That sounds like a lot of work. You have to set up the server, get a domain, update it, back it up etc; What do you get out of it? An email server. Google will

That sounds like a lot of work. You have to set up the server, get a domain, update it, back it up etc; What do you get out of it? An email server. Google will give you all of that in a few seconds. Google's uptime is way better than what I could hope to get. When my laptop had water spilled on it, there was no need to worry about my thesis. I went to a lab and started working on it again 10 minutes later. No work lost. My own backup solutions would be far worse, and likley involve losing some work. When using these services, I have to ask myself, how much do I value my privacy? I think I get more from google's services than I lose. For me, and a lot of people, it's not worth the time to set up an email server, let alone maintain one.