- I've run my home server. They would crash randomly and usually when something else in the house like a water heater had broken.

- I've run pay servers in the cloud. Then they magically disappear because the expiration date on my credit card updated and the best way for GoDaddy to tell me was to wipe it and then send me an email.

- I've tried free servers. I got what I paid for.

Whatever problems GMail has (and it does have problems), it's not those. Absolutely everything else has left a taste of ashes in my mouth.