Yes, exactly. This was a major factor to me. I still use other tools to communicate with most people and I can check to verify in real time that no malicious filtering intercepted my messages.

Almost everyone in the US is under the thumb of such a malicious, unregulated, private cable monopoly ISP that owes more to media companies and Microsoft than it does to customers. Email from them is especially terrible and should be avoided.

Google was the escape that worked. Because the ISP itself was malicious, they could block plaintext emails from my less technically savvy friends even if I were running my own mail server. Cox blocked ports to make that technical solution impossible anyway but people should be aware if their ISP is less heavy handed but equally malicious. Google’s encrypted connection denied the ISP any selective blocking. This leaves me at the mercy of Google until the rest of the world learns to use encryption or gets themselves a freedom box.