I have been running my own SMTP server for about 25 years. I finally decided, in the last month or so, that it just wasn't worth the effort involved in handlin

I have been running my own SMTP server for about 25 years. I finally decided, in the last month or so, that it just wasn't worth the effort involved in handling spam and anti-spam stuff -- not only from Google, but from other providers who are so worried about spam that they falsely tag all sorts of stuff as spam. I found that accurate configuration and maintenance, including of SPF and DKIM, wasn't worth my time and effort. And so, I have now moved my e-mail to Rackspace. I had to use their chat-based support several times while migrating my e-mail to the new server, and it was truly fantastic. On that point alone, I feel fortunate. The $20/month I'm paying Rackspace is a pittance compared to the time and effort I was spending trying to keep my old SMTP/IMAP servers secure, as well as the false-spam tagging that happened all-too-often. It sounds like jwz wants to have his cake and eat it too, and I sympathize. But I'm not sure that it's possible any more to spend a non-trivial amount of time configuring e-mail servers, tinkering with them such that they'll work with big companies (and especially Google). The Internet is no longer the simple, fun playground that we old-timers remember, and that effectively means giving control over some services to people who are paid full-time salaries to take care of these inter-connectivity issues.