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Comment by dvirsky | Hacker News Reader

Who still bothers to do that?

Every address I give out is one of my own domains. Mostly they redirect to my gmail account, but this way I can change to a different provider or suddenly spin up my own mail server and no one has to update their address book.

Edit to add: My point not withstanding, yeah, that's an arbitrary "cluefullness" test.

I've never bothered. Hotmail or Yahoo email addresses were embarrassing back in the day, but I guess the hype around Gmail changed that 10 years ago. I've never felt awkward putting a gmail address on a business card.

You don't find that a gmail address on a business card conveys that it's a 1-2 person operation or very loosely organized? Given the low barrier to entry for setting up hosted email (google apps being $5/mo/user) I personally get the impression the person doesn't take their business seriously, on par with business cards with perforated edges from home printing.

I know my gut reaction when I get a (semi-)professional email from a gmail account is "ok.. what's the scam angle on this one?"

When I was a 1 person operation, and worked as a consultant doing dev work and consulting, I had no problem using my Gmail account. Of course when I started a small company we used a hosted domain.

But before the Gmail days it was weird and unprofessional for even a 1 person operation to have a Webmail address.

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