Every once in a while I took a look at the various services I self-host and think to myself? Is hosting $X service by myself really worth the cost? What is the cost? Would paying someone to host said service be more cost efficient?
That got me thinking about, what are the costs of self hosting? Let’s talk about it.

Many companies have been trying to disrupt email by making it proprietary. So far, they have failed. Email keeps being an open protocol. Hurray?
No hurray. Email is not distributed anymore. You just cannot create another first-class node of this network.
Email is now an oligopoly, a service gatekept by a few big companies which does not follow the principles of net neutrality.