logoalt Hacker News

99990000099904/03/20253 repliesview on HN

Okay, do you think if we just picked some random person they would have any idea what we're talking about?

It's just not something normal people do, but I don't like the snarkiness of implying that's an indicator of intelligence. Otherwise we go down the no true Scotsman rabbit hole, what do you mean you're using Proton. You didn't set up your own mail server ?

What do you mean you're using AWS, your not using a solar powered raspberry pi?


Replies

kelnos04/03/2025

It's not an indicator of intelligence, but mail providers (including Google) could offer this if they want to, with a simple "Choose a personalized email address, like [email protected], for $9.99 per year" radio button on signup. They don't do this because:

1. Most people will choose the free option, so it wouldn't be much of a useful revenue stream.

2. People having @gmail.com email addresses is a little bit of zero-cost marketing for them.

Retric04/03/2025

Random people don’t know how to do most things, but how easy it is to follow the directions is what matters here not knowing all the individual steps.

show 2 replies
robertlagrant04/03/2025

You're both wrong (-:

Currently it's too hard for normal users, but it would be possible for e.g. Proton to add a feature where you can either import your domain name, or create a new one.

show 1 reply