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There are currently 20 replies here, and of those, 19 didn't read your question properly and just answered with a different email provider. I know there's a tre

There are currently 20 replies here, and of those, 19 didn't read your question properly and just answered with a different email provider. I know there's a trend on HN of people commenting without reading linked articles but this is particularly bad. It's a short question on this page. In answer to your question, this is a multifaceted problem that comes down to: what do I use email for and how else can that work. I had already mostly switched from email to instant messaging (Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS, Riot.im, etc.). These have some of their own problems but that's a different discussion so the remaining use-cases are: - open source code mailing lists: Github issues, dependent on adoption but most seem to have moved here - private company PM emails: many moved to Slack which I detest, or an issue tracker which is not so bad, or other dedicated PM software. There's usually not much individual choice here though unless you're running the company. - newsletter updates: these typically come from services like MailChimp so using non-Google email to receive these is fine. - account confirmation: highly dependent on adoption but SMS is becoming an alternative here often - official correspondences: job applications, etc. There is no alternative. Possibly a space with room for disruption but it would be incredibly challenging. Generally though, many options sub a federated technology with a lot of user choice (email) for a centralised walled garden. While I'd recommend Riot.im for the messaging part, my main comment here would be that it would be nicer to just have a built-in email client feature or plugin that alterted you in an obvious manner to the service you were communicating with (doing lookups on the To:/Cc:/Bcc: fields before you send. AND a not-just-for-geeks viable alternative to Gmail that could gain ground over time.

fwgwgwgch 9y ago
Up voted because I'm one of the guilty people you mentioned I wish there were a standard of sorts in im space. It's not signal because it doesn't allow for saving conversations.
- Shoothe 9y ago
  > standard of sorts in im space. XMPP? Check out https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/ and https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/ Encrypted, federated and modern.
- lucideer 9y ago
  > standard of sorts in im space. As mentioned, there's XMPP. As well as Signal, there's also Matrix.org which is used by Riot.im. You could argue there's now too many competing standards (ActivityPub has some similarities in a way too), but without having ever implemented an XMPP client myself, seemingly people had enough issues with it for there to be significant traction given to replacements like Matrix. Personally I was always a fan of XMPP, and the idea/concept (just not the implementation) of Wave really excited me at the time. Momentum behind XMPP seems to have slowed so I've been giving Riot.im a trial. Sofar I really love it, so I'm once again hopeful.
  - stephenr 9y ago
    XMPP is still the protocol of choice for most IM/IM-like client-server services. The major difference is that all the major players have turned off (or never enabled) federation, and dont advertise that its xmpp. Honestly I think the non-xmpp open source projects will never succeed to the point of being ubiquitous. NIH strikes again.
    - Arathorn 9y ago
      Sadly openly federated XMPP is far from ubiquitous (relative to SMTP, or HTTP as federation success stories, or proprietary alternatives like WhatsApp and Slack). Matrix is also far from ubiquitous too, but we categorically did not create it out of NIH syndrome. The whole point was to provide a protocol with entirely different primitives: history sync rather than message passing; group channels rather than 1:1; decentralisation rather than federation. And also a totally different governance model (no extensions; just a fat monolithic baseline that should “just work”). Obviously the experiment is still on and it remains to be seen if Matrix will succeed to the point of being ubiquitous, but to accuse it of being NIH is massively to miss the point.
      - stephenr 9y ago
        XMPP has multi user chat and history sync extensions. It also has a several open implementations that have proven scalability. I’m also not really sure what you mean about “decentralised rather than federated”. This is from the matrix.org faq: > Matrix provides open federation - meaning that anyone on the internet can join into the Matrix ecosystem by deploying their own server. No extensions means no customisation for the purpose at hand or for future enhancements. So tell me again about how matrix is so different?
- kqr 9y ago
  I can strongly recommend the Matrix.org standard for this sort of messaging. I have only been positively surprised by every part of it.
zhte415 9y ago
I think the repliers didn't understand the question. And I didn't understand it very well either. I still don't think I understand it.
- lucideer 9y ago
  "alternative to email" doesn't seem too difficult to parse. Beyond that, if you're looking for a "why", the OP could have elaborated on that alright. Another user, @davewasthere, has explained this well below though.
  - ziikutv 9y ago
    Could've been phrased as, "if you were to ditch email" no? OPs question is confusing.

fwgwgwgch 9y ago

Up voted because I'm one of the guilty people you mentioned I wish there were a standard of sorts in im space. It's not signal because it doesn't allow for saving conversations.

Shoothe 9y ago
> standard of sorts in im space. XMPP? Check out https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/ and https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/ Encrypted, federated and modern.
lucideer 9y ago
> standard of sorts in im space. As mentioned, there's XMPP. As well as Signal, there's also Matrix.org which is used by Riot.im. You could argue there's now too many competing standards (ActivityPub has some similarities in a way too), but without having ever implemented an XMPP client myself, seemingly people had enough issues with it for there to be significant traction given to replacements like Matrix. Personally I was always a fan of XMPP, and the idea/concept (just not the implementation) of Wave really excited me at the time. Momentum behind XMPP seems to have slowed so I've been giving Riot.im a trial. Sofar I really love it, so I'm once again hopeful.
- stephenr 9y ago
  XMPP is still the protocol of choice for most IM/IM-like client-server services. The major difference is that all the major players have turned off (or never enabled) federation, and dont advertise that its xmpp. Honestly I think the non-xmpp open source projects will never succeed to the point of being ubiquitous. NIH strikes again.
  - Arathorn 9y ago
    Sadly openly federated XMPP is far from ubiquitous (relative to SMTP, or HTTP as federation success stories, or proprietary alternatives like WhatsApp and Slack). Matrix is also far from ubiquitous too, but we categorically did not create it out of NIH syndrome. The whole point was to provide a protocol with entirely different primitives: history sync rather than message passing; group channels rather than 1:1; decentralisation rather than federation. And also a totally different governance model (no extensions; just a fat monolithic baseline that should “just work”). Obviously the experiment is still on and it remains to be seen if Matrix will succeed to the point of being ubiquitous, but to accuse it of being NIH is massively to miss the point.
    - stephenr 9y ago
      XMPP has multi user chat and history sync extensions. It also has a several open implementations that have proven scalability. I’m also not really sure what you mean about “decentralised rather than federated”. This is from the matrix.org faq: > Matrix provides open federation - meaning that anyone on the internet can join into the Matrix ecosystem by deploying their own server. No extensions means no customisation for the purpose at hand or for future enhancements. So tell me again about how matrix is so different?
kqr 9y ago
I can strongly recommend the Matrix.org standard for this sort of messaging. I have only been positively surprised by every part of it.

zhte415 9y ago

I think the repliers didn't understand the question. And I didn't understand it very well either. I still don't think I understand it.

lucideer 9y ago
"alternative to email" doesn't seem too difficult to parse. Beyond that, if you're looking for a "why", the OP could have elaborated on that alright. Another user, @davewasthere, has explained this well below though.
- ziikutv 9y ago
  Could've been phrased as, "if you were to ditch email" no? OPs question is confusing.