![A ceiling full of balloons. For a cancel party, perhaps!](https://unicorn-s3.b-cdn.net/party-balloons-4v0u0.jpeg)
GMail addresses everywhere.
Every friend. Every business. Every person you meet.
If it drives you nuts, you are not alone.
Google owns the personal email market, for sure.
And they harvest all of that data for their marketing / tracking algorithm!
Tired of being complicit in their monopoly?
This is how you free your network!
Free Your Network
First off, figure out who in your network needs liberation!
Will they be up for spending ~$50-100/year (or ~$10/month) on a solution?
If so, you are looking at total freedom.
You are going to host a party for folks escaping the Borg!
If not, you are looking at $10/year or so (for a domain) and simple email forwarding.
The pain of Google dependence has not yet reached their brain in full yet.
Schedule Your Party
Schedule a date. Freedom is on its way!
Set up invites via an electronic invite service like evite or send out your own invitations / emails!
Have folks bring their computers and brainstorm some ideas of what their email domain should/would be.
Prepare for Discussion
In order to prepare for discussion (and naysayers!), make sure you work through the kinks in the process first!
Get your domain, email provider, and email address set up ahead of time.
If your users are shooting for a cheaper option, make sure you test out domain-based email forwarding!
Here are some discussion topics to explore / prepare for:
- Why is using Google for email such a problem?
- What if this other service becomes a problem? Why should I trust them?
- Why pay for this service?
- What do you benefit from this?
- Why do you take this so seriously?
More Ideas
Do you have any more questions or ideas? Icebreakers? Discussion questions? Games to play at your cancel-party!?
Let us know! We would really love to hear how it goes!