[macintux]

I can only speak for my own decision-making process, but I like to pay for my email so that I have greater confidence that the provider will still be in business 10 years from now, and more confidence that my data is my own.

Really like Fastmail.

[newbear]

How does paying ensure the data is your own?

[endemic]

Paying means that the provider doesn't have to mine your email for keywords in order to display targeted ads (yeah, I know Google theoretically stopped doing this recently). So perhaps "your own" in the sense that another entity isn't accessing it.

[eh78ssxv2f]

> So perhaps "your own" in the sense that another entity isn't accessing it.

Do they have a spam filter? If yes, how do they filter emails without accessing it?

[admiralpumpkin]

You're the customer, not their product.

[newbear]

But the data is still not in your control. Right?

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Protonmail has paid plans.