I've been so upset with google for a long time. It might be seamless if you don't live in china or whatever, but for me it's been pain for years. A few years ago they stopped accepting my credit card. this year they stopped accepting my gf's card (she's chinese). I tried to verify my identity with passport images and utility bills for months. I have a lot of stuff spanning over a decade there. I tried to rage delete everything but Google made it so difficult that i got tired out a few times. I finally did it. Well, not quite. it's sointertwined with every service and account i have. it's such a pain. I am working full time emigrating to protonmail for now. Thing is i've been so scarred i don't trust protonmail either.
Getting your own domain doesn’t require you to host your own email. You can simply use forwarding to route your email to Gmail, Hotmail, iCloud or any other mail service that has reasonable spam filtering.