> it's not true that it's impossible to run a relatively reliable email service
Good thing I didn't say that then.
Running your own email service isn't hard, even with setting up DKIM and anti-spam and so on, though it is time consuming. It is much harder to make sure people will receive your mail and it not be in their junk mail. I'm still seeing lots of email to mailing lists, with impeccable message content, ending up in spam based on mail server reputation or content similarity metrics. If you're running an organisation that can be very costly. If only a fraction of your recipients mark you as spam you'll get lots of misses.
Handcrafting your own internet stack is very libertarian, but it doesn't scale to anyone without access to deep tech expertise. Even governments decide they can't run mail any more. And I would argue that this isn't something you can fix about email. The problem is that the next system isn't federated at all -- it's balkanised and monetized: WhatsApp/Messenger, iMessage, Duo, Telegram, etc etc.
Good thing I didn't say that then.
Running your own email service isn't hard, even with setting up DKIM and anti-spam and so on, though it is time consuming. It is much harder to make sure people will receive your mail and it not be in their junk mail. I'm still seeing lots of email to mailing lists, with impeccable message content, ending up in spam based on mail server reputation or content similarity metrics. If you're running an organisation that can be very costly. If only a fraction of your recipients mark you as spam you'll get lots of misses.
Handcrafting your own internet stack is very libertarian, but it doesn't scale to anyone without access to deep tech expertise. Even governments decide they can't run mail any more. And I would argue that this isn't something you can fix about email. The problem is that the next system isn't federated at all -- it's balkanised and monetized: WhatsApp/Messenger, iMessage, Duo, Telegram, etc etc.