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I'll beg to differ. I've been running my own email for almost two decades and although the environment has changed, it is still perfectly accommodating of small

I'll beg to differ. I've been running my own email for almost two decades and although the environment has changed, it is still perfectly accommodating of small operators that keep themselves up-to-date with context (e.g dnswl listing, notifications to major recipients, signed headers, best practise DNS records etc etc). I changed IP address in the last 18 months and despite great trepidation, was pleasantly surprised that deliverability was not degraded. Paying a bond feels like protection money for something I think my domains/hosts already have: a good reputation.

interfixus 10y ago
So have I, and I have experienced mounting difficulties over the last couple of years, despite decent efforts to keep up with protocol and defense mechanisms. Delivery to gmail and hotmail/outlook accounts is becoming a game of chance. I shall probably, with huge regret, hand over the delivery process to an external operator in the near future.
- drdaeman 10y ago
  > Delivery to gmail and hotmail/outlook accounts is becoming a game of chance. I haven't had any issues recently, but wonder... Are the failures still well-noticeable? I mean, when Gmail/Hotmail reject the letter - do they do it properly (SMTP 4xx/5xx rejection) or maybe they're now silently discarding it? When I had the issues (even with large mail providers), my MTA had always generated me a bounce, and it had always contained something sensible and immediately useful - like a message that my DNS records got messed up or IP got in a blacklist. Every error message I saw contained links or clues to how the delivery problem could be resolved. Had this changed?
  - NathanOsullivan 10y ago
    Yes, hotmail will in some instances accept mail at SMTP level and then silently discard it. You cannot even request de-listing.
    - xyzzy123 10y ago
      I had to deal with delivery issues to hotmail (few years ago though) and despite a few hoops, found them pretty reasonable to deal with. Some tools here: https://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx https://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx and https://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx https://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx
  - interfixus 10y ago
    No, that's the horror. Often they just drop the thing without as much an error code.
    - drdaeman 10y ago
      Dropping the connection with mere TCP RST (or whatever it is) is fine by me. Accepting the message, saying 200 and then not delivering it (not even to the "spam" folder) — that's what I feared.
      - jamiepenney 10y ago
        We used to have issues sending password reset emails to users with Outlook hosted email - Outlook would return a 250 status code, then silently discard the email. It never turned up, not even in the spam filter.
mike-cardwell 10y ago
Ditto. Except for about 15 years. It's not difficult to run your own mail server and deliverability is fine if you keep on top of changes in the tech.
chrissnell 10y ago
Interesting. If you would write a blog post or a Show HN on this, I'd love to hear more. I ran my own servers for years but the spam arms race (as a recipient, not a sender) persuaded me to switch to using one of the big providers. I miss the flexibility and privacy of running my own email and if there's a way to do this without a bonded sender program, I'd love to see how it's done.

interfixus 10y ago

So have I, and I have experienced mounting difficulties over the last couple of years, despite decent efforts to keep up with protocol and defense mechanisms. Delivery to gmail and hotmail/outlook accounts is becoming a game of chance. I shall probably, with huge regret, hand over the delivery process to an external operator in the near future.

drdaeman 10y ago
> Delivery to gmail and hotmail/outlook accounts is becoming a game of chance. I haven't had any issues recently, but wonder... Are the failures still well-noticeable? I mean, when Gmail/Hotmail reject the letter - do they do it properly (SMTP 4xx/5xx rejection) or maybe they're now silently discarding it? When I had the issues (even with large mail providers), my MTA had always generated me a bounce, and it had always contained something sensible and immediately useful - like a message that my DNS records got messed up or IP got in a blacklist. Every error message I saw contained links or clues to how the delivery problem could be resolved. Had this changed?
- NathanOsullivan 10y ago
  Yes, hotmail will in some instances accept mail at SMTP level and then silently discard it. You cannot even request de-listing.
  - xyzzy123 10y ago
    I had to deal with delivery issues to hotmail (few years ago though) and despite a few hoops, found them pretty reasonable to deal with. Some tools here: https://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx https://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx and https://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx https://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx
- interfixus 10y ago
  No, that's the horror. Often they just drop the thing without as much an error code.
  - drdaeman 10y ago
    Dropping the connection with mere TCP RST (or whatever it is) is fine by me. Accepting the message, saying 200 and then not delivering it (not even to the "spam" folder) — that's what I feared.
    - jamiepenney 10y ago
      We used to have issues sending password reset emails to users with Outlook hosted email - Outlook would return a 250 status code, then silently discard the email. It never turned up, not even in the spam filter.

mike-cardwell 10y ago

Ditto. Except for about 15 years. It's not difficult to run your own mail server and deliverability is fine if you keep on top of changes in the tech.

chrissnell 10y ago

Interesting. If you would write a blog post or a Show HN on this, I'd love to hear more. I ran my own servers for years but the spam arms race (as a recipient, not a sender) persuaded me to switch to using one of the big providers. I miss the flexibility and privacy of running my own email and if there's a way to do this without a bonded sender program, I'd love to see how it's done.