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I did this for about a decade (ending about a decade ago), and eventually gave up and went to gmail. I agree that it is a really easy thing to do and maintain,

I did this for about a decade (ending about a decade ago), and eventually gave up and went to gmail. I agree that it is a really easy thing to do and maintain, BUT when it did (rarely) break it was always at the worst possible time. The day a client was sending an important document. While I was on vacation. Etc. I probably only had to drop everything to fix my email server a handful of times, but that handful of times was painful enough to make me just let google worry about it.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
I currently use google but am thinking seriously about self hosting. For those few times could the clients send it to you via WhatsApp?
- mynameisvlad 2y ago
  “Please send me that critical requirements document over WhatsApp, my email isn’t working” is a terrible thing to hear from a vendor/partner/etc.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    I do a fair amount of business internationally and WhatsApp is increasingly becoming a default. There is Signal, Slack, Telegram, iMessage, etc plus a multitude of many other options including uploading via our website. Places like Japan and Germany are still pretty big on faxes so I guess it depends where on the continuum the customers are. Thus far our only email issues have been on the client side and they're the ones asking to send it via WhatsApp. It would make sense to me to have a non-email contingency for email.
    - mynameisvlad 2y ago
      That might work for small businesses, but no real mid-sized or bigger company is going to be using Whatsapp or any other consumer messaging service for their critical or non-critical business communications. It just screams unprofessional. You’re not going to see Meta employees do business over WhatsApp, and it’s their product. Like, sure, you could probably get away with it. Once at most places. And even then, it would still likely leave a sour taste in your client’s mouth if their new vendor couldn’t even get their shit together to keep their email up and running smoothly.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Again, I think that view is US centric. Many other countries have WhatsApp as the default. I'm not even suggesting that they should have WhatsApp as the default, just describing the reality as I am seeing it. And yes even the biggest companies and government entities are using WhatsApp. When I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM.
        mynameisvlad 2y ago
        > I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM. You had a mid-sized to corporate business sending passports over WhatsApp? I highly doubt that. This is not even coming from a “US-centric” view. This is coming from a “that will never pass any sort of compliance or hell corporate governance” sniff test.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        I am describing reality as I see it, at this point you're basically calling me a liar. You could have simply googled it yourself; e.g. "is it normal to use WhatsApp for business in Latin America?" to which the resulting summary is "Across LATAM, WhatsApp is used by citizens as a way to communicate with family and friends and is being increasingly used by businesses big and small to provide customer service, make sales, take bookings, and more." Note the --> big <-- part of that. You don't need to rely on my assertions the when there is so much evidence readily available. I have no idea why you're arguing with me and do not care that you don't believe me - what on earth would I have to gain by lying to you in this way. It makes no sense.
        pmontra 2y ago
        Italy here. Photo ids via WhatsApp is not normal but it happens. WhatsApp video calls as proof of identity are normal: showing your face and a photo id is a way to get formally identified by many of the identity providers for the state digital id platform.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  The problem with an email server being down is the email goes nowhere. So, the client sends you an email and you just never receive it. Often you don't even know you missed something. It's far from ideal. To answer your question, no I've never corresponded with a client via WhatsApp
iamdamian 2y ago
Do you happen to remember what the handful of issues were? In particular, I’m wondering how much a self hoster can expect to have this sort of downtime because of breaking changes to the mail server application(s) vs. misc. server outages (e.g., breaking OS upgrade unrelated to the mail server) vs. having to fix “my mail was marked as spam” problems.
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  I don't remember the specifics, but it was catastrophic failures. Like I couldn't receive any emails, and because of the nature of email that means you just don't receive them at all ever.

cjbgkagh 2y ago

I currently use google but am thinking seriously about self hosting. For those few times could the clients send it to you via WhatsApp?

mynameisvlad 2y ago
“Please send me that critical requirements document over WhatsApp, my email isn’t working” is a terrible thing to hear from a vendor/partner/etc.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  I do a fair amount of business internationally and WhatsApp is increasingly becoming a default. There is Signal, Slack, Telegram, iMessage, etc plus a multitude of many other options including uploading via our website. Places like Japan and Germany are still pretty big on faxes so I guess it depends where on the continuum the customers are. Thus far our only email issues have been on the client side and they're the ones asking to send it via WhatsApp. It would make sense to me to have a non-email contingency for email.
  - mynameisvlad 2y ago
    That might work for small businesses, but no real mid-sized or bigger company is going to be using Whatsapp or any other consumer messaging service for their critical or non-critical business communications. It just screams unprofessional. You’re not going to see Meta employees do business over WhatsApp, and it’s their product. Like, sure, you could probably get away with it. Once at most places. And even then, it would still likely leave a sour taste in your client’s mouth if their new vendor couldn’t even get their shit together to keep their email up and running smoothly.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      Again, I think that view is US centric. Many other countries have WhatsApp as the default. I'm not even suggesting that they should have WhatsApp as the default, just describing the reality as I am seeing it. And yes even the biggest companies and government entities are using WhatsApp. When I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM.
      - mynameisvlad 2y ago
        > I was traveling through LATAM they were taking pictures of passports on their phones and sent off for checking via WhatsApp - a US passenger freaked out over it and I had to explain to her that this is just how it's done in LATAM. You had a mid-sized to corporate business sending passports over WhatsApp? I highly doubt that. This is not even coming from a “US-centric” view. This is coming from a “that will never pass any sort of compliance or hell corporate governance” sniff test.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        I am describing reality as I see it, at this point you're basically calling me a liar. You could have simply googled it yourself; e.g. "is it normal to use WhatsApp for business in Latin America?" to which the resulting summary is "Across LATAM, WhatsApp is used by citizens as a way to communicate with family and friends and is being increasingly used by businesses big and small to provide customer service, make sales, take bookings, and more." Note the --> big <-- part of that. You don't need to rely on my assertions the when there is so much evidence readily available. I have no idea why you're arguing with me and do not care that you don't believe me - what on earth would I have to gain by lying to you in this way. It makes no sense.
        pmontra 2y ago
        Italy here. Photo ids via WhatsApp is not normal but it happens. WhatsApp video calls as proof of identity are normal: showing your face and a photo id is a way to get formally identified by many of the identity providers for the state digital id platform.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
itslennysfault 2y ago
The problem with an email server being down is the email goes nowhere. So, the client sends you an email and you just never receive it. Often you don't even know you missed something. It's far from ideal. To answer your question, no I've never corresponded with a client via WhatsApp

iamdamian 2y ago

Do you happen to remember what the handful of issues were? In particular, I’m wondering how much a self hoster can expect to have this sort of downtime because of breaking changes to the mail server application(s) vs. misc. server outages (e.g., breaking OS upgrade unrelated to the mail server) vs. having to fix “my mail was marked as spam” problems.

itslennysfault 2y ago
I don't remember the specifics, but it was catastrophic failures. Like I couldn't receive any emails, and because of the nature of email that means you just don't receive them at all ever.