When I set up the Ghost instance currently under the hood of Disintermedia.net.nz, I learned that if you want to email a newsletter to a list of subscribers who've asked you for it, you can't just send it from any old SMTP mailserver. To avoid being flagged as a spammer, blocking all your email delivery, you have to pay 1 of a handful of bulk delivery companies like MailGun or SendGrid to deliver email newsletters to subscribers for you.
WTF?!?
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I tried to find one of these bulk mail companies based in Aotearoa. It doesn't seem like there is one. So for every kiwi organisation and community groups that emails out a newsletter to other kiwis, there's dozens or hundreds of emails coming into Aotearoa from some proprietary, offshore platform, usually corporate or VC-owned
This is madness. We replaced publicly-owned NZ Post with email services on the promise of decentralising mail. So far, it's turned out to be *more* centralised.
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I've been saying for years that when it started to become clear email would replace most snail mail letters, NZ Post ought to have pivoted into hosting email services. My initial thoughts were things like email accounts as digital PO Boxes, and email archiving services, aimed at organisations who can afford to pay for email (many already do) and would value a trustworthy onshore email host.
But now it's clear their core email business could be bulk newsletter sending.
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@yala
> You can also configure your mailserver in a way that you do not become a spammer
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but you've clearly missed the point. @lightweight assures me that if you are not a member of the cartel of approved bulk mail senders, and your mailserver send bulk mail, it will automatically be classified as a spam source by all the major corporate email hosts. Who between them host or otherwise intermediate the vast majority of email accounts.
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If you think that's wrong, show me the disconfirming evidence. FYI people making unexplained and unreferenced claims in micro-posts is not something I find particularly convincing.
Strypey
jon r
Dave Lane 
🇳🇿