Whatever email service provider you choose, make sure to still (a) keep backups of emails just in case (maybe sync an IMAP client periodically), and (b) use a custom domain so you're not tied to the email provider's domain in case the company goes under or something.
> use a custom domain so you're not tied to the email provider's domain in case the company goes under or something.
I used to have a custom domain in the 90s (a four-letter .com), but an exprired debit card and a holiday meant I lost it.
I had another one mid-naughties, before gmail, but somehow forgot to renew that too --- I was hosting my own smtp server and using pine in those days, but I moved to gmail, partly when my server melted, partly because of the spam filtering (it beat spamassassinate), and later because their interface was fit for a more distributed client base (I have 4 computers powered on my desk at the moment, plus phone. Using pine via ssh on a phone is not fun)
I should have kept the domain and pointed it at gmail, however I didn't. And for 2000s me, the chances of not renewing a domain was higher than gmail breaking.
