4 ms·

Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. I don't think that is necessarily

by thayne 6y ago

Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but I think for federated services to catch on, you need big players that provide reliable service and a recognizable brand. The average person is not going to want to search through thousands of small federated servers to try and find one that works for them. And running a single server might be simple and inexpensive, but making it reliable and secure is not.

gspr 6y ago
> Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. Yes, but importantly, those few big providers federate. That means that the barrier to entry for the little guys is much lower. This situation, while not ideal, is vastly better than the non-federated alternative.
- MaKey 6y ago
  While they do federate, it's a challenge to get them to accept mails from your own mail server. Microsoft's mail servers are notorious for accepting your mails with a "250 Queued for delivery" and then letting them vanish in a black hole. I've also ran into problems with mail servers of government agencies. So yes, while technically possible, self-hosting your mail server sadly isn't viable anymore for the little guy.
abdullahkhalids 6y ago
> Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. That's just because installing and maintaining your own email server is extremely complicated [1]. Lots of people maintained their own Kazaa/Limewire servers for their friends (and the bigger piracy community) back in the day, because it was as simple as double clicking setup.exe and installing the software, and then configuring it. Email does require higher reliability than Limewire. But I imagine if someone made a 100$ box that I could plug into my router, and so could 3 of my friends, and that had an email server installed on it or could be easily by clicking a installation file, and the 3 could act in concert to provide email services to the 50 people, maybe you would see more uptake. [1] I am a tech-savy user who has been looking for a simple solution for a decade now.
- MaKey 6y ago
  > That's just because installing and maintaining your own email server is extremely complicated It's not anymore [0]. However, good look on getting Microsoft's or other's mail servers to accept your e-mail. That's a big reason why even tech savvy users give up on hosting their own mail server. I've been running my own mail server for over two years now and the situation hasn't improved. My last problem was that a mail server from a government agency straight up refused the SMTP connection and contacting their postmaster mailbox yielded no response. (For anyone wondering: It's not a problem with the configuration of my mail server, I've checked it about 10 times now. It passes all MxToolbox checks. However, I'm using an .xyz domain which might contribute to my problem.) [0] mailcow.email
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    Come on, this is the installation process [0]. If it's more complicated than apt/yum install mailcow, followed by a nice friendly browser based configuration page, it's too complicated for widespread usage. This includes, having out of the box configuration, that makes the email acceptable by Microsoft/Gmail etc. [0] https://mailcow.github.io/mailcow-dockerized-docs/i_u_m_install/ https://mailcow.github.io/mailcow-dockerized-docs/i_u_m_inst...
    - MaKey 6y ago
      > If it's more complicated than apt/yum install mailcow, followed by a nice friendly browser based configuration page, it's too complicated for widespread usage. It's a bit more complicated than that but the simplest solution I know. > This includes, having out of the box configuration, that makes the email acceptable by Microsoft/Gmail etc. This is unfortunately impossible. You can have a perfectly valid configuration including reverse DNS, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, yet Microsoft's email servers will still let your mails vanish.

by thayne 6y ago

gspr 6y ago

> Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. Yes, but importantly, those few big providers federate. That means that the barrier to entry for the little guys is much lower. This situation, while not ideal, is vastly better than the non-federated alternative.

MaKey 6y ago
While they do federate, it's a challenge to get them to accept mails from your own mail server. Microsoft's mail servers are notorious for accepting your mails with a "250 Queued for delivery" and then letting them vanish in a black hole. I've also ran into problems with mail servers of government agencies. So yes, while technically possible, self-hosting your mail server sadly isn't viable anymore for the little guy.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago

> Well most people use one of a few big email providers, not small individual mail servers run by tech-savvy friends or family. That's just because installing and maintaining your own email server is extremely complicated [1]. Lots of people maintained their own Kazaa/Limewire servers for their friends (and the bigger piracy community) back in the day, because it was as simple as double clicking setup.exe and installing the software, and then configuring it. Email does require higher reliability than Limewire. But I imagine if someone made a 100$ box that I could plug into my router, and so could 3 of my friends, and that had an email server installed on it or could be easily by clicking a installation file, and the 3 could act in concert to provide email services to the 50 people, maybe you would see more uptake. [1] I am a tech-savy user who has been looking for a simple solution for a decade now.

MaKey 6y ago
> That's just because installing and maintaining your own email server is extremely complicated It's not anymore [0]. However, good look on getting Microsoft's or other's mail servers to accept your e-mail. That's a big reason why even tech savvy users give up on hosting their own mail server. I've been running my own mail server for over two years now and the situation hasn't improved. My last problem was that a mail server from a government agency straight up refused the SMTP connection and contacting their postmaster mailbox yielded no response. (For anyone wondering: It's not a problem with the configuration of my mail server, I've checked it about 10 times now. It passes all MxToolbox checks. However, I'm using an .xyz domain which might contribute to my problem.) [0] mailcow.email
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  Come on, this is the installation process [0]. If it's more complicated than apt/yum install mailcow, followed by a nice friendly browser based configuration page, it's too complicated for widespread usage. This includes, having out of the box configuration, that makes the email acceptable by Microsoft/Gmail etc. [0] https://mailcow.github.io/mailcow-dockerized-docs/i_u_m_install/ https://mailcow.github.io/mailcow-dockerized-docs/i_u_m_inst...
  - MaKey 6y ago
    > If it's more complicated than apt/yum install mailcow, followed by a nice friendly browser based configuration page, it's too complicated for widespread usage. It's a bit more complicated than that but the simplest solution I know. > This includes, having out of the box configuration, that makes the email acceptable by Microsoft/Gmail etc. This is unfortunately impossible. You can have a perfectly valid configuration including reverse DNS, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, yet Microsoft's email servers will still let your mails vanish.