Back in February, I found I couldn’t continue using my (then) current email service (let’s call it Service 1), because while it was excellent as far as performance, reliability, tech support, and the slick UI (user interface) went, the head of the Swiss-based company praised… well, look, I don’t want to get political… but let’s just say he praised an American political party as being the one ‘really working for the little guy’.
And it’s the one party you’d think that really, really wouldn’t apply to, what with it making so many cuts to so much federal support for millions upon millions of low-and middle-class people while billionaires — who happen to be huge financial and political supporters of said party — keep reaping more and more wealth.
And it’s the party who has members who say things like ‘If paying for medical coverage is too expensive then people should just get a job.’
It’s the party supporting a leader who has proven to favour authoritarian ruling, which may literally be risking the U.S. losing its status as a democracy.
That political party.
*ahem*
The CEO of Service 1 duly and widely got called down for the online comment.
The CEO countered by tried to turn the tables, saying no, it was the readers who were reading into that statement; that they were the ones saying he was praising the political party, not him. (I read his original comment online… it was abundantly clear what he was saying about what party.)
The CEO then removed all trace he could of the statement and its shitstorm of backlash, which… let’s just say isn’t something one does who feels confident about his stance on an issue.
And when questioned about the comment, the poor defence offered for it and then removal of it and all evidence it had been a thing, and if the CEO would thus step down over it all, Service 1 broadly sidestepped any direct comment and instead said the CEO would remain and that the company would, ignoring the very crux of the matter, steadfastly stand by its dedication to remain bipartisan.
Er…
So… yeah, no. I couldn’t stay there.
Had the CEO not said a word but quietly still loved this party with very cell of his being, it wouldn’t have mattered. Hell, we users would never even have known how he skewed politically. And ignorance can indeed be bliss.
But he did say all that, then tried to gaslight readers into saying it was them doing it, then erasing it all (minus all the screenshots captured by many over the whole affair, of course).
So, no. I was done with him and with that service. Me and a lot of other Service 1 users.
I switched to another privacy-focused email service, let’s call this one Service 2.
I let everyone in my contact list know about the change, and I started the (surprisingly lengthy and involved) process of converting over all my accounts — banks, newsletters, streaming services, work — to reflect my change to Service 2.
That was in February.
To give you some idea, I’m still, as of a couple of days ago, finding accounts that hadn’t yet been changed over to the new email address.
I had to hold onto the old email service for a while because some businesses need to verify a change to a new email address by notifying the old address of the change to verify it (i.e. “Hey, we see that you’re switching to Service 2. We’re going to verify that it’s a legit change by contacting the address for you that we have on file”), and some businesses, like Ticketmaster, seem to have a bizarre number of hoops to jump through to verify email address changes that only they can do for you, and that hasn’t yet worked for me, so I still have the old account going for whatever they may ultimately need to send me wherever to verify the address change. I also had concert tickets through Ticketmaster that I didn’t want to risk losing in an oddly involved email address change, and that show was only recently.
Changing from one email service to another has proven to be a months-long process that was largely done quickly but still has some hangers on even seven months later. It’s a bit of whack-a-mole that I could really do without having to contend with. I’ll sporadically have need to get onto a site I rarely visit but they’ll still have my account as Service 1, for instance. But hey, such is life in the modern age where you do and access and sign up for so much online.
The change to using Service 2 for all things email-related started off well. But soon there were some problems exposed.
It started off small. Their website UI isn’t to my liking.
And in both Gmail and Service 1, users could change that to some degree to make it more attuned to what they want to use and see when. Not so with Service 2. They have one interface and that’s it.
Again, it’s a small thing, but in the very crowded industry of email services, even small things matter.
But the more I used it, problems cropped up that were much more significant.
Their spam folder triggers still, to this day, for things I get routinely and have tried to whitelist, itself a multi-step process for each sender, and have constantly taken out of spam and put into my inbox manually. Every day, senders who should go into my inbox get put into the spam folder. Every day, I have to take them out again. A needless problem I haven’t experienced in decades of email service use, if ever.
The Service 2 app on my phone would disconnect and often not reconnect even when prompted to and even when I was had comfortable data signal strength.
The Service 2 app won’t let me attach files that are demonstrably under the size of attachment limits. It informs me the files are too large and can’t be attached and thus I can’t send an email with them, even to myself, which of course keeps the file within its own systems and doesn’t need to send them out anywhere.
And most recently, accessing Service 2 through a browser on my laptop informed me of an update to the software, I updated it, and then the service immediately disconnected, giving me an error message when I tried to reply to an email and not reconnecting until I had repeatedly hit their Reconnect button constantly for literally the better part of a minute (having recorded a video to prove it). So this isn’t even a “weak data signal” issue as previously queried by them, but a laptop on wifi 15 feet from a router.
At each of these problems occurring, I’d contact the service desk.
They’d send me replies with details of how to, for instance, tweak the spam folder whitelist for each sender so it wouldn’t keep catching messages I want in my inbox. But their solutions have yet to work for me.
They’d ask if I’m maybe the phone app disconnected because of a weak data signal (no), and if it stays disconnected after I reboot my phone (no… but I don’t want to have to do that every time your app says it can’t connect to a data signal that every other app has no problem connecting to).
They’d confirm that they can recreate the problem of messages not sending with attachments under their own size limit (still waiting to hear back on that one, and meanwhile can’t attach much to my emails).
… and my Disconnect/No Reconnect problem with their service on my laptop is still an outstanding ticket I’ve yet to hear back from them regarding, at all, even as a cursory acknowledgement that they’re looking into the problem.
Now look… I know this is a first-world issue. There are way bigger things going on to stress about.
But don’t worry, dear reader, because I’m stressed about those things, too. Got all the bases covered there.
But when one borderline relies on using something pretty much day-to-day, then important on a global scale or not, it still matters to that person.
I mean, would I die without email?
No.
Would my life be made more difficult or cause me to miss things I want to be updated on, like job leads and sales at stores I frequent and newsletters from people I want to read from and banking info, all the various and sundry things that I’m interested in receiving but that I can’t get sent to my phone without an email address?
Yes.
Enough so that I want to resolve all email issues that make all that in any way more difficult to access or use.
All of this means that I’m now looking at switching to Service 3.
In my case, however, that’s not a simple thing. Even before getting into the hassle of swapping over everything everywhere to contact me at that newer service — happily, I think I may have come up with a way to do that more systematically and closer to thoroughly than the Tripping Across Another Site method that I’ve gotten to recently — there’s a lot to be considered in looking for a new service:
I want privacy
Ideally this doesn’t mean just from anyone outside the email service company, but include the company itself. For those not in the know, even “privacy-focused” service or tech companies that promise privacy will almost always mean that they’re protecting your data from everyone else… but not from themselves. Even Apple, which hypes itself as a privacy-minded company, has recently dipped into its huge pool of user data and sold it out the back door for added profits. A company promising to never let anyone have access to your personal info almost always has a silent “else” after “anyone” implied.
There’s more nuance there, but you get the gist.
I want security
Privacy and security are different things, of course. But one should be able to expect both where reasonably appropriate. Google, for instance, is a world class company when it comes to security, but they openly inform you that Oh, by the way, we’re scanning every one of your Gmail messages to see what you’re talking about to add it to our lengthy profile on you and will absolutely sell that data to any and all interests willing to pay for it to target you with advertising. They also don’t vet who they’re selling to, which has led to some red flags raised over issues of, for instance, stalking.
Everyone has the right to feel secure. If your email service doesn’t agree, then don’t use them. Period.
I want decent service
I’m not asking for the moon here. I just want a company that, particularly when I’m paying them for their service — note here that if you aren’t paying for your email service, it’s almost certainly scanning your emails and selling your data to generate income (back again to Gmail, etc.) — responds to contact about problems with that service. It doesn’t have to be within the hour or even within the day, but it’s got to be provided in a decent time and it’s got to actually be helpful. One thing I didn’t mention above was that one time I had a problem downloading something on my phone through Service 2, and the reply to my asking them for help was basically that ‘It should work the way you’re saying it doesn’t.’
I mean… thanks?
When I reiterated that I appreciated hearing from them but that the answer wasn’t actually of any use, I quickly heard back from a different help desk rep, who clarified that the problem I was having is a standard way my particular phone handles downloads, and has nothing to do with their service at all.
Which is a totally legit answer, and I verified as being completely correct.
… but why didn’t that first help desk person know that, plus think that their giving me a non-answer answer was of any use?
Ideally it’ll be a service based entirely in Europe
The E.U. is the tip of the spear with respect to digital security and privacy laws. No other country, or group of countries, come anywhere near it. And until they do, the EU is my first pick for where to look for an email service.
Fun fact: It was recently determined that if any of your data is stored in servers in, say, the U.S., it is completely available upon federal or legal request. Meaning, it doesn’t matter where your email service physically exists, that if they store any data on any U.S. servers for any purpose, that data is subject to U.S. laws, and not the laws of wherever it may have originated from.
This has been a concern of many for a long time anyway, but is much more relevant now that things south of the border are getting… let’s call it “a bit tense and politically uncertain”.
Those three criteria (plus one big preference) for a new email service narrows it down to a very few options. After hunting around I thought I’d found one that checked every box, except being in Europe, but then I heard totally out of the blue that deep in their Privacy and Terms of Service agreements, that service explains that Oh, by the way, they scan emails for targeted advertising. So it’s the same as Gmail in that regard, but you’re paying them at the same time. That little nugget had somehow slipped by all the numerous reviews and comparisons I’d looked at, that otherwise thought the service was great. I immediately took that service off the table.
So now it’s basically down to one, that happily checks every box.
Huzzah!
So, problem solved?
Well… not quite.
I still want to give them a solid test before making any decisions. I’ve learned from my mistakes with putting all my eggs in one basket with Service 2 before really vetting its actual performance and quality, which I frankly didn’t think I’d need to do in this day and age. I’ve literally never in my decades of email use had so many problems with an email service as I’m having with Service 2, so needing to be sure a new, widely lauded service didn’t have these same issues, or others, simply didn’t occur to me). But I sincerely regret not doing so.
Therefore, Service 3, let’s call it, needs to be put through a few hoops to see how it actually performs. I figure I’ll sign up for it, sign up for some newsletters and let a few people know about the testing so they can send me some everyday-style emails there to see how both automated and manually written incoming messages flow, try to send some emails including with attachments to see if that works (because I mean, wouldn’t it be wacky if I couldn’t attach files to an email?)… and then, only then, will I really consider switching over to them as my main email address and re-start the whole process of making changes across the board to every place that needs to know about it.
The fact that another change to another service this soon will leave me, a pretty casual email user, with three live email addresses, all of which I’ve paid for, isn’t lost on me. But squaring that all away and having one problem-free service that just works will be a welcome resolution to a background buzz in my brain that’s totally needlessly added to my stress for the better part of a year.
And hey, any less stress is good.