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A whole lot of people are learning about the hazards of centralization in email lately. First Google turns GMail into a slow-loading nightmare for weaker comput
by unstuckdev 8y ago
A whole lot of people are learning about the hazards of centralization in email lately. First Google turns GMail into a slow-loading nightmare for weaker computers like mine, then they announced the closure of Inbox. Now 40 million people are without email because Zoho couldn't keep up with registrar consolidations (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18060013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18060013).
Zoho is fine as a service, but a domain suspension shouldn't cut tens of millions of people off from email.
- chooseaname 8y ago> A whole lot of people are learning about the hazards of centralization in email lately. What is the alternative?
- unstuckdev 8y agoI don't know, I'm not an email geek. Lots of smart people run their own email systems and report good delivery rates going by past threads here. Maybe they can work together on something more accessible.
- tomschlick 8y agohttps://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/ has worked well for me in the past
- acct1771 8y agoIn case this is a serious question: federation, with servers kept running by stakeholders of whatever the email's needed for.
- svembu1 8y agoI agree this is unacceptable. We are figuring out ways to make this more resilient - we host third-party domain mails, and we could map those domains directly without involving our domain. That could be one solution. We have learned a serious lesson here.
- unstuckdev 8y agoSteal GitLab's business model and let people/companies self-host their own Zoho.
- manigandham 8y agoNothing about self-hosted licensed software is unique to Gitlab, it's been a standard business model since the software industry started decades ago.
- unstuckdev 8y agoI know. I used GitLab as an example because git is as ubiquitous in development as email and just as prone to centralization. Plus, the recent funding news made it the most obvious example since people are concerned.
- lucb1e 8y agoI wouldn't say Zoho is one of the ones enjoying "centralized" status. If you said so of Google or Microsoft, or in the past perhaps Yahoo, then in the western world that's true; but I can only vaguely recall ever hearing of Zoho, let alone see an email address of theirs used by anyone. While email is getting harder to run yourself due to all the bad actors, with dozens of reasonable choices (plus the option to self-host like I do) you can hardly call it centralized.