[zelon88]

I've had experiences where I've emailed people who left and received nothing in response, only to find out days/weeks later via other means that person left the company.

I've also experienced where I've emailed people who left and received immediate automated replies informing me of the change and providing me with a new contact person.

I've never, ever experienced a time where I've emailed person@company[dot]com and received a casual reply like "Hey man, I quit that place. Hit me up and we can grab beers!"

And I think anybody would be shocked if that were the case. Especially if you kept getting those emails as a former employee and no other current employees were getting them also. Nevermind mailboxes cost money or physical resources most of the time. To expend those resources to all former employees indefinitely is not practical. And I don't want to keep my mailboxes at former employers anyway. I have enough notifications on my phone to be batting away vendors and suppliers from previous employers.

[scrollaway]

To be clear, this was the employer refusing to close the email account / set up an out of office, they just wanted all email redirected to them. Nobody said anything about being able to continue using the email.

[dekhn]

... this is totally reasonable for an employer to do. For example, sales person at a company. Probably sent/received many emails that are relevant to sales at the company, rather than using a mailing list (I see this a lot). After the sales person leaves the company, the company needs to maintain relationship with the people who worked with the sales person. Keeping the old email open rather than dropping them on the floor makes sense (otherwise your customers will hate you).