough for the vast vast majority of people.
You’ve got mail!
I mean even if it repeats “the Twitter mistake” that’d still be another 13-14 years to go. Who knows where short-form social media will be conceptually in that time and whether any competition in the space is even still relevant.