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@vix

Hmm one doesn't come to mind. My knowledge is ancient. Do you know about how internet services come from "ports"?

Most providers will give you a set of requirements to meet, in two parts:

the public stuff, meaning DNS records for MX (mail exchanger), and security and authentication records. That tells the world how to get to the mail host for say user@example.com. These DNS records will refer to your provider (mine's migadu.com). So people send mail to user@example.com and (internet magic) their server will send your mail to your mail host.

Then you have a mail client (eg thunderbird). It talks to the provider (migadu.com). Login, password etc, plus the IMAP service port and some other gunk.

That's how email was done up through... early 2000s?

Gmail still afaik allows you to fetch your email from them via IMAP. IMAP is in no way obsolete.

The complexity is what web based mail is so popular! Back in 2000 the DNS record side was a lot less complicated; but spammers and scammers were different too.