How to be a sovereign email user? "you can't, we don't know how to do it."

Re:How to be a sovereign email user? "you can't, we don't kn... by lolinder on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @01:42PM (#38632140)

A few years ago I bought my own easily-pronounceable domain, pointed its MX records at Fastmail's servers, and transitioned away from Gmail. In the 3+ years I've been a Fastmail customer, I have never had a problem with my email being sent or received.

Is it full sovereignty? Depending on your definition, probably not. But it does give me a few things:

1. I'm not contributing to the Gmail monoculture

2. If Fastmail stops being awesome, I can point my MX records somewhere else

Even higher levels of control would be nice, and Gmail is trying to shut down independent operators, but the choices aren't "run your own server" or "give in and use Gmail". There's a spectrum of email sovereignty, and the kind of nearly-complete sovereignty that comes with a personal domain is well within reach of most people on HN.

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Re:How to be a sovereign email user? "you can't, we don't kn... by Ackchyually2 on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @04:47PM (#38634615)

How is the spam? Does fastmail has good filters?

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Re:How to be a sovereign email user? "you can't, we don't kn... by rocmcd on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @05:01PM (#38634795)

In my experience the amount of spam is directly related to the domain (and what it's digital footprint is).

That being said, for my hobby/personal domains, the spam has been as close to zero as you could reasonably expect (maybe a few per week, and they are correctly flagged as spam).

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Re:How to be a sovereign email user? "you can't, we don't kn... by lolinder on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @05:05PM (#38634833)

I see less spam in my inbox (effectively 0) than I did with Gmail, but that could be because I've been more careful about what I sign up for than I was with my old email (which I got as a kid).

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