

Email's not sexy - jal278
http://blog.joellehman.com/index.php/2011/11/emails-not-sexy/

======
spitfire
This is something that has been bothering me for a decade. and I know what is
wrong with it. The problem is not the technology. It would be trivial to fix
email technology.

The problem is the people running email servers. They're the worst anti-
social, celibate, neckbeard stereotype you can possibly imagine. and they fear
change - trust me I've tried.

It would be so trivial to simply remove many of the options in a modern email
system (do you really need uucp at all today?) and produce an email server
that could be setup by anyone.

In fact, I would suggest someone begin a new protocol by building a hybrid
mailserver. One that supports the ancient smtp/pop/imap stuff, and that
supports a new utopia protocol. At the EHLO foo.com split off into your new
utopia. The neck beards will fight you tooth and nail against that though.
Simple way around that though - target the users.

Good luck to anyone who tries. The challenge is not technical, it's social.

------
jayfuerstenberg
Email is indeed one of those dead things that just keeps on going because the
network effect driving it is so strong.

Most improvements to email have taken place in walled gardens like Facebook
and enterprise products like Exchange and do not benefit everybody.

Google Wave incorporated some of these ideas and even combined mail and IM
into one communication medium, but alas it never took off.

A viable replacement needs to:

1\. be an open protocol 2\. do everything email can do and more 3\. be open to
future enhancements 4\. play nice with the current email infrastructure 5\. be
easy to setup/install/administer

It's more of a marketing problem than a technical problem. We already know how
to help people communicate. We need to create something worth adopting over
email.

~~~
jal278
I agree, I think in the next few years _something_ will be able to fill this
gap. And maybe the problem is adoption right now.

Anything we're not really excited about and is based on ancient paradigms
(email is exactly what you would think electronic version of regular mail
would be like) seems ripe for replacement, although getting people to jump
from something so deeply engrained into a lifestyle is difficult.

