I actually really like this. Seems like a good way to sustain the platform. Everything is free and open source, so you can run all the services on your own if you want, but allows users to pay to outsource that work and get direct support. Sounds a lot like the Red Hat model, which has been successful. I also *
absolutely love* how transparent they are about future development. It's nice to hear about what features are being prioritized and what are still in the planning phase. I wish this was more common.
I like that everything is optional. Nothing is forced on people. I know Mozilla gets these complaints a lot and while there is some validity to them it's not like this also isn't true about any other platform... Plus, most complaints are about optional things...
I'd love to see integration with Relay[0]. I already use this as it is a big help to reduce spam. Integrate with bitwarden and I can give every website a unique email and password. I hate that this is a thing that needs be done, but it is a big help and worth 2 beers a year.
I've actually always been surprised more people don't use Thunderbird. It's got problems, but I've had fewer problems with it than GMail, Apple Mail, or Outlook. Some "features" on those platforms even feel hostile[1]. Hell, just the filtering capabilities make a massive improvement[1]. I mean there's of junk mail I catch this way that none of the other services do. I'm all for advanced spam filtering but come on, if I can catch it with "[To or CC] + [contains] + []" then you've done fucked up[3].
[0] https://relay.firefox.com/
[1] I never understood how people fall for those Paypal bitcoin scams until I saw one of those emails on my iPhone (and then checked Apple Mail to see if it was the same). Straight up rendered the PDF in browser giving no indication that it was a PDF and not text (GMail doesn't do this). I mean I don't have a Paypal account but I could see how my grandma could fall for that. Plus, they hide the addresses where in thunderbird this is much more apparent.
[2] One favorite filter is those "logged in from a new device". I get the toast notification on my machine (which I want) but it gets pushed to another folder so doesn't litter my inbox. Similar idea for other things like newsletters and email that borderlines junk (or is literal junk and hard to capture).
[3] These are LLM generated emails where the source is drastically different from what renders. Google support just told me to click "Report Spam" despite me telling them I've been doing that for a year and get these emails a few times a month...