Can’t a corporation just enter the space whenever they want to? Can’t they start or even buy out larger instances? Even if Lemmy does take off, wouldn’t this inevitably happen anyway if the space gets popular enough?

  • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    FUD

    I have self hosted my email for five years. I’m a hobbyist and it is no problem for me.

    Occassionally (very rarely) an email to a new address I’ve never sent before will end up erroneously in a spam folder. This never happens when I send to a business. Instead of everyone throwing up their hands and saying email is way too hard now, how about we hold the big providers accountable for their obvious bullying?

    • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Because we can’t. Who are you going to complain to about it?

      Don’t get me wrong, would love to give them as much pain as possible over this. But I don’t see how we can do anything. If I start my own email server, I’m probably going to miss important emails and end up in lots of troubleshooting things. I’m wish it wasnt so. The ideas of the original internet was amazing but capitalism can’t be reasoned with.

      It consumes all until there is nothing left.

      • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        some of them blacklist large blocks of ip addresses. Lawsuits can go a long way to forcing them to justify and/or stop this. EFF is working on this, so I give them money. The other thing I can do personally is write to legislators and make sure they are aware of the issue. It’s not yerribly satisfying, but I hope it helps.

        In the meantime, I will not be deterred from self hosting. F*@k google.

        • R51@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If anything anyone could also just pick a mail routing server, pay like $50 a year and have as many emails for as many domains as they want. I got one, I have like 8 domains pointed to it for emails. All I had to do was fill in the blanks for the DNS page for the domain (mx, and the spf+dkim) and all emails I send go to inbox like butter. Unlimited email accounts, takes 15 seconds to make, no phone no name no nothing just email+pass and it exists now.

          gmail was nice for a bit, but shit man I don’t want to give my life story and phone number every time I want to make an email address.

    • Black Xanthus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Why do big companies always mark you as spam, and why is it always Hotmail?

      My experience is that I have to remove myself from spamhouse once every couple of months, because Hotmail decided that my 5 emails to different accounts was spam. TBF, it’s better than silently failing which is annoying as hell.

      The problem with email is the same is always been: antiquated software.

      The email protocol was never designed for an internet with bad actors and bots. It’s from the early hopeful days. We absolutely need a better email system - however, it’s simple use, the fact anyone can run one, it’s simplicity, is what made it so useful.

      The difference with Lemmy(et. al.) Is that the protocol is designed in the modern age, and isn’t required to also keep up with bad actors for legacy reasons. If Meta decide to join and fill it full of bad actors, Lemmy has a choice email never had. Lemmy can choose to add verification, peer-conversation, trust keys.

      It however still has the same basic problem: to be useful for everyone, it has to work with everyone. The discussions and decisions about how that happen are not just technological, but also moral and ideal-based.

      Meta, then, in this context, is the first spam email server. How Lemmy/the community/etc respond will be the challenge.

      • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        There’s nothing wrong with email. It is essential for all business transacted online. It’s still, by far, the most useful federated software. All that the “bad actors” can do is send messages that the receiver didn’t want, and that’s trivial to stop.