[chimen]

Oh yes you can, without much technical difficulties, easier than you would in the 90s actually [1][2]. Does it work as you would expect? Probably not because gmail and other ones are blocking/ghosting you (I suspect this to be the issue right?). Nobody is forcing people towards gmail though. I am one that is scared of being locked out by giants like Google and I switched everything (website logins + mail) to something else (my domain email, managed by protonmail). The transition was seamless and I control my mail with my domain right now. I can migrate at will any time I want.

Mailservers not running from your house is not really all that bad...for the rest of us. Imagine all the spammy software that your friends and relatives install on their computer being able to spin one and blast campaigns.

[1] https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver [2] https://mailu.io/1.8/