Cooperatives & non-profits offering email addresses and mailboxes
You might want to avoid hosting your mailbox on a digital glebe1.
Instead, you can host your mailbox on servers governed by a cooperative or a non-profit.
| URL | legal | country | registrar | inception |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.autistici.org/ | Associazione AI-ODV | Italy | no | 2001 |
| https://www.systemli.org/ | ? | no | 2003 | |
| https://www.hostsharing.net/ | Genossenschaft | Ger. | via partners? | 2000 |
| https://in-berlin.de/ | Verein | Ger. | via partners | 1995 |
| https://electricembers.coop/ | ? | U.S. | no | 2001 |
| https://ouvaton.coop/ | société coop.2 | Fr. | via partners | 2001 |
| https://www.webarchitects.coop/ | Co-operative 3 | U.K. | via partners | 20114 |
| https://mayfirst.coop/en/ | 501(c) | U.S. | no | 2019 |
| https://disroot.org/ | non-profit5 | Nl. | no | 2019 |
| https://riseup.net | ? | no | 1999 | |
| https://lebureau.coop/ | société coop (TBC) | Fr. | via partners | 2024 |
FAQ
I don’t care about this table/list, just tell me what email provider I should use.
You can try https://autistici.org or https://disroot.org.
If you want an email address with your own domain name, you can try https://in-berlin.de/.
If you are a business, you can try https://www.hostsharing.net/; if you want a U.K.-registered provider, you can look at https://www.webarchitects.coop/; if you want French-speaking support, you can look at https://ouvaton.coop/.
Will these providers continue to exist for long?
Read about the Lindy effect: https://yctct.com/old
Most of these providers are older than Gmail (which started in 2004).
