[roryisok]

I might do that. I backed up all my gmail using a third party tool last year so it is possible, but my issue is more that I have so many profiles tied to that gmail address that losing it would be a nightmare. If they started charging for gmail tomorrow I would just have to pay whatever it was because it would take weeks to change the address across all my accounts

[kungtotte]

That is actually why I ended up switching. I didn't like the feeling of knowing that I was bound to Google, plus the whole privacy invasion issues.

While time consuming the process of switching only happens once, and now my data is my own again. If you want you can also buy a domain and set up your fastmail to use that, so in the future you keep your email address(es) regardless of provider.