While it's not trivial it's not that hard to spin up a mail server on a VPS (which can run smtp, imap and/or webmail). For that matter you can run it off a static internet connection or even a dynamic IP from your home or office PC. (Running linux or Mac OSX never done it with windows although I'm sure you can).
"You can then get shotgunned by spam filters, too"
Have you had that problem and weren't able to get by it? I've had IP changes over the years and while it's taken a small bit of work to get the new IP accepted (in some places most places don't seem to care) I'd say it's hardly a show stopper. Of course all the email deliverability people selling products and services in that market want to make you believe you'd be a fool to roll your own.
Of course if you get a VPS with some IP address that someone used to spam sure you have a problem. The idea is to do your homework and not have any of the obvious problems. (You can run the IP by the blackholes to see most issues.)
Also (not a comment directed at you by the way) I love the way a forum such as HN where people spend all sorts of time doing things just for fun seems to have a problem with the "work" involved in doing something that actually has value or might take a bit of work in order to solve a problem that they have.
The downvotes seem to indicate a reaction such as "wow what a stupid idea why would you run your own mail server hey you can just use fastmail that's what we all use".
There's a difference between running a mail server for incoming mail, and one for outgoing mail. I use my local Comcast SMTP servers for outgoing on the (so far 100% correct) theory that nobody can afford to blanket blacklist those. Incoming you don't have to worry about getting blacklisted.
You have to worry about spam, but, well... that's sort of a constant nowadays. My current solution is to use Thunderbird to filter everything on my primary machine and it's Good Enough. If you want webmail YMMV, though.
Honestly, if you're just one or two mailboxes, it's not that big a deal to maintain. And I've been Joe-jobbed, so it's not like I haven't been exposed to some fury. Still not that big a deal.
Do you have anything in particular you'd like to offer to back that up? Have you ever done this? (I do and have done since the mid 90's on various equipment and I'm no Eric Raymond exactly either). We're not talking about running the mail server on a commercial ISP or a company with 20,000 employees. Just running a mail server to take care of your own mail.
