[thejosh]

The main benefit of Gmail and other big providers is the anti-spam, anti-scam, "Google knows best" approach works really well.

When I last helped manage a mail server for a small business (late 2000's) SPAM was an absolute mess. You can really see why Azure etc has consumed on-premise Exchange.

The massive downside is they are the deciders of who gets through their gates, and if you're on their shitlist, goodluck.

[inetknght]

> The main benefit of Gmail and other big providers is the anti-spam, anti-scam, "Google knows best" approach works really well.

We've been spammed and scammed into thinking this is true. Sadly, Gmail is actually worse than competitors and especially worse than running your own email server.

[riedel]

Safety and security is the best argument for monopolization and decreased freedom in general. It will always be a tradeoff. Fortunately a majority is typically more than happy with being fully patronized. The problem really starts if you are start being banned from infrastructure: e.g. see banking apps and 'safety net'. We are seeing the begining of a really dystopian world if regulators do not step in.

[thejosh]

I would also propose ease of use as a solution to our problems that the wolf in sheep's clothing took care of for us.

We basically handed over how we communicate to make it easier (Emails, Team Communication such as Slack/Teams, etc), essential internet infrastructure (Cloudflare, Amazon etc), banking, etc because it was easier..

My worst nightmare is somehow being locked out of my accounts, the only means is either emailing the CEO directly, posting on HN until it's hopefully solved or just moving to the country, and eat a lot of peaches.

[vouaobrasil]

The problem with "more than happy" is that their happiness is measured in terms of chosing the local maximum of least bad. Moreover, that local maxima slowly changs over time to be worse and worse, so that people's happiness becomes a temporary sense of relief at having chosen the least bad option, which in the course of decades makes for a curtailing of freedoms that is far from true contentment.

[vouaobrasil]

On the other hand, if the main economic mechanisms that help the major players did not exist, we might not have so much spam in the first place.

[jasode]

>, if the main economic mechanisms that help the major players did not exist, we might not have so much spam in the first place.

Spam was a massive problem long before big tech existed.

- The old USENET network which was/is a federated ecosystem of servers run by universities etc was overrun with unwanted spam.

- Compuserve dialup network was blocking spam and they were also involved in a 1997 court case (1997 is a year before big tech like Google Inc existed in 1998.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe_Inc._v._Cyber_Promo....

- the infamous "spam solutions" webpage that was a snarky attempt at "educating" people about fixing spam was created around February 2004 which was 2 months before Gmail service was introduced: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

Other "small" areas of the internet are also universally hit with spam abuse:

- blogs that allowed "readers' comments and feedback" got inundated with spam and the blog owners added CAPTCHAS or disabled comments completely.

- small web forums like vBulletin and phpBB forums got hit with spam and admins put in "email signup and valid email verification link" workflows.

- even the newer modern decentralized communication networks like Nostr attract spam: https://old.reddit.com/r/nostr/comments/121ytwf/cutting_thro...

The existence of a big player like Gmail that was introduced in 2004 is not the reason for "so much spam".

Spam volume is always a problem on any communication network where the cost to create new identities is $0 and the cost to send messages is near $0.00. An extreme example of the opposite situation is Bloomberg Terminals chat system not having a spam problem. Why? Because it costs $25000 a year subscription to use. Bloomberg did recently "unbundle" their chat system for a lower price but the point is that the friction for new accounts is still high enough to deter spam abuse.

[snotrockets]

Tell me you weren't running an email server 20 years ago without telling me you weren't running an email server 20 years ago.

[tschumacher]

In my experience rspamd has >99% accuracy which is enough for my personal email account. I don't doubt that Google does better though.

[thejosh]

Awesome thanks, will check it out!