I’m fairly new and don’t 100% understand it yet, but instances are run on servers that require money. Are we heading towards seeing ads or subscriptions to raise funds instead of relying on donations to cover overhead?
Especially with the influx of new users. Hardware upgrades are needed.
While correct in that email is definately now limited to a small number of major corporations, the core function has not been monitized. In other words, because I have a Gmail account, I am not limited to Gmail apps nor do they inject advertisement into them. I can live with that.
But is hosting your own mail server and using it for work/finances/everyday life still an option? I don’t think so, at least not without workarounds because sooner or later you will have to send/receive to/from big email.
I looked into it not too long ago. It’s basically a standard spam protection to block any emails from a private server. Sure Google doesn’t own Email, but any Ody with a Gmail account won’t even get your email in their spam filter, it won’t even make it that far.
As someone who works with small businesses, most of whom run their own internal email server, I completely disagree. Yes, it does take some knowledge of DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and DNS, but any well-managed server would have those set up properly anyway. GMail has no issue accepting email from a correctly set up server.
AOL servers, on the other hand, are a massive PITA.