They never said anything about keeping their messages away from Google. It's about having some agency.
One fine morning, you'll find yourself locked out of your gmail account and every other Google service because they just decided that something you said isn't politically correct. You'll also be locked out of any external thrid-party services that rely on Google's OAuth service, email 2FA or verification. You'll never find any help to restore any of that, except to write a whiny blog post and hope that it goes viral on HN or something. It's not an indignity you want to live with.
Another scenario is Google changing their ToS or their service degrading (especially like their really bad spam filters these days). You don't really have a choice of migrating, because you'll have to change your email address as well.
That doesn't happen when you have your own domain. If they do something wrong, you just take your domain to another provider. And all these are worth doing while your gmail is still active, because it will take a few months to migrate your third-party services and your important correspondences over to your new account.
And finally, I really hate the pervasive argument and attitude on HN in the lines of "They trample on us regardless. Might as well learn to live under their feet". Why do you deny yourself self-respect like this? Even if the odds seem insurmountable, it's worth resisting the tyranny in voice and in action. And your voice is important to other people, even if you don't know it. Your defeatist attitude can influence them as much as your relentless defiance can. Choose how you want to influence the society.
I don’t use google oauth, prefer user pass and email
I use google for email and docs, it’s convenient. i use my own domain though, and i backup my data nightly.
I feel like i have de-risked the relationship as much as is reasonable and am happy to move if i have to with minimal data or access loss (time to restore all data somewhere may be a bit of an issue, but there are workarounds)
Often it is not so much about "not using Google" (they are pretty much a monopoly, they don't care). It's more about "supporting something that is not Google".
> and am happy to move if
In order to move, you need for an alternative to exist. And alternatives exist because some people use them :-).
Even if you use Gmail, you should do it behind your own domain. So that you are not locked in.
Now I can understand saying "I have been on Gmail for years and I can't be arsed to update my address everywhere". It's not a lot of work (I've done it and it was actually a lot easier than I had anticipated), but it's work. And in a world where people can't be arsed to spend 3 clicks installing Signal, updating an email address sounds like a PhD. (I am being judgemental here, but you get my point :-) ).
But the article says "I am moving, I decided to do the work of updating my address everywhere!". And the only reasonable way to do this is to move to your own domain, IMO.
Except it's not the '00s anymore and most emails don't come from personal gmail accounts. Almost every single email that people receive are automated ones that come from corporations.
One fine morning, you'll find yourself locked out of your gmail account and every other Google service because they just decided that something you said isn't politically correct. You'll also be locked out of any external thrid-party services that rely on Google's OAuth service, email 2FA or verification. You'll never find any help to restore any of that, except to write a whiny blog post and hope that it goes viral on HN or something. It's not an indignity you want to live with.
Another scenario is Google changing their ToS or their service degrading (especially like their really bad spam filters these days). You don't really have a choice of migrating, because you'll have to change your email address as well.
That doesn't happen when you have your own domain. If they do something wrong, you just take your domain to another provider. And all these are worth doing while your gmail is still active, because it will take a few months to migrate your third-party services and your important correspondences over to your new account.
And finally, I really hate the pervasive argument and attitude on HN in the lines of "They trample on us regardless. Might as well learn to live under their feet". Why do you deny yourself self-respect like this? Even if the odds seem insurmountable, it's worth resisting the tyranny in voice and in action. And your voice is important to other people, even if you don't know it. Your defeatist attitude can influence them as much as your relentless defiance can. Choose how you want to influence the society.