More likely, they're saying that 99% of people don't know how to self-host, and for 99% of the rest it's not worth the trouble. Also, if you have to ask, then you shouldn't self-host it.
For a second, I thought I was on Stackoverflow. If you aren't starting by asking questions about the possibilities or limitations of a system you're about to work in, then you aren't starting properly.
We need to give newcomers a break and answer their questions well, and discuss to promote understanding, instead of swatting at them with our canes. The only way knowledge passes to the next generation of thinkers and tinkers is if we fuel that curiousity.
There's plenty of other tech they can screw with.
I've wanted to do this for a long time, and am using this very HN post as a source of information. I don't expect anyone to set it up for me, but I am hoping to identify the "gotchas" that are likely not discoverable by reading man pages.
If you start self-hosting now, you should be prepared to lose quite a few emails randomly for the first X months while everyone else tries to figure out whether you're legit or not. Though I would encourage anyone who can to try to self-host at least some part of their email infrastructure, even if just for the learning experience, I would also recommend that they avoid using self-hosted email for anything business-critical until they're sure they've got the hang of it.
Use mail-tester.com or similar tools to ensure everything is configured correctly.
And then just start sending. As long as your volume grows slowly over the first few months, you’ll get basically no rejects.
And then prepared to lose quite a few emails consistently for the next 10 years when some decide you're not legit.
Source: I self-host.
Also, little-known fact: if you register a UK company (probably more practical if you already have one, but the effort is not actually that big), you can register .uk domains directly with Nominet, the UK registry, by setting yourself up as a self-managed registrar. It doesn't cost anything (beyond the cost of the domain name) and is very easy. I'd love to know if there are any other registries that allow something similar.
Certainly way more than 99% of the general population wouldn't know how to self host, but within a techie population like HN, easily ~50% can be capable of doing it if they wanted to. Whether it's worth the effort is a personal decision, but there's a lot of value in owning your own email so I recommend it to anyone who's curious about it and willing to do it.
> Also, if you have to ask, then you shouldn't self-host it.
We should be encouraging curiousity (a HN value) not stomping on it.
If anyone asks, I say go for it. Worst case you'll learn new things, best case now you own your email.
Otherwise, how would anyone learn anything?