why yes i want my totally independent website to join network of dozens of shittier websites so that we can aggregate the content from my website into a shitty reddit clone and have the entire site shut down because one unpaid moderator decided to cut a single string and block half the sites from even working.
yes i dont understand how it works, do you? does anyone understand what the fuck even happened?
The same is true for XMPP chat, SIP voip, and DNS servers. Individual people just don't do it unless they are operating a homelab to build skills, are curious, or a total nerd. It's not difficult or expensive (can do it for free, software is turnkey), the average person just doesn't do it because they already have a managed provider and are satisfied enough that they have no reason to even look into if they can do it themselves.
I'm sure ActivityPub will end up exactly the same, widespread and part of the internet backbone but something most people never think about hosting themselves regardless of how easy it is to do.
Have you tried this? It takes forever for your server to be trusted, if you roll your own email expect to be marked as spam for those big providers, which is used by a big majority of people and services
Yes. I have done it for well over twenty years. Other than a couple personal email accounts, I host a few accounts that my homelab machines use to send alerts or password resets for friends and family who use services I host. As long as my email servers are properly configured to use all the current best practices I have never had issues with them sending emails to Gmail, Outlook, etc.
edit: I was listing off all the steps to make sure your server won't get rejected, stuff like checking to see if the IP address or url you are using has been flagged on public registries as having been used for malware or spam in the past, making sure you have a real SSL cert signed by an authority... it made me realize that hosting your own email server might be more hassle than most people are willing to go through. I still stand behind my assertion that you are wrong that it's due to a couple big email providers centralizing but will admit that at this point in the internets history it is more hassle than most people are willing to put up with due to all the safeguards now in place. It doesn't mean the average person can't but that due to decades of malicious actors there is a lot less blind trust, which means today there are additional steps to make sure other servers trust your server. This isn't because of Google or Microsoft but for the usual reasons "we can't have nice things".
Email in particular is a complete fuck to self-host, but this is mostly because it is a 40 year old standard with dozens of layers of sediment, regolith and fossils buried on top. I do it for matapacos.dog, and while I use a "turnkey" solution (MailInABox) it still requires a lot of preparation and understanding of various anti-spam measures.
Modern platforms arena lot easier to set up.