<i>Everyone else is left in the email wild west, where they either have massive amounts of physical and reputational capital (Amazon et al) and get their mail accepted for free, or they're almost certainly trying to spam you (statistically speaking).</i><p>Hm. I've been involved with the mail servers of a few small businesses and I don't think it's as bad as you're implying. SPF isn't hard to set up, the RBL systems seem to work pretty well, and if you're sending from a stable IP/domain with a few years on the clock and no history of abuse, your mail will usually get through.<p>I view those for-pay mailing companies as being necessary only if you're sending out something a little spam-like but not spam, like opt-in mailing lists or marketing material or something that might otherwise look a lot like spam. But for regular mail I don't think it's at all necessary.