Ask HN: What is the ideal email domain setup?

I don't know if I'm really at an ideal state, but I have at least the cumulative results of meeting immediate needs over time:

I have a domain.tld with MX to Purelymail and a duplicate MX record also for a sub.domain.tld. New account registrations get example.com@sub.domain.tld (and a unique password/phrase using EFF Large Wordlist and generated in KeepassXC (so not real diceware, I think, despite the little icon of a die)). Random other things also get similar ad-hoc addresses as needed. All of the addresses already theoretically exist; all mail for *@[sub.]domain.tld routes to my super trendy and cutting-edge three-initial-username catchall mailbox.

I don't know your situation, but a whole domain just for friends and family to send mail to each other seems somewhat overprovisioned. But maybe you have a large family and a lot of friends, and maybe you all still email each other a lot.

> Is it worth running a Gmail . . .

I wish it weren't useful or necessary, but it seems to be somewhere between those things. I'd like to be able to ditch them entirely, but there's still regularly some utility to the "main", the "main real-name", and the half-dozen or more "alt/'anon'/junk/slush" Gmail accounts I made years ago (can you even still get away with that anymore?)

For me, any attempt I’ve made so far to “fix” email with more addresses has done nothing but create more complexity and headaches. I regret every single attempt I’ve made. My time would have been better spent better tending to the inbox I already had.