> By simplifying the stack to the above, eliminating SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (and their respective configuration options), and standardizing on one record (MX2) for the future, running your own self-hosted email stack would become much easier. Additionally, the additional authenticity verifications would hopefully allow spam filters to be significantly less aggressive by authenticating against domains instead of IPs.
This assumes that the reason antispam tools make it hard to host your own email is because of spam. That’s only part of it. The other part is that deliverability is a cartel, and two of the biggest players, Google and Facebook/Meta, wish to be the intermediary between you and your audience and sell you access to their eyeballs.
Truly federated email allows you to communicate directly with your audience, bypassing apps and paid ads. This is a threat to their business models.
Additionally, domains are cheap, and moving the trust decision to domain from IP doesn’t get you much. Unknown/fringe domains will still land you in spam by default, same as non-deliverability-cartel IPs do today.
I was wondering about this as well, I think he is suggesting they report the spam to your domain registrar, who either does something about it or there whole cert chain gets blocked by default.
Yeah don't see how domains would be that much better than IPs but it would be easier to understand. It's already quite common for email senders to use multiple domains when they're concerned about deliverability, and domain reputation is already a factor I believe.
Re: deliverability, I do think incumbents are benefiting from the complexity of email, but I'm not sure I follow your argument about Meta.
Nobody would use Gmail if it didn’t deliver messages from Facebook, same as how nobody would use iPhones if you couldn’t install Instagram and WhatsApp on them.
Google and Meta are in the selling-access-to-eyeballs business. They don’t need to explicitly collude to keep others out of your inbox, their interests happen to be aligned here automatically.
This assumes that the reason antispam tools make it hard to host your own email is because of spam. That’s only part of it. The other part is that deliverability is a cartel, and two of the biggest players, Google and Facebook/Meta, wish to be the intermediary between you and your audience and sell you access to their eyeballs.
Truly federated email allows you to communicate directly with your audience, bypassing apps and paid ads. This is a threat to their business models.
Additionally, domains are cheap, and moving the trust decision to domain from IP doesn’t get you much. Unknown/fringe domains will still land you in spam by default, same as non-deliverability-cartel IPs do today.