You, rather than your service provider, 'own' your identity be that email, web, other. For as long as the registration's kept, of course.

Your choice is your own. What to have resolving to 'you' is up to you.

Your branding is your own.

It misses being part of a 'community', or, a gated community. But the many flavours of federation seem to have reached critical mass to sustain resilience to another attempted murder a la RSS.