However if you can get a correspondent to also set up their own mail server, then you may realise the pleasure of emailing directly from sender's server to recipient's, without using third party email "services" and third party email servers. First party to second party. No third party.
Every time these posts about setting up a mail server reach the HN front page, there are usually complaints and they always center around third party email services. Perhaps it is the use of those services that is the problem, not the process of setting up a mail server.
Spam is probably made easier by the fact that so many people use the same third party email providers. Spammers have less servers to target. (Not the same situation if every user had their own server.) As HN commenters oft point out, email, the protocol and software, is "decentralised". But the widespread "centralised" use of the same third parties to send and deliver mail has negated the benefits of being (theoretically) decentralised.
Every time these posts about setting up a mail server reach the HN front page, there are usually complaints and they always center around third party email services. Perhaps it is the use of those services that is the problem, not the process of setting up a mail server.
Spam is probably made easier by the fact that so many people use the same third party email providers. Spammers have less servers to target. (Not the same situation if every user had their own server.) As HN commenters oft point out, email, the protocol and software, is "decentralised". But the widespread "centralised" use of the same third parties to send and deliver mail has negated the benefits of being (theoretically) decentralised.