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I've been a Fastmail customer for...8 years? 10? I dunno. A long time. Initially I just replaced my self-hosted personal domain email as deliverability to e.g.
by rcoder 4y ago
I've been a Fastmail customer for...8 years? 10? I dunno. A long time. Initially I just replaced my self-hosted personal domain email as deliverability to e.g. Gmail dropped off a cliff for anything _not_ run by a BigCo. Fastmail, despite not being "big" in the Google/MS/Yahoo sense is expertly-run and established enough that I generally get messages through. (Delivery failures I see from FM-hosted addresses usually have to do with age of the _domain_, not anything about their email infra.)
Being able to pay for _just_ email from a company that isn't also harvesting my mail contents for ad targeting and search relevance is honestly a huge relief to me. When I have to discuss something sensitive via email -- think medical care, financial deals and other business secrets, even hobbies and interests that I wouldn't want blasted across the Googleplex -- it goes to Fastmail, every time. (And yes, I know about encrypted email and tried to do everything with GPG signatures + payload encryption for years...along with re-sending 99% of those messages b/c the recipient could do literally nothing with them.)
For business use I'm also a big fan of their mailing-list-esque offering Topicbox (https://topicbox.com https://topicbox.com). It lets me opt-in particular outside trusted vendors and collaborators for ongoing discussion w/o having the bring them onto our domain, keeps a permanent archive of our discussions, and hosts public mailing lists for newsletters, customer discussions, etc. just as well.
Disclaimer: I am not a Fastmail employee, marketing partner, or affiliate, and I have always paid full price for my service. They're just damn good at email and one of the last effective defenders against the GOOG/MS duopoly's centralization of email and IMHO worthy of regular public recommendations for that. (Self-hosting is fun and fine for personal domains where deliverability is a nice-to-have, but for business purposes I need something that _works_ and am willing to pay for that.)
- boulos 4y agoDisclosure: I used to work for Google Cloud. > Being able to pay for _just_ email from a company that isn't also harvesting my mail contents for ad targeting and search relevance is honestly a huge relief to me. GMail (consumer) stopped scanning your mail for ads personalization five years ago [1]. IIUC, the paid version already wasn't (never did?). [1] https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely-align https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in...
- bobsomers 4y ago> GMail (consumer) stopped scanning your mail for ads personalization five years ago [1]. IIUC, the paid version already wasn't (never did?). I appreciate that this is probably true, but ultimately I moved all my personal email from Gmail to Fastmail for a similar reason. It honestly feels good to pay someone for the service to improve the chances that our incentives are aligned. It's hard to believe my incentives will ever be aligned with Google when they are notorious for slurping up every ounce of user data they can find for the purposes of ad targeting.
- troyvit 4y agoYep. Just because they ostensibly stopped scanning your mail for ads five years ago doesn't mean they won't start up again whenever they want.
- utucuro 4y agoAt this point, I think it's safe to assume that Google will lie, both internally as well as externally, cheat, or break any law, if they calculate they will profit by it or can get away with it. Their track record [1][2][3] does not show a positive or improving trend, so when Google asks me to take them at their word that they are not doing something that would make them more money, I cannot reconcile that with their prior behavior. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/time-make-amends-google-circumvents-privacy-settings-safari-users https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/time-make-amends-googl... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... [3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antitrust_complaint/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antit...