

Ask HN: Prove me wrong: email ain't dying - hoodoof

There seem to be lots of people who think email is dead or dying, being replaced by all sorts of others ways of being in touch.<p>However, I&#x27;ve seen nothing that indicates that email is really dying at all when it comes to business communications.<p>The universal standard for being in touch is still an email address.<p>So if you&#x27;re a believer that email is dead of dying, what&#x27;s the evidence?  As far as I can tell email is going to remain the primary method of business communication for the foreseeable future.
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isomorphic
As a greybeard who was using Internet email in the 1980s, I could wave my cane
around and claim this newfangled web thing is just a passing fad.

Instead, I will point out that, besides email's asynchronous nature (which
others have mentioned here), email's biggest strength is that it is federated
and open. (The latter two are also true of the web.)

Sure, many people either get their email from or host it on Google / Microsoft
/ BigInternetCo, but there's nothing stopping anyone from registering a
domain, setting up an email server, and actually communicating with the
Internet.

Try that with Skype / iMessage / Hangouts / Messenger / etc.

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rsync
Interesting you mention skype.

I've been providing my own email since 1998. In the back of my mind the past
few years, it's occurred to me that I ought to be providing my own dialtone.

It's just a week or so of futzing around with asterisk and bringing a landline
into my cabinet, right ?

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isomorphic
Years ago I tried configuring Asterisk and was defeated. Well, not completely
defeated as I got it "working," but I couldn't claim to truly understand the
configuration.

Asterisk's configuration system isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it
reminds me of Sendmail, which (if you don't know) is not a polite thing to
say.

Of course now there are probably glossy Asterisk distros you can run in a VM
and configure via WUI. But I'm obstinate enough that I want to understand the
text config.

There is also FreePBX, but I know nothing about it.

Even further off topic, I'd recommend the Obihai boxes as a cheap way to get
started. No affiliation, I just have an OBi110. It's about as easy to
configure as Asterisk itself. (Why is all this VoIP kit horrible to set up?)
However, Obi has a through-the-web quick configuration that will hook it up to
Google Voice with no other hardware/software. That alone is worth the price of
the box (which occasionally goes on sale). ~US$40 flat and Google Voice gets
you free phone calls in the USA.

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bitshepherd
The messaging protocols that are still here from the older days of the
Internet are not going anywhere. Email is here to stay. IRC is still going
strong. Hell, even Usenet is still kicking. Ignore the FUD.

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tempestn
Email will never (in any reasonable time-frame) die, but the use cases are
narrowing. A large percentage of people in their teens and early twenties use
email for personal reasons rarely, if at all, preferring other tools like SMS,
Facebook messenger, and other social networks. Of course they will still have
an email address, and most will check it occasionally for emails from their
parents or tuition reminders or whatever. To contact friends though, they'll
use other means. This seems odd to many people in their 30s and 40s, given
email's ubiquitous, straightforward, and open nature; but, if all your friends
are in your facebook contacts and everything is happening on facebook, that
will be the most convenient place to send messages. Or for close friends,
you'll just text them. What's the point of sending an email that won't get
read for hours or days? And what's the point of checking your email regularly
if all you get there is spam and bill notices and stuff?

I'm 34 and email is my preferred method of communication. I certainly lament
that some people eschew it for closed, proprietary alternatives, but I can
understand their reasons for doing so.

------
bramgg
"email is dying"

\- people that are building social networks for cats

~~~
smoyer
So you're saying that fewer cats are using e-mail?

~~~
Ryanb58
more cats are using social media.

~~~
hoodoof
My cats email spelling is crap. I think his paws slip on the keyboard.

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etothepixi
I'd much rather prove you right.

I do think email will change (not just new MUAs but improvements to current
protocols for more modern use cases) but it will always remain in some form
since it is so basic and universal. Your email address is currently your core
online identity and it would take a major shift to change that. That alone
fortifies email's position psychologically.

I see four main uses for email: 1) communication within a business, 2)
communication between businesses, 3) social communication between individuals,
and 4) communication between businesses and individuals. Groupware
solutions/messaging/etc have tried to replace email for #1 for some time but
email is still needed alongside it for communication with the outside world
(#2, #4) and because a lot of enterprise software relies on email for their
workflows. Social networks have made huge inroads in replacing email for
individual to individual communications but their adoption is still not yet
universal. I've also personally seen many people default to email after using
a social network as an address book-- maybe email is just a more personal
method since there is a stronger sense of owning the messages? Or maybe it's
easier to check email than keep up to date on several social networks.
Finally, as an individual interacting with a business (legit marketing, but
also order confirmations, other notifications, etc.) email still is preferred
since it is so universal and won't require leaning on another business for
them to conduct their own business.

I'd be interested to know if others have a similar taxonomy or if they are
aware of better, non-email solutions that can simultaneously cover more of
those use cases.

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chenzhekl
Email is different from other communication tools such as Skype where email is
fully asynchronous. I think no other tools now are able to replace email
regarding this property.

~~~
rsync
Doesn't SMS have that property ?

I hate it, and I hate that people use SMS instead of email, but isn't it fully
asynchronous ?

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cs-
It just can't, email is like a part of one self. It may go in the more secure
direction with some privacy under the hood, like HTTPS is for HTTP.

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redmattred
It's definitely "dead of dying" \- most businesses I know are primarily
communicating through pinterest or snapchat.

~~~
ldonley
Serious question: are you joking or is this a serious comment? I can't imagine
a company deciding that moving to pinterest or snapchat would be a more
efficient method of communication.

~~~
RubyPinch
I've seen Facebook used for code management. Thankfully not at a business, but
still.

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auganov
There's a difference between being "The universal standard for being in touch"
and being the primary tool for business communications. Yes, email is not
dying for inter-business communications (intra-business is a different story,
slack et al).

But as "The universal standard for being in touch" it's definitely dead. I
don't even know emails of most of my friends nowadays.

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tdkl
It will die when the crucial percentage of people using it does.

