I don't host my own email (I've had terrible experiences trying to send), I do have my own domain and let someone else host my email (In this case Google :( but since it's my domain I can change it and it doesn't matter to anyone).

Aside: It always frustrates me when I see a business with their own domain and then an @gmail.com or @aol.com address. What registrars don't offer basic email forwarding (often for free?) or cheap (~$10 email) service you can buy from them if you can't figure out Google for your Domain)?

I feel like there is a small, but profitable space here, I just can't figure out what to do to harness it.

Zoho is pretty much free for personal uses. They charge per user per month, but under 25 users is free, and if you're not a business you don't have that many users.

I have numerous personal projects that are web sites/web apps and I use Zoho to get emails at all those domains.

I don't know if this is frowned upon by Zoho, but if you don't want to use their UI, you can set up your regular personal Gmail account to act as a POP3 client and just retrieves emails from Zoho that way. (now that I wrote it out, it makes me think it can't be frowned upon, simply because POP3 is even offered as a feature there)

I'm still doing this one too - took maybe an hour to configure a simple dovecot+postfix+spamassassin setup and I don't have to touch it beyond an upgrade once every 6 months or so.

Having catchalls at bullshit domains is great.

You aren't the only one. I host mine on linode and have no problems sending now that I have DKIM and SPF set up.

I feel like my company is the last to not use Google and Salesforce... There are a million reasons why Google could lock you out of an account... If I lose my personal email, I will survive. I can't in good faith accept that type of liability for my business communications though.

You're certainly not the only person, I do the same. These stories that keep popping up, about people losing access to their SSO accounts and emails convinced me that it's worth the effort.

You are.

I was like 10th from the last. :)