Email is dying too. I have run my own email server for 20 years. A few years ago my original ISP was acquired, forcing me to switch providers and hence get a new IP address. Ever since then my server has been blacklisted by one major player or another as a source of spam. I even tried changing to a new IP address, but the result of that was just a different set of providers blacklisting me. I'm about ready to throw in the towel and switch to Fastmail. :-(
I had this exact experience, I had an email server running on the same ISP for 15 years, got great delivery. I got a new ISP, blacklisted nearly everywhere. IP reputation is super hard and time consuming to build.
So I made the switch to Fastmail, and honestly, it's the best descision I made. Migrating was super simple, and they've been rock-solid for me. I didn't realize how much time I was wasting administrating an email server with one user until I switched.
I spend pretty much zero time administering my server. Once it's set up, it pretty much just runs itself.
The reason I want to run my own server is that I want to run my own spam filter, whose algorithm requires seeing my outgoing mail as well as my incoming. (Though I guess I could do that through IMAP by looking at my SENT folder. But for me it's also just the principle of the thing. I remember the good old days, and I'm not going down without a fight.)
I would strongly advise anyone considering hosting their own email these days to do literally anything else. You'll be more fulfilled by abandoning email entirely and writing letters with a fountain pen, if you're looking for a new hobby. It's not a matter of if a private server will get blackholed anymore, it's when.
If you're planning to offload to a third party anyway, why don't you instead first try routing mail though AWS SES? You'll definitely get better delivery and at least you'll be able to control the rest of the stack.
(I actually already have a Fastmail account, and I use it to deliver mail to domains where my server is blacklisted. But even that little concession feels like defeat.)
Not sure about better, just different since it's strictly an MTA. But perhaps you can also use Fastmail as an MTA only? Biggest benefit I can think of is with SES, Amazon would never see any of your incoming mail. Well, unless you replied to something. Then I suppose they would have access to it indirectly.
> perhaps you can also use Fastmail as an MTA only
Yes, and that's what I actually do to solve my current problem. But one of the reasons I run my own email server is to maintain my claim to fourth-amendment protections in light of Smith v. Maryland so I really don't want my mail being routed through a third party.
there are also small companies which deliver the same service, if that appeals. i've been using mailroute.net for delivery and spam prevention for a small business for years.
In the end, what you need if you want really reliable self hosting is to own your own ASN and IP range, so you can tightly control the quality. Review how clean the addresses are before purchasing them and continuously review it for the duration you own them, as some been used for spam previously.
Unfortunately, you’re probably right. I’ve been self-hosting (email, web and DNS) for the past 10 years. So far, the only issue I’ve had was GMail rate-limiting my server when I had to email about the 30 members of a local voluntary group as part of secretarial duties. However, it made me aware that the delivery of emails sent by my server is more akin to a “privilege” than a “right” on the modern Internet.
By the way, I just upvoted a reply you previously made to another comment of mine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36032588 Thanks for providing that example of how homoglyphs can be used to “fingerprint” plain text. I also discovered that with Vim digraphs, I can easily input spaces that are look the same as regular space characters.
It's quite expensive, yes. But removes a lot of headaches (while introducing some new ones), is a great learning exercise and is most probably a solid investment when it comes to ipv4 at least, prices keep going up and it won't just disappear in the near future.
This is the way I think personally. I recently changed my mail server host, had to unblock the IP from MS and all that but since, it has been smooth sailing... for now.
Email is shrinking, for sure, but there are still a lot of options and providers and if you're hard core you can run your own if you're willing to pay for a clean IP address.
There's lots of smaller VPS and VM providers -- even local IT companies. Mythic Beasts and Bytemark have been good for me.
If you want to use Linode for your CPU time and disk, probably there are providers for outbound SMTP that you pay a small amount for to use as a smarthost.
