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Comment by pilsetnieks | Hacker News Reader

Does leaving Gmail matter if all you're doing is switching one third party with another? At least when Google is doing something wrong, it makes the news; with others you might never find out. (And for the people repeating the "if you're not paying, you're the product" - it's quite possible to pay Google, too.)

The only sure way would be to self-host but that has its own considerable headaches.

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A key part of OP's advice was to get email at your own domain. Then you can switch email providers if it comes to light that the provider you're using is doing creepy shit with your email.

And speaking of Fastmail: I sincerely doubt they're reading your emails. They make money solely by providing email services to (for the most part) businesses. If it came out that they were reading emails A) it would probably be a violation of their contractual obligation to their customers, and B) their reputation would be permanently destroyed.

You can pay Google and still be the product (you’re certainly not their primary customer). And it’s quite possible for Google to do things which I don’t like (“something wrong”) and to simply not tell anyone.

This said, I personally used gmail for years (and still do for work), but these days I just want that business model out of my personal life.

If you are paying for your email service there is a much better chance of you being the customer instead of the product.

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