3 ms·

Email.

by meric 10y ago

Email.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago
Not even close - at least not for consumers. See: @aol, @yahoo, @hotmail, @comcast, @gmail etc.... Enterprises usually own their servers, so I would grant that caveat, but even that is going away with cloud providers.
- dangerlibrary 10y ago
  Email is an open protocol that many providers have implemented. That's an important distinction. Try sending a tweet to a Weibo user and see how that works out.
  - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
    I would argue that it doesn't matter if the bulk of use is though closed interactions like web mail providers. Usage defines the capability. Just like anything.
  - k2enemy 10y ago
    A year ago I would have agreed with you, but it is getting to the point where it is very difficult to run your own mail server (I still do). In the name of fighting spam, Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc. have made it a real chore to get messages delivered to their networks. I still haven't figured out how to get messages delivered to AOL.
- meric 10y ago
  For $1000 and $30 a month, anybody in the world could hire someone to setup and maintain a personal email server. Of course being user owned, by definition users should be allowed to outsource their email service to large companies, and they do, because it's a lot cheaper that way. But an email server they own themselves, with their own rules, own display preferences, compatible with billions of other email accounts, is well within their reach. And millions of people do just that.
  - AndrewKemendo 10y ago
    Nobody is arguing that you can't set up your own system. You can build your own version of fb/twt etc... if you wanted. The distinction is that 99.9% of consumers and an increasing number of organizations don't want to do it in house and would rather let someone else do it. Again, it's not about capability, it's about what people actually are doing.
    - meric 10y ago
      >> You can build your own version of fb/twt etc. You couldn't build your own version of fb that can view posts from your friends. You can setup your own email service to view emails from your friends who are using @gmail. That's an important distinction.
      - Kdparker 10y ago
        However, with gmail filtering out email from untrusted domains, you could argue that you actually can't build an email host that can send emails to all of your friends.

Email.

by meric 10y ago

Email.

Not even close - at least not for consumers. See: @aol, @yahoo, @hotmail, @comcast, @gmail etc.... Enterprises usually own their servers, so I would grant that caveat, but even that is going away with cloud providers.

dangerlibrary 10y ago
Email is an open protocol that many providers have implemented. That's an important distinction. Try sending a tweet to a Weibo user and see how that works out.
- AndrewKemendo 10y ago
  I would argue that it doesn't matter if the bulk of use is though closed interactions like web mail providers. Usage defines the capability. Just like anything.
- k2enemy 10y ago
  A year ago I would have agreed with you, but it is getting to the point where it is very difficult to run your own mail server (I still do). In the name of fighting spam, Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc. have made it a real chore to get messages delivered to their networks. I still haven't figured out how to get messages delivered to AOL.
meric 10y ago
For $1000 and $30 a month, anybody in the world could hire someone to setup and maintain a personal email server. Of course being user owned, by definition users should be allowed to outsource their email service to large companies, and they do, because it's a lot cheaper that way. But an email server they own themselves, with their own rules, own display preferences, compatible with billions of other email accounts, is well within their reach. And millions of people do just that.
- AndrewKemendo 10y ago
  Nobody is arguing that you can't set up your own system. You can build your own version of fb/twt etc... if you wanted. The distinction is that 99.9% of consumers and an increasing number of organizations don't want to do it in house and would rather let someone else do it. Again, it's not about capability, it's about what people actually are doing.
  - meric 10y ago
    >> You can build your own version of fb/twt etc. You couldn't build your own version of fb that can view posts from your friends. You can setup your own email service to view emails from your friends who are using @gmail. That's an important distinction.
    - Kdparker 10y ago
      However, with gmail filtering out email from untrusted domains, you could argue that you actually can't build an email host that can send emails to all of your friends.