The mail server in a router is easy to host, the problem is:

1) Uptime (though this could be partially alleviated by retries)

and most of all:

2) "Trust"/"Spam score"

It's the main reason to use Sendgrid, AWS, Google, etc. Their "value" is not the email service, it's that their SMTP servers are trusted.

If tomorrow I can just send from localhost instead of going through Google it's fine for me, but in reality, my emails won't arrive due to these filters.

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cadamsdotcom 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The specific concern around uptime & reliability was baked into email systems from almost the start - undeliverable notifications (for the sender) and retries.

But yes, the “trust / spam score” is a legit challenge. If only device manufacturers were held liable for security flaws, but we sadly don’t live in that timeline.

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Ucalegon 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Its not a device/MTA issue, SMTP just is not a secure protocol and there is not much you can do in order to 'secure' human communication. Things like spoofing or social engineering are near impossible to address within SMTP without external systems doing some sort of analysis on the messages or in combination with other protocols like DNS.

	▲	direwolf20 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		SMTP isn't at fault, the social ecosystem is at fault. Every system where identities are cheap has a spam problem. If you think a system has cheap identities and no spam, it probably doesn't have cheap identities — examples are HN or Reddit.

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yw3410 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not to detract from your wider point, but there's a few ISPs which own IP blocks which aren't blacklisted.

I had quite a bit of success with it and of course, DKIM and the other measures you can take some years back.

For personal emails, I don't think I had any which fed straight into spam.

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direwolf20 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If everyone ran a mail server at home spam scores wouldn't be so strict

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badc0ffee an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> "Trust"/"Spam score"

See jwz's struggles with hosting his own email. (Not linking to his blog here with HN as the referrer...)

With email, the 800 lb gorillas won, and in the end it didn't even solve the spam problem.

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robocat an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

3) Upgrades suck. Admin also sucks

Maintenance is probably my number one reason for giving up on projects where I'm responsible for feeding the pet.