This. As long as consumers have no way of knowing whether or not their information is being transmitted, what information it is, and how it will be used, corporations will continue to do it at will. We need strong user data protection laws here in the United States that make it extremely clear what rights you are signing away any time you allow a service to collect personal data about you.

Its bigger than that. We are at a point where I would pay a monthly premium in order to keep my privacy and would rather have a bunch of free tiered alternatives that are all explicitly non-private. Because lets be honest with ourselves nobody but us really gives a shit about their privacy. And it is a billion dollar industry. Let people who do not care keep the free shit at an up front cost rather than all this running around corporations do now. Or I can even see a future where the government gives you free internet in return for data mining 100% of it.

I would actually probably use that.

Actually, even if you're paying, the service operator may be mining your data. This is the case for example with cell phone operators: you pay a monthly fee, and yet they use your geolocation to send you custom advertising, sell market studies, etc.

Paying for email sounds weird to most people these days, but now that I do, I'd never have it any other way again.

I'm days away from moving to fastmail. May I ask what service you're currently using? Are you happy with it?

Not parent, but I too am paying for email for years and am very happy with FastMail. You can see a lot of work is going into it lately now that they're independent again. Can't recommend them enough.

Thanks!

FastMail, indeed, and I love it. Something insanely gratifying about being able to file support tickets and rapidly get answers for an email service.

Thanks!

I use;

https://kolabnow.com/

and

https://posteo.de/en

and use Postbox as my mail client. All great so far and only costs a few £'s a month. Probably less than lunch for a day or two.

Fastmail for features and ease of use. Protonmail if you want security.

Same here. Three separate, paid services. I'd never go back to something like GMail again.