That's not so great when you switch ISPs, move, etc.

It seems that a lot of problems regarding email involve a lack of transferability between providers, and I don’t think that having a government-run mail provider would adequately solve that.

Instead, maybe an extension of existing mail protocols to allow for updating address information would be better - for instance, mailing a deactivated address would give a special response announcing the change in address, so that information stored about addresses can be updated without user intervention.

Any thoughts on this?