[scrollaway]

> I do hate that I can't just pay for gmail and avoid the crappy ads

You can. It's $5/month and it's called GSuite. It's their enteprise offering, but don't let that turn you off, it's exactly like Google but with your own domain -- no user minimums.

https://gsuite.google.com/

If you want to transition you can redirect one email to the other (@gmail to @yourdomain, or @yourdomain to @gmail).

GSuite mail doesn't get ads and you get some extra goodies and a ton of control over your data, just as any enterprise would.

Gandi (https://gandi.net/) is an excellent registrar if you need to purchase a domain, but Google will probably also mention you can use Google Domains to purchase one when you buy GSuite. Let me know if you have any questions, I'm always happy to help people move to their own email domain; I think it's a necessity everyone should have.

[_rs]

I'd really prefer to not use my own domain. If I could pay for GMail/GSuite with a generic (e.g. @gmail.com) address I'd be happy to.

[scrollaway]

An email whose domain you don't own is an email that you'll one day lose. (Think [e-mail]).

Any particular reason you don't wish to use your own domain? As I said you can keep up redirects if you just can't change emails yet.

[_rs]

Part of it is anonymity: I would like to have an alias that may have nothing to do with my name (and having a unique domain would prohibit that). Even for email addresses that have my name, I'd prefer not to stand out. A custom domain is too traceable for my liking (even with whois protection).