[erlkonig]

Putting any personally important email account in the hands of some huge corporate provider is pretty much always a recipe for eventual problems.

Although big companies also have some leeway to steal domains (and the associated email addresses) from small companies and hobbyists, so just trying to keep your email to yourself doesn't solve everything.

Of course, that nearly every domain anyone wants is taken already is also a bane on us caused by a big company - Network Solutions, the privatized descendant of the Internic, as they realized their old rule of one entity / on domain didn't have to be followed, and blithely made their first evil sale of 80-odd domains to some household name drug company that wanted a domain for each common ailment or something. The idea of saving readable domains for future generations went right out the windows once someone waved money under their nose (and they didn't use that money to improve their UX for over a decade), and now virtually all registers are shills for shoving domains you don't need down your throats. Ugh. At least the old Internic had ethics.

Just like Google had the do-no-evil motto - somehow I doubt that's still a thing. Good luck getting a lost email account of them - they didn't give my Google phone number back even though the system still knows it's mine.

A bit off topic at this point, sorry.

[fortran77]

Owning the domain is a good compromise. I own my domain but it’s managed by Outlook. If I ever lose my Microsoft login, I can update the DNS and switch email providers.

[jacekm]

It's good as long as you don't forget to pay the yearly fee. Sure, they send reminders, but if you don't log in to your account often then it's easy to miss them. I lost a couple of domains this way...

[theshrike79]

In Finland we have Iki Ry[0], which is basically a non-profit that does nothing except give people access to @iki.fi email addresses. They've been running since 1995 IIRC and they collect no monthly fees, just a one-time joining fee.

They don't do homepages, shells, mail hosting or anything - just an email address you can forward anywhere you want.

Nothing is stopping anyone from doing the same elsewhere in the world, all you need to do is NOT try to make it into a billion dollar unicorn startup with a hockey stick growth curve. Just make enough money to keep the lights on and maybe pay something to person or two who manage the stuff part-time.

[0] http://www.iki.fi/

(Iki is a version of the Finnish word "ikuinen" meaning forever)