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At this point, I'm not really sure I can trust the "free" services, as there's always a "catch" or changes in TOS down the road when they want/need to make mone

At this point, I'm not really sure I can trust the "free" services, as there's always a "catch" or changes in TOS down the road when they want/need to make money. I'm moving my main email to fastmail [1]. It's worth $10/year to not get ads shoved in my face or wonder who owns my data. [1] http://fastmail.fm http://fastmail.fm

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- adrianpike 13y ago
  Because, to use an oft-quoted phrase on HN: "If you're not the customer, you're the product." If I'm not giving them money, what am I giving them? Eyeballs? Data in my emails to mine?
- Derbasti 13y ago
  Its all about trust. Do you trust Google, Apple, Fastmail, the NSA? Do you trust them to not mine and market your data or metadata? Do you trust them to act responsibly in case of a catastrophic data leak? Do you trust them to not change their minds down the road? Personally, I too have more faith in payed-for services than free ones. At least, they have some motivation to do the right thing.
- citricsquid 13y ago
  An email address is for most people their single point of recovery for almost all of their online accounts, including services like Paypal. If you choose to trust an email provider, you are trusting them with access to your entire digital life, including finances. If you can't trust a service to responsibly manage your payment information (in the case of fastmail) how can they be trusted as an email provider? Someone could do far more damage to me with control over my email address than they could with access to my credit card details.
  - TuxLyn 13y ago
    This is why you never use signle email for everything, this could end in chain-hacking. Also you should seperate your accounts as much as possible one email for banking/paypal another for shopping etc... But you can use email such as ZoHo for this if you don't trust XFSmail.

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adrianpike 13y ago
Because, to use an oft-quoted phrase on HN: "If you're not the customer, you're the product." If I'm not giving them money, what am I giving them? Eyeballs? Data in my emails to mine?
Derbasti 13y ago
Its all about trust. Do you trust Google, Apple, Fastmail, the NSA? Do you trust them to not mine and market your data or metadata? Do you trust them to act responsibly in case of a catastrophic data leak? Do you trust them to not change their minds down the road? Personally, I too have more faith in payed-for services than free ones. At least, they have some motivation to do the right thing.
citricsquid 13y ago
An email address is for most people their single point of recovery for almost all of their online accounts, including services like Paypal. If you choose to trust an email provider, you are trusting them with access to your entire digital life, including finances. If you can't trust a service to responsibly manage your payment information (in the case of fastmail) how can they be trusted as an email provider? Someone could do far more damage to me with control over my email address than they could with access to my credit card details.
- TuxLyn 13y ago
  This is why you never use signle email for everything, this could end in chain-hacking. Also you should seperate your accounts as much as possible one email for banking/paypal another for shopping etc... But you can use email such as ZoHo for this if you don't trust XFSmail.