I think it depends what’s on your phone. I don’t use mine for email or banking; it’s 2FA, phone calls, and a map. I’m using a Galaxy S8 that I purchased in the summer of 2017, and I don’t get any updates any more.

If I had bank account information or access to other sensitive data I’d be a lot more concerned.

My biggest problem is apps that stop working. My carrier doesn’t support my phone with their voicemail app, for example.

I’ve been running mail servers for about thirty years; my personal ones and production for 100K+ users.

The personal one is a pain for the reasons you mentioned. I use sendmail instead of postfix, but I was able to use some rules to push certain messages through other relays.

I signed up for Amazon SES and have so far stayed in their free tier. Mail coming from one of my addresses always goes through SES, and mail from any address to certain domains (aol.com, gmail.com, etc.) go through SES as well.

It allows me to ensure delivery for my important mails, but leave things up to chance for less important ones.

It’s the best solution I’ve been able to come up with for a really annoying situation. Big Tech ruined it all.

Children playing in the distance. It brings me back to happy, simpler times.