Aside from the issue here, and the PRIVACY mess, it's the best thing since email was invented.

Availability, universally accepted, free (to the product: you), large storage, easy to use.

There is no serious competition, and I say this as a Hotmail user since well before Larry and Sergey opened their doors.

I have a vanity domain which MX's to Gmail so I can move it to another service _when_ they bumrush me, but I don't want to have that happen so I keep my account in good standimg.

Other than self-hosting or a paid service, do you have a suggestion for an alternative?

I know I'm not the OP, but I'm genuinely interested in this.