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.