boing

I would never recommend you use an email service without using your own personalized domain. When you have your own domain, you can always redirect it to any email service you want at anytime. It allows for email portability, so you never loose your email address if a single company goes away or you want to change providers for a better service experience. Using your own personalized domain in most instances is going to require you to use a paid service. 

If you want high quality email service, it is better to go with a smaller company who focuses extensively on providing email hosting (such as the mentioned Fastmail.com or Proton.me). If you want better technical support (such as the availability of phone support) and want an ad free experience that doesn't invade your data privacy, then best to go with a paid service whos model is to provide you email services based on your payment for such email services.

Most high quality email providers charge per email address, which can get expensive the more email accounts you add. To avoid such costs you can use an email provider that doesn't have a per email account payment structure. One company I know that has high quality email services and doesn't use a per email account payment structure, plus it even caters to Apple users is Imageway (Imageway.com).

The problem with considering custom domain iCloud mail hosting (besides functionality and reliability issues) is it is limited to five custom domains, with up to only three personalized email addresses per domain. Additionally you might run into issues with creating certain email account names since it is already used by another Apple ID, and even if you delete that Apple ID it can take a long time before it becomes available again. This is very limiting, and something you won't deal with at dedicated email service providers. 

Xed said:

cgWerks said:

Xed said:
Um, no. The average user doesn't know what MS records are and I'm not going to walk an octogenarian through that when the iPad and Apple TV are already a lot for them to handle. 

True, but in that case, so is using email.
(And, my point was that the average user doesn't need to understand MX records.)

Is AI readership now non-tech-savvy elderly people?

Neither you nor Bloing mentioned AI readers as your target group for your comments. The statement was "I would never recommend you use an email service without using your own personalized domain" which is a very unreasonable recommendation for the average email user.

Again, no, getting your own domain, using a 3rd-party email server (or setting up your own servers) by editing MX records to tie domain to email server, as well as paying for appropriate subscription services is not as easy as signing up for Gmail or iCloud and signing in with them with an iPad or other device.

I wouldn't think I would need to point out my target group is AI readers, when I posted it in the AI forums, that should be a given. The same people that you mention that can't handle the simpleness of purchasing a domain name and an email service, and then letting the email service techs connect the email service to their domain (setting up the MX records for them, etc..)  are the exact same people that are probably not going to be reading comments on AI. If they were then either they have some knowledge how things work, or they are willing to learn something new about the topic being discussed.

I get your point, but trust me those same people you mention are going to have trouble setting up Gmail or iCloud also. There have been recent articles about Passkeys and Oauth, etc.. Do you think the users you are talking about are going to know how to setup Passkeys for their Gmail?  I support users like this and trust me they won't, along with even getting their iOS Mail client to connect to any email service without help.

The thing is there is complexity in anything computer related, and it is a learning curve. My hope by recommending using your own domain for email is to teach anyone that would otherwise not have known that by having your own domain name you can always move your email service to anywhere you want. Someone that didn't know about that, might find that a good solution to keeping their email address names should their email service go away, or the service quality gets really bad. This article was about terrible email services, so I was trying to explain one way around that is to use your own domain name. Due to those reasons I "recommend" if you're serious about your email service, then get your own domain. It can be as simple as signing up for new email service which also allows you to pick a domain, and then it is automatically connected for you, so you only have to login to their webmail or connect any email client you want to their servers in the same way that would be required if connecting to GMail or iCloud. You're creating complexity unnecessarily, trying to drag out the technical requirements which most users will never have to deal with just to make your point heard.

chasm said:

boing said:

I would never recommend you use an email service without using your own personalized domain. 

As for those who are suggesting Protonmail and Fastmail (et al), yes they are great. The problem with them is that there is zero assurance that they won’t get bought out, or die off, or change focus to some other more profitable area like “AI” chat bots, etc.

Going with Microsoft, Apple, and Google (and I’m especially loathe to recommend the latter) means that someone who has been using ISP-based email for years will never have to make a similar move again — because email as a communication medium will die long before any of those three close up shop, or merge with one of the others.

That is exactly why I recommended getting a domain name, so that you do have the assurance you can always move to another provider if anything happens.

Sure you can go with Microsoft, Apple, and Google and use their domain name and feel like you never have to make a similar email change move again due to them most likely not going out of business, but what happens when their service goes bad, or you are not happy with their level of service? What happens is your stuck and must put up with the bad service otherwise you end up with another email change to get to another provider. That is why I say using your own domain name for email hosting is the smart way to go. Purchasing a domain is neither complex or expensive, and will allow your service to be portable so you always have the option of moving.