> Who is setting up their own email server when they could instead sign up for one of those? About the same number of people who set up their own WWW server, m

> Who is setting up their own email server when they could instead sign up for one of those? About the same number of people who set up their own WWW server, modulo the absolute PITA that is email. Still, federation between GMail, Hotmail, iCloud, Yahoo, ProtonMail, etc does work. You don't have as many choices but it can still feel overwhelming if you're shopping for an alternative. People at Corp & Co use their @corpnco.com addresses daily. My personal email is connected to iCloud, but I can always point my MX elsewhere. Running your own Mastodon instance is costly - however fediverse already leans on smaller interconnecting communities. Nobody sets up an AS just to run some fiber to their home. Decentralisation and federation just happen at different levels and scales.