Re:Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?
by ggm on Monday September 24, 2018 @06:11AM
(#18056398)
Once you add the words like Gmail or replace Gmail or instead of Gmail then no, it's not thousands of companies offering similar services. Running a service in Port 457 is the least of the offerings. It has to have spam detection as good as Postini, sieve, IMAP, utf-8 support, tls certificate management, a web portal, DNS and related domain management.
The killer is five nines availability. That's pricey.
I used to run mailsystems and maintain mailsystems code in the 1980s. I don't do it now because it has too many moving parts. I got a grandfathered domain into hosted by Google and it's worth a damn sight more than the apparent market force bottom price.
Hardware or software or service your competitors have to be comparable or at least bearable to apply price pressure. I do not judge fastmail as price competitive because they (like apple) are competing in quality. Not price.
The killer is five nines availability. That's pricey.
I used to run mailsystems and maintain mailsystems code in the 1980s. I don't do it now because it has too many moving parts. I got a grandfathered domain into hosted by Google and it's worth a damn sight more than the apparent market force bottom price.
Hardware or software or service your competitors have to be comparable or at least bearable to apply price pressure. I do not judge fastmail as price competitive because they (like apple) are competing in quality. Not price.