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I work in the email space; thanks to this guy's invention, I can feed my family and have a solid financial life. It is amazing, the web of events, that shape ou

I work in the email space; thanks to this guy's invention, I can feed my family and have a solid financial life. It is amazing, the web of events, that shape our lives and the lives of others. RIP.

jacquesm 11y ago
Even lots of people that are not directly active in the email space owe a part of their income to them, I find it a lot easier to imagine a world without smartphones or the web than I find it to imagine a world without email.
- jamesrcole 11y ago
  I think it's fair to say that email has had a big impact on the modern world. I wonder how much the economy would break down, and have to change, if email suddenly went away? And even if someone doesn't use it that much for personal communication, it's part of the underlying net infrastructure (think account-creation verification emails, password reset emails, bank statements, etc).
  - brianclements 11y ago
    "I wonder how much the economy would break down, and have to change, if email suddenly went away?" Or suddenly went proprietary.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      > Or suddenly went proprietary. It might even happen.
      - w1ntermute 11y ago
        It almost did happen. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
        chei0aiV 11y ago
        It pretty much did happen: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be... https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/sep/15/email/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/sep/15/email/
hackuser 11y ago
> I work in the email space; thanks to this guy's invention, I can feed my family and have a solid financial life. It is amazing, the web of events, that shape our lives and the lives of others. Consider what would have happened if email was a patented, proprietary tech (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.) rather than open.
- cm2187 11y ago
  The patent would have expired in the early 90s, before the internet even went mainstream...

I work in the email space; thanks to this guy's invention, I can feed my family and have a solid financial life. It is amazing, the web of events, that shape our lives and the lives of others. RIP.

jacquesm 11y ago

Even lots of people that are not directly active in the email space owe a part of their income to them, I find it a lot easier to imagine a world without smartphones or the web than I find it to imagine a world without email.

jamesrcole 11y ago
I think it's fair to say that email has had a big impact on the modern world. I wonder how much the economy would break down, and have to change, if email suddenly went away? And even if someone doesn't use it that much for personal communication, it's part of the underlying net infrastructure (think account-creation verification emails, password reset emails, bank statements, etc).
- brianclements 11y ago
  "I wonder how much the economy would break down, and have to change, if email suddenly went away?" Or suddenly went proprietary.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Or suddenly went proprietary. It might even happen.
    - w1ntermute 11y ago
      It almost did happen. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
      - chei0aiV 11y ago
        It pretty much did happen: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be... https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/sep/15/email/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/sep/15/email/

hackuser 11y ago

> I work in the email space; thanks to this guy's invention, I can feed my family and have a solid financial life. It is amazing, the web of events, that shape our lives and the lives of others. Consider what would have happened if email was a patented, proprietary tech (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.) rather than open.

cm2187 11y ago
The patent would have expired in the early 90s, before the internet even went mainstream...