"Something better (for us)". I'm gonna take a stab at this and say that I think what they're banking on is that the added effort needed to compose an email (an

"Something better (for us)". I'm gonna take a stab at this and say that I think what they're banking on is that the added effort needed to compose an email (and the lack of a public audiance) is going to raise the barrier of entry and lower the potential payout to eliminate all of the "low-quality, impulse commenting" they felt they were getting flooded with. And that they're basically equating email to writing a letter in magazine days says a lot about the state and view people have of email, in line with your point.