Standardising Electronic Mail was at the heart of the Internet, and due to its Federated nature still underpins the largely web application based view of the Internet most people use.
It has, unfortunately, become dominated by a small number of large providers, and also by the ongoing flood of junk mail, or spam.
Going independent with mail
There are a number of organisations where you can pay a subscription to have mail which you own.
mailbox.org
The mailbox.org standard plan at 3 Euros a month gives you an email account which you can use with Thunderbird as well as via a web interface, and also XMPP Internet Chat.