It would be interesting to hear why the armchair experts clicked that vote-down arrow instead of reacting. The fact that you think self-hosting mail can not be done does not mean others can not do it. If you happen to work for a mail hosting company and feel you need to grey out potential competition that'd be understandable (if fraudulent) but otherwise I do not understand this reaction. Does the fact that others can self-host make you feel insecure? Does the fact that this gives those people freedom and the opportunity to evade censorship threaten you? Let's hear it, I'm interested in understanding the background for this ever so common reaction to any suggestion of not letting the experts handle things like this.

I'll bite. I am willing to bet the majority of people down voting you are more than capable of hosting an email server. But like me, see it as not worth the potential risks involved.

Before even considering why someone might not choose to do so, I would like to point out that selfhosting email is not even that hard to do nowadays. I spent a couple hours a few years back manually setting up a stack on a dummy domain just to see if its as hard as developer circles make it out to be. It was not. Furthermore a quick search today nets half a dozen docker containers you can spin up that claim to be one stop solutions for email. If even a fraction of them succeed in what they claim you could self host email with one command and an env file. You could even use the dockerfiles as a template to run the software on metal, its all there.

Even with this newfound knowledge, and as someone who tries to selfhost equivalents to any service I find myself using regularly, I would never attempt to host my own main emails. My bank accounts are linked to my emails, my investment accounts, my insurance, my loans, things that I am not willing to risk compromising my ability to access as the result of some sort of overly prideful sentiment.

Just because someone has the ability and knowledge to host their own email does not mean they should or would even consider it.

Those are all good reasons not to self-host, but none are good reasons to downvote someone advocating self-hosting and providing some useful info about it. I don't get the downvote-brigading here either, especially on a hacker website.

Fair enough, I assume the down votes came as a result of the tone.

What is wrong with the tone? Is it wrong to point out that those who advocate taking care of one's own digital needs - a.k.a. self-hosting - tend to get shouted or voted down on this here Hacker News site which, if going by its name only would be just the place you'd expect to be the refuge for those who like to tinker and who value self-sufficiency?

Yes, to put it simply. It’s a violation of the HN guidelines to complain about voting.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Thanks, I was hoping someone would provide an update on self-hosting too, in addition to service recommendations. I may test it out, thx for the info.