Requirements:
- free
- will not delete my account due to inactivity
- privacy focused (doesn’t have to be crazy private, just decent)
- doesn’t require my phone number
- doesn’t require an invitation (like riseup mail)
Additionally it would be cool if it allowed me to have few email addresses in 1 account (skiff lets you have 4 addresses you can send emails from, but they are shutting down their service).
If checking their email a couple of times per year is too high a requirement, I would not recommend the time and effort necessary to maintain a mail server. Even people who enjoy self-hosting often do not want to host a mail server.
And for good reason