3 ms·

What's wrong with email?

tikhonj 11y ago
There are two questions there: what's wrong with email for Twitter and what's wrong with email for users. The first is easy: they don't control it. Twitter handles are already a broad system of public identities and Twitter wants to double down on that. The second is harder. The value proposition—if any—comes from letting people stay within a single service. It lowers the barrier to starting a conversation on Twitter since you don't need the song and dance of exchanging emails first. It also helps people keep their public identity consistent, especially for those who (for whatever reason) treat their email address as semi-private. Is this enough to make people use Twitter messages more? I think so, especially on the first point. If you make something easier, people are more likely to use it. I doubt it will replace email to any great extent, but rather lead to out-of-band conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise. We'll have to wait and see.
- e12e 11y ago
  Interesting - you thouch upon one reason why twitter without lenght limits will be different from facebook: an acceptance of pseudonyms and multiple accounts that are actuallly separate. Still a privatly owned, centralised panopticon.
hueving 11y ago
it doesn't have a monetization strategy and it doesn't rely on a modern single-page web interface. also, it has a low barrier to entry so any old chump can run an email server. these are all bad things now
- Retra 11y ago
  Those aren't bad things. Those are great things. If you feel that this kind of functionality needs to be added to email, then you're probably making a completely redundant product. Reinventing a shittier, proprietary wheel.
  - hueving 11y ago
    I was being sarcastic :)
    - Retra 11y ago
      Oh, sorry.
- volaski 11y ago
  Hey young champ, from my experience building a twitter clone on heroku is much easier that setting up a dovecot/postfix server on digitalocean.
  - hueving 11y ago
    A clone is useless because you can't message other people on them. A mail server can actually send email.
    - volaski 11y ago
      yeah but i don't think any old chump can run a mail server. it was hard to set it up the first time man.
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  it doesn't have a monetization strategy Neither does twitter. Bazinga.

There are two questions there: what's wrong with email for Twitter and what's wrong with email for users. The first is easy: they don't control it. Twitter handles are already a broad system of public identities and Twitter wants to double down on that. The second is harder. The value proposition—if any—comes from letting people stay within a single service. It lowers the barrier to starting a conversation on Twitter since you don't need the song and dance of exchanging emails first. It also helps people keep their public identity consistent, especially for those who (for whatever reason) treat their email address as semi-private. Is this enough to make people use Twitter messages more? I think so, especially on the first point. If you make something easier, people are more likely to use it. I doubt it will replace email to any great extent, but rather lead to out-of-band conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise. We'll have to wait and see.

e12e 11y ago
Interesting - you thouch upon one reason why twitter without lenght limits will be different from facebook: an acceptance of pseudonyms and multiple accounts that are actuallly separate. Still a privatly owned, centralised panopticon.

hueving 11y ago

it doesn't have a monetization strategy and it doesn't rely on a modern single-page web interface. also, it has a low barrier to entry so any old chump can run an email server. these are all bad things now

Retra 11y ago
Those aren't bad things. Those are great things. If you feel that this kind of functionality needs to be added to email, then you're probably making a completely redundant product. Reinventing a shittier, proprietary wheel.
- hueving 11y ago
  I was being sarcastic :)
  - Retra 11y ago
    Oh, sorry.
volaski 11y ago
Hey young champ, from my experience building a twitter clone on heroku is much easier that setting up a dovecot/postfix server on digitalocean.
- hueving 11y ago
  A clone is useless because you can't message other people on them. A mail server can actually send email.
  - volaski 11y ago
    yeah but i don't think any old chump can run a mail server. it was hard to set it up the first time man.
PopeOfNope 11y ago
it doesn't have a monetization strategy Neither does twitter. Bazinga.