Ok, I don't know what a boondogle is, but I like the word. Either way I regularly question my email use. Well, actually the service I use, not the email itself. I currently pay for "Hey!" and Proton. This doesn't include Apple's mail that I get by default with the Apple+ family plan. In the past I have also self hosted a mail server and used Fastmail. My problem is I hop email services like I hop Linux distros. The madness has to end, if not for anything other than to just save some money.
My problem is picking. "Hey!" is a really cool way to go about doing email, I mean, it's pretty awesome. There is not much I don't like about "Hey!" other than it looses privacy cred for not being end to end encrypted. Proton I like for what they stand for and you do get a decent amount of other services for the money. But the email app itself is a little clunky compared to "Hey!", it just doesn't wow me.
Looking at things, I may have very well never sent an encrypted email to anyone in my life, nor do I feel I have had reason to. My personal email is full of messages from school teachers, my bills, a rare note from a friend, and a whole lot of ads and junk mail. "Hey!" deals with the last one remarkably. But Proton has SimpleLogin which is super useful also.
I find it hard to part with either one. Is an extra ten bucks a month worth not having to decide between the two? Maybe so. Let alone Proton has a password manager, vpn, drive, a bitcoin wallet, and mail and calendar (even if I think Hey! does those last two better). Maybe I just convinced myself to keep both. I may just use all of Proton's services other than email. If I really ever need to do some secret squirrel shit I have the ability to waiting.
I think this is the solution, email and calendar with "Hey!" and I will activly use Proton Drive, Pass, and VPN. I think I could live with that. On a side note, I actually have 2 Password managers also, I resigned to using my 1Password account strictly for SSH keys. Maybe this will work, so I have saved no money and just babbled away, oh well.
Cheers!