Email marketing ruined communication for everyone.

I once ran my own email server for several years off a domain from no-ip.org running from a local server in my home. Most places accepted email from it just fine, occasionally though some places had their mail server reject my IP because it was in a DNS black hole.

Then you had the spoofers pretend to be att.com/verizon.com so they had to implement SPF and DKIM.

Then you had to uphold your reputation and the security of your servers otherwise your address would get put on one of the DNS black hole blocks.

Worse was if your IP address was already used to send spam -- you somehow had to get the black hole lists to remove your IP.

At some point about 15 years ago, I gave up and moved to gmail, and I never really looked back on it again.

It's not really big players per se, but "domains with a lot of users that I can't block". Which of course means "big players" for regular people.

I agree with sibling that the problem is with Email marketing, but for different reasons.

Companies are so addicted to spamming users and selling user data that it becomes unacceptable that users might not want to give away their email.

Another problem is emails being required for signing up to accounts.

Honestly IMHO we gotta get rid of email for signups. I don't know what to replace it with. Hardware keys, maybe?