Gmail is the ultimate root of way too many services for me, but I don’t really see any alternative. For example there are lots of nice paid services out there that look great, but eventually I’m going to forget to pay, or the company will go under, or whatever.
IMO we need USPS email addresses for the same reason we have mailboxes. The ability to be contacted digitally is just table stakes nowadays.
> For example there are lots of nice paid services out there that look great, but eventually I’m going to forget to pay, or the company will go under, or whatever.
Right, that's why I think there should be an option for a $500 permanent email address, or maybe $50 one-time payment that doesn't guarantee permanent access but does guarantee that the email address will sit there as long as it takes for you to be able to pay to restore your account, without being deleted or reassigned.
Purchase a domain and use your registrar's SMTP and IMAP servers. I have been doing this for about 5 years now and it feels great. I get to pay annually for a bundle of related services (domain, DNS, email, ...) instead of freeloading in a place where I'm the product and there is no support.
You could also purchase a domain and point MX records anywhere, preferably at some known-good mail service which you pay for.
How grandfathered? I had a customer recently whose small business was "grandfathered" into G Suite's free plan... until Google started choking back hard on what features were available.. The free plan still exists but they were essentially forced into buying a subscription.
IMO we need USPS email addresses for the same reason we have mailboxes. The ability to be contacted digitally is just table stakes nowadays.