Google do read your email though, so think I’d rather suffer the short term availability issues IMHO

Which is probably one of the counter-arguments driving the global consolidation toward services owned by megacorps. This, in turn, contributes to the smaller/independent alternatives to become more prone to this sort of situations. And the cycle begins again.

There is nobody more evil on the internet than Google. Facebook comes close.

On the tradeoff, I'd much rather suffer occasional DDOSes than sign a contract with the devil.