You need to own your domain.

Almost 20 years ago, Google announced a invite only hosted email service: Gmail. At the time MS Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and even Earthlink dominated the hosted email space. The experience was lets say not great and ripe for disruption. Gmail offered a free, (but ad supported) service with a modern interface. Techies were scrambling to get an invite. It was the glory days of the free internet.

Now 20 years on and Gmail has updated a little bit. The fonts are new, we have filters and categories. Furthermore, we have tied almost everything we do in our lives (at least in the US) to our email address. We sign up for all of these other digital service and our email is how we identify ourselves for everything. Job sites, banking, taxes. Everything is tied to our email.

What has happened here (this is not a new thing BTW), we have entrusted our online selves with a service we have no control over. What would happen if one of these email providers closed or suspended your email account for suspicious activity. Just search for: "Your Google Account has been disabled" and you can find some of the stories on what has happened to people. How would you contact customer service? Does your email provider even have customer service? We do not own the accounts and we are not paying for them with money. If this companies decided to close our accounts, either due to perceived infractions on the terms of service or anything else, we can loose our digital identity.

How can you take control of your own digital identity? Well first off you should own your own domain. Either if its your name part of your name, or just something that tickles your fancy. Okay you have a domain, now what.

Well here is the bad news. You will probably have to pay for a service. Unless you are a professional email admin, I would recommend pay for a hosting. Why is this? Running a email service is a pain in the ass. The good news these services will take a big load of work off your shoulders. What services can you use: Google Workspace, Proton Mail, Microsoft 365. There are lots of these services out.

But wait you say, "Didn't you just ramble on for a paragraph on why you shouldn't use these services?" Yes but when you bring your own domain with these service you can still control where your email is sent to. You have the option to switch services, run your own email server, whatever.