Ask HN: What do you use email for?
I think it's safe to say that email as a concept is pretty much broken. You're fighting spam. There's no true privacy between correspondents, not even with PGP. It's used everywhere as an identification token. Some people still even use it to exchange files.
There's no easy fix because it's next to impossible to retain backwards compatibility. So it got me thinking: what use case would you actually carry over if you were to replace it by redesigning it from the ground up and everyone got on board in an instant?
I took a peek at my inboxes and my correspondence (if you want to call it that, because let's face it: most of it is pretty one-sided) mostly falls into three categories:
* Newsletters I was signed up for involuntarily by signing up to a website
* Newsletters I actually signed up for
* Commercial correspondence (e.g. insurance, bank, landlord)
I'm curious what your opinions are.
18 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 48.2 ms ] threadits a way that allows unrelated systems to talk using a protocol.
today it would be a monolithic one company app.
that's not email.
But for that new protocol to be useful, it would need to:
(1) become an open standard which anyone could implement, and
(2) be built into every major platform.
For example, if I want to send a message to someone, let's say my doctor, I can't expect them to download some app or create an account on some new web site to be able to read it. E-mail doesn't require that, and any protocol that does would face huge obstacles to being adopted by the general population.
I'm still more interested in the use case. Not what it takes to replace email. Because IMHO replacing it would mean to understand what people actually use it for these days.
Corporate email services, exchange server etc are enormous and integrated into the workflow of hundreds of thousands of the world's largest companies.
> Because IMHO replacing it would mean to understand what people actually use it for these days
You can't replace something so deeply embedded and universally used. You extend it.
[1] https://www.ietf.org/blog/jmap/ [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/jmap/about/
My inbox is my to-do list. I email myself things that I need to do too.
Unlike Slack, no one on email minds if you reply back a few days later. I like that it is async medium for communication.
Honestly, I think email is great and it would take a lot for me to give it up.
I was vaguely aware that people do that. Why does that work for you, though? Surely one could take up the habit of maintaining a todo list with one of the million apps out there? Is it the "I have to do email anyways" or that it's all in one place?
> Unlike Slack, no one on email minds if you reply back a few days later.
I think that's a very underrated feature of email communication.
> I was vaguely aware that people do that. Why does that work for you, though? Surely one could take up the habit of maintaining a todo list with one of the million apps out there? Is it the "I have to do email anyways" or that it's all in one place?
Yes I think main reason is that it is all in one place. Every time I check my email I get to review my tasks. Also it is easier with some tasks like if my boss asks for something in email or I get a bill. I don't have to go open another app and copy email in there.
I make sure to unsubscribe from any newsletters as the first step after signing up for an account so I don't receive any, and automated notifications I can't opt-out of are filtered away.
The big problem you raise about "spam" (whether real spam or unwanted newsletters) are a problem with defective privacy legislation that allows companies to get away with it as opposed to problems with email itself. If marketing communications were made opt-in by law (one that's actually enforced) this will dramatically cut down on the noise in people's inboxes.
Commercial correspondence regarding an ongoing deal (like the examples you mention) seem like a good thing. I want my landlord or bank or other suppliers to be able to contact me if they want to as long as it's not marketing (which would be addressed by the previous point).
The problems with non-technical people having their inbox flooded and constantly saying at 10k+ unread emails is because they fail or can't be bothered to manage it (by setting up rules and unsubscribing whenever possible). I don't think it's a flaw of email itself.
Privacy is the only thing here I agree with, and I believe that can be solved with public keys embedded in the DNS (itself protected by DNSSEC). The problem with that is lack of mainstream client support (whether for S/MIME or GPG); the protocols email is based on don't seem like a blocker in this case.
That didn't even occur to me. That's a very good point. If peoples' physical mail boxes would be spammed like that everybody would be up in arms.
> Privacy is the only thing here I agree with, and I believe that can be solved with public keys embedded in the DNS (itself protected by DNSSEC). The problem with that is lack of mainstream client support (whether for S/MIME or GPG); the protocols email is based on don't seem like a blocker in this case.
It seems to me though that ease of use has got to be a top priority for widespread adoption and that requires digital identities to be maintained by an independent non-profit entity for this to work without compromise. Keybase seemed like a start in the right direction.
- People don’t fight spam. I rarely if ever get spam in my email. Spam filters work well enough. Whitelisting is also available. Most all email clients support smart folders that contain emails only from contacts.
- Email IS private. Privacy =/= E2E encryption. Other people cannot read my email. My friends and business competitors cannot read my email. Providers can, but are incentivized to not read their customers’ email, otherwise they would go out of business.
- PGP does work. Most people don’t need it.
First of all. Not everybody has the desire to became "proficient" in inbox management. Secondly, if you take a step back and reconsider what you're saying: the lengths you have to go through is insane. Imagine you had to deal with this with every online service you're using whether its messaging platforms or otherwise.
> Providers can, but are incentivized to not read their customers’ email, otherwise they would go out of business.
That's a very naive assumption. There was proof that ISPs in the UK did that some years ago and probably still do. And what exactly do you think is Gmail's business model? Or any other supposedly "free" email service?
- I collaborate on research projects with people all over the world, and I exchange emails with my collaborators. Such emails might be "Here's idea X", "Please look at my revision of our paper, I changed Y or Z", or "Can we set up a Skype meeting". (If my email refers to a file, I might attach it, although most of my collaborators and I use Dropbox.)
Typically I keep these emails in my box until I've fully dealt with them. (This might be months.)
- My students send my emails about class. I usually get to these fairly quickly.
- Sometimes I get questions or comments from random mathematicians about my work, and I try to answer these. (The reverse happens too!)
- I often get individual emails asking me to do things. Speak at a conference, review a paper, etc. These often come from people I don't know well.
- Personal and social correspondence. For example, email is how I most often talk with my mother. I'm aware that most people use instant messaging, but I like the slower pace and the lack of expectation to respond right away.
- A to-do list. Many of the above are asking me to do something, or at least to reply, and I typically keep the email in my inbox until I have done it.
It has its annoyances, but overall it seems like the right tool for the job.
To be honest, I've never understood the perspective of people who want to move away from email. For example, I've involved in a weekly D+D game, and we trade emails from time to time. One of the players suggested that we set up a Slack channel. (I don't otherwise use Slack.) This would give me one more thing to either (1) remember to check, or (2) allow to interrupt me. Why would I want this? The advantage of email is that I can handle it on my own schedule.
Finally, the privacy issue -- to be honest, I don't much care. Perhaps this is the nature of my work, which I typically want to share as widely as possible. For student interactions there are privacy laws, but my employer has presumably ensured that our email software complies with them. (And, if they haven't, it's someone else's problem.)
The sense I get is that, increasingly, people don't mind being interrupted all the time. That's not me. On the one hand I'm very curious about what you envision replacing email; but on the other, I'm afraid that you'd only wrest my email account from me over my cold, dead body.
As a software developer I'm of course inclined to say that a platform that inlines resources relevant to your discussion would be much better suited because of standardized layouts and workflows. But as you said: one more place to check.
> I'm aware that most people use instant messaging, but I like the slower pace and the lack of expectation to respond right away.
That seems to be a very common theme among people and I definitely appreciate this as well. Instant messaging has become so stressful but most people (me included) can't seem to quit because of the fear of missing out.
> Finally, the privacy issue -- to be honest, I don't much care. Perhaps this is the nature of my work, which I typically want to share as widely as possible.
It's a reasonable stance for sure as long as you're aware. Self-hosted emails, like most EDU emails are I assume, of course also mitigate some of the concerns. It's just creepy to think about how you're constantly being profiled my various vendors.
Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.
I don't understand, what does this mean?
Thanks.