As a counter-argument, I set up another mail server last week. It took me almost one day. The only change from the usual routine was that in the past I had to f

As a counter-argument, I set up another mail server last week. It took me almost one day. The only change from the usual routine was that in the past I had to fill in a hidden form so that Microsoft unblocks my IP but this time for some reason it wasn't necessary. Google is another beast altogether. * First, I disable IPv6 in my MTA. Yeah, I know, other people managed to do it but it never worked for me and it's not worth the hassle. * The next step is SPF. I set it up correctly and verify it actually works using several online tools, not just one. And, lo and behold, this was enough to get first emails to Gmail spambox (Actually getting it to the inbox needs time and never works reliably). First for one account, then to others. So yeah, the oligopoly is real, but as of now, December 2023, you can still set up your email server and send messages to Outlook and Gmail recipients (Yahoo too, but they are easiest to deal with than the preceding two in my experience.) I encourage everyone interested to experiment and at least try if they can set it up for personal purposes, because if everybody just gives up it will be the end of email.