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WhatsApp is an ok substitute for Email in my opinion. Sure, it is not open source and but federated. Signal, Wire, Matrix, etc should catch up in the next year

by qznc 9y ago

WhatsApp is an ok substitute for Email in my opinion. Sure, it is not open source and but federated. Signal, Wire, Matrix, etc should catch up in the next years. What do you need from Email that a messenger lacks?

kilburn 9y ago
I guess you only use a cellphone then. Whatsapp desktop/web is terribly slow and requires your cellphone to be on at all times. Also, you cannot have whatsapp desktop/web active on more than one computer at any time. Also, I do have several identities (work, leisure, even one-offs for website registration/communications) and no, I don't want to give my personal cell number to everyone.
- vesak 9y ago
  > Whatsapp desktop/web is terribly slow and requires your cellphone to be on at all times. They have a rather sound reason for the cellphone requirement, though. It's because the messages are stored only there and the desktop/web application is just a gateway to your phone. https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/web/28080002 https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/web/28080002 This seems like a more secure way to do it than what the others do, which is to store the messages in their servers.
  - Certhas 9y ago
    Yes, but it means it will never be an email replacement. The people without smartphones that I work with can use email. I can get to my email anywhere, everywhere, whether I have a phone or not. Of course that may be considered an anti-feature from the point of view of security, but it explains why IM apps can not replace email.
twanvl 9y ago
> What do you need from Email that a messenger lacks? Discussion threads. Say I work on two different projects with the same colleague, or that I am also friends with a coworker and do things together outside of work. In whatsapp the different topics would all be mixed together into a big mess. With email I can just reply to a particular thread.
- eitland 9y ago
  I prefer Telegram now but this should work in Whatsapp as well: Just create a group for each context and name them properly.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  Huh, i think you've just identified (for me at least) the crux of the issue. What messaging system other than email allows for topic based discussion? I guess you could abuse groups to donsomething similar, but its not wuite the same. The underlying one person to one person philosophy of messaging apps is infuriating for organised discussion over time. It makes finding info discussed harder too. Does anyone have any suggestions for messaging apps that don't put person to person front and center but topic discussion like email? (You might argue the last point i made there, but go and make two separately stored discussions with the same person on whatsapp or signal or wharever... I'll wait).
  - tmail21 9y ago
    You might want to check out TMail21 ( https://tmail21.com https://tmail21.com ). It is thread (topic)-oriented. It also adds shared (versioned) facts to threads which opens up an interesting set of use cases.
  - ryukafalz 9y ago
    >Does anyone have any suggestions for messaging apps that don't put person to person front and center but topic discussion like email? IRC, Riot (Matrix in general), Slack, Discord, Rocket.Chat. There are quite a few. I'm partial to Matrix, personally - you can invite a few friends for a room, and naming that room/setting a topic are optional, so either use case is fairly natural.
    - PuffinBlue 9y ago
      Hmm, not really. All those apps fall into the trap of following a UX design where it's all about a group or person and the conversation within. IRC is channels, Slack is channels, Riot seems to just basically be IRC, Discord is another take on the same genre. None of them give you what email gives you. With email there's not a person or group in sight in the UX, save for perhaps a 'from' entry in the thread list. It's all about info. I can start 100 conversations with the same person and have those threads organised into a timeline separately from each other. I can then also arrange them into arbitrary collections. I can possibly achieve something sort of like this by abusing groups or channels in these other apps, but then what? I just get a sidebar full of the things - what do I do with them? Can I search them and the info within from a global panel? Can I organise them into folders? Copy them to other accounts with a simple drag and drop? Email has quite a different focus than all those apps you mentioned which is probably why nothing has replaced it.
stewbrew 9y ago
In consideration of the fact WhatApp is owned by a single company (facebook), which gets all the metadata, how is it federated?
Certhas 9y ago
By far the most important: A desktop client that works without a smart-phone. Identity management that is not smart-phone/phone-number based. Better UI for long form messages, including citing previous lines. Better support for adding people to ongoing conversations. UI for conversations per topic rather than per person. Mailing lists, and the ability to filter them to different folders (or equivalent UI elements). Functioning as a searchable database of documents I have received. (Important detail: Attachments aren't independent messages: They are attached to often long form messages that describe their content). Basically, WhatsApp does a subset of what EMail does but dramatically better and encrypted. But that covers only half of my email usage at most.
- qznc 9y ago
  > that covers only half of my email usage at most Yes, I guess that is the way forward. Split email into a set of different applications. Maybe one of them will take over the rest at some point.

by qznc 9y ago

kilburn 9y ago

I guess you only use a cellphone then. Whatsapp desktop/web is terribly slow and requires your cellphone to be on at all times. Also, you cannot have whatsapp desktop/web active on more than one computer at any time. Also, I do have several identities (work, leisure, even one-offs for website registration/communications) and no, I don't want to give my personal cell number to everyone.

vesak 9y ago
> Whatsapp desktop/web is terribly slow and requires your cellphone to be on at all times. They have a rather sound reason for the cellphone requirement, though. It's because the messages are stored only there and the desktop/web application is just a gateway to your phone. https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/web/28080002 https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/web/28080002 This seems like a more secure way to do it than what the others do, which is to store the messages in their servers.
- Certhas 9y ago
  Yes, but it means it will never be an email replacement. The people without smartphones that I work with can use email. I can get to my email anywhere, everywhere, whether I have a phone or not. Of course that may be considered an anti-feature from the point of view of security, but it explains why IM apps can not replace email.

twanvl 9y ago

> What do you need from Email that a messenger lacks? Discussion threads. Say I work on two different projects with the same colleague, or that I am also friends with a coworker and do things together outside of work. In whatsapp the different topics would all be mixed together into a big mess. With email I can just reply to a particular thread.

eitland 9y ago
I prefer Telegram now but this should work in Whatsapp as well: Just create a group for each context and name them properly.
PuffinBlue 9y ago
Huh, i think you've just identified (for me at least) the crux of the issue. What messaging system other than email allows for topic based discussion? I guess you could abuse groups to donsomething similar, but its not wuite the same. The underlying one person to one person philosophy of messaging apps is infuriating for organised discussion over time. It makes finding info discussed harder too. Does anyone have any suggestions for messaging apps that don't put person to person front and center but topic discussion like email? (You might argue the last point i made there, but go and make two separately stored discussions with the same person on whatsapp or signal or wharever... I'll wait).
- tmail21 9y ago
  You might want to check out TMail21 ( https://tmail21.com https://tmail21.com ). It is thread (topic)-oriented. It also adds shared (versioned) facts to threads which opens up an interesting set of use cases.
- ryukafalz 9y ago
  >Does anyone have any suggestions for messaging apps that don't put person to person front and center but topic discussion like email? IRC, Riot (Matrix in general), Slack, Discord, Rocket.Chat. There are quite a few. I'm partial to Matrix, personally - you can invite a few friends for a room, and naming that room/setting a topic are optional, so either use case is fairly natural.
  - PuffinBlue 9y ago
    Hmm, not really. All those apps fall into the trap of following a UX design where it's all about a group or person and the conversation within. IRC is channels, Slack is channels, Riot seems to just basically be IRC, Discord is another take on the same genre. None of them give you what email gives you. With email there's not a person or group in sight in the UX, save for perhaps a 'from' entry in the thread list. It's all about info. I can start 100 conversations with the same person and have those threads organised into a timeline separately from each other. I can then also arrange them into arbitrary collections. I can possibly achieve something sort of like this by abusing groups or channels in these other apps, but then what? I just get a sidebar full of the things - what do I do with them? Can I search them and the info within from a global panel? Can I organise them into folders? Copy them to other accounts with a simple drag and drop? Email has quite a different focus than all those apps you mentioned which is probably why nothing has replaced it.

stewbrew 9y ago

In consideration of the fact WhatApp is owned by a single company (facebook), which gets all the metadata, how is it federated?

Certhas 9y ago

By far the most important: A desktop client that works without a smart-phone. Identity management that is not smart-phone/phone-number based. Better UI for long form messages, including citing previous lines. Better support for adding people to ongoing conversations. UI for conversations per topic rather than per person. Mailing lists, and the ability to filter them to different folders (or equivalent UI elements). Functioning as a searchable database of documents I have received. (Important detail: Attachments aren't independent messages: They are attached to often long form messages that describe their content). Basically, WhatsApp does a subset of what EMail does but dramatically better and encrypted. But that covers only half of my email usage at most.

qznc 9y ago
> that covers only half of my email usage at most Yes, I guess that is the way forward. Split email into a set of different applications. Maybe one of them will take over the rest at some point.