Why I Pay for Email Now
In the early days of the internet, I was always on the hunt for free services.
Whatever was free. Sign me up.
Email was no exception. I started with Yahoo Mail in 2005, and it felt like magic to send messages instantly to anyone around the world at no cost.
Quickly I realized there were better options out there (that were still free somehow), like the promising competitor Gmail. I still remember the excitement of receiving a beta invite. It was sleek, had tons of storage, had cool new features like labels, and made email more intuitive with a threaded view of conversations. Their Why Use Gmail video still strangely pops into my head sometimes.
After loving what they did with Zune, I found myself knee-deep into the Microsoft ecosystem with Windows Phone in 2010. Outlook.com and the upgraded Outlook mobile app were a clean, ad-free experience I really enjoyed. I thought I would be using it as my email client forever. I even switched all of my accounts over for it.
But as time went on, the cracks started to show. I realized my dependence on my inbox was a lot bigger than I had imagined. Bank accounts, work credentials, and other critical systems relied upon my email address now somehow. Also ads became more invasive, even disguising themselves as emails in some cases.
Stories of accounts being suddenly suspended or deleted had me worried. What if Google or Microsoft decided to shut down my account? It’s not just a matter of losing the data associated with those accounts, but losing the associated email address or alias(es).
Bottom line is: if I lost my username/email address name, I’d be locked out of an untold number of accounts (and if you lost yours, you probably would be, too). Therefore, I knew it was time for a change.
Why I Switched
After much research and soul-searching, I made the decision to start paying for email. Here’s why:
Privacy and Security
Free email providers often scan your emails to serve targeted ads. At least in theory, by paying for a service like Proton Mail, I can ensure that my emails are encrypted and not being mined for data as often.
No Ads
The rest of my life is essentially ad-free, and when something that I use as often as email isn’t, it hurts. Of course uBlock Origin still works on desktop, but if you want to use a first party app, mobile is much trickier to deal with.
Custom Domain
By using my own domain with my email, I’ve future-proofed my online identity. If I ever need to switch email providers, I can do so without changing my email address. Or if I had to, I could even use simple forwarding services, often provided by domain registrars or services that handle DNS like Cloudflare or NameCheap.
Reduced Risk of Account Termination
Paid services have a more direct financial incentive to keep their customers happy. While no service is 100% guaranteed, the risk of having my account arbitrarily terminated is allegedly lower with a paid provider.
More Features
Paid email services often offer advanced features like catch-all email addresses, more aliases, and integration with other privacy-focused tools.
The Transition Process
Switching to a paid email service isn’t a decision I made lightly. I had accumulated over, well, let’s just say MANY accounts tied to an old email address. The thought of updating all of these was daunting, to say the least.
To make the transition manageable, I developed a strategy:
- I transferred my domain to Cloudflare for cheaper, long-term registration.
- I set up Proton Mail with my custom domain, creating aliases for different purposes (e.g., one for service sign-ups, one for subscriptions, etc.).
- I’m gradually updating important accounts to use my new address, while keeping less critical ones on my old address for now.
- I’ve set up email forwarding from my old addresses to ensure I don’t miss anything important during the transition.
Balancing Act: Old vs. New
One challenge I’ve faced is maintaining connections between services that rely on a common email address. In the past, I could use one email address for everything, making it easy to link accounts and be recognized across platforms.
Now, I’m having to be more strategic. For some services, particularly those tied to Google (like YouTube and my personal calendar), I still need to use my Gmail address. For Microsoft services, I’m keeping my Outlook.com address active.
But for new sign-ups and important accounts, I’m using my new Proton Mail address with my custom domain. It’s something I have to manage now but I believe it will pay off in the long run.
The Cost-Benefit Analysis
Paying for email means an additional expense in my monthly budget that didn’t exist before, in a category that didn’t exist before. But when I consider the value of “owning” my email address name, it quickly becomes worth it.
For those curious, I opted for Proton Mail’s Plus plan, which at the time of writing costs about $4 per month when paid annually. For this, I get:
- 15 GB of storage
- Support for my custom domain
- 10 email aliases
- Support
Not sure if I’ll stick with this or upgrade to Unlimited or Duo in the future. Or just switch back to using free email options. We’ll see.
Final Thoughts
If you’re still relying solely on free email services, I encourage you to think about what would happen if your email provider just shut down your account one day. Changing over to another provider might seem daunting at first, but with some planning, it is entirely manageable. Although, if you’re not using a password manager by now, you should be. This makes things way easier.