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I feel this myself. I used to run an ejabberd server on the same domain as my email address; that, along with a multi-network client like Pidgin, let me chat se

I feel this myself. I used to run an ejabberd server on the same domain as my email address; that, along with a multi-network client like Pidgin, let me chat seamlessly with just about anyone. The number of people I could contact through those two tools eventually became so small that I turned them both off. Nowadays the first conversation I get to have upon meeting a new person is a long negotiation about what baroque, proprietary messaging app I will have to use to reach them. Sigh. At least we still have email...

cydonian_monk 8y ago
I wish we still had email, but an increasing number of folks in my circles are refusing to use it too. And you can forget trying to call anybody - nobody answers because every phone call is a robocall or a scam. The balkanization of communications is real. I've become some sort of middleman/organizer in one of my hobby circles because I'm the only one who uses all of these disparate services; many of which I only use to connect to two or three folks.
- jethro_tell 8y ago
  >And you can forget trying to call anybody - nobody answers because every phone call is a robocall or a scam. Same for email, as soon as every site required signup, then felt the need to send a daily marketing email people just gave up on email. Now it's just for getting signup links and password resets and anything unexpected is just drowned out in the mess of advertising.
  - asdff 8y ago
    Set up a rule to find "unsubscribe" in the body and push the email out of your inbox and into a folder or your junk/spam. Advertisers hate this one weird trick!
- asdff 8y ago
  Who are you in contact with? Tech workers with enough autonomy to fall off the map without consequence? I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't get critical emails that require a reply. You'd fail college without checking emails. You won't get hired if you don't check your emails. You'd get fired from my job without checking emails. You'd fall out of touch with collaborators in the field without checking emails. Who are these people who refuse to check emails, and what do they possibly do that gives them this privilege of avoiding the most basic and fundamental electronic communication? It seems just absurd to me.
  - neurotrace 8y ago
    I had a roommate like that. The man missed out on a number of important opportunities because he just plain never checked his email. These people exist and it bothers me
    - tatersolid 8y ago
      Why would you expect investing a few seconds of your time to push your words unsolicited at someone to create a sense of obligation in the recipient? The problem with email is it’s too easy to send, and I get 100+ non-spam per day between work and personal. I do not have time to read, let alone respond to 100+ emails per day. So I triage them as best I can, and a lot get binned based on sender or subject alone. The walled gardens improve on email and XMPP because they’re walled.
      - neurotrace 8y ago
        Oh sure, I was never arguing for that. I'm just saying that you need to at least attempt to triage your emails. You can at least make the conscious decision of "I'm not going to deal with this email." However, I will say that walled gardens do not necessarily improve on this problem. If everyone is within the same walls then it's the same situation all over again.
      - asdff 8y ago
        You can't control those walls though. With email, you can craft the most convoluted rules and sure it's not always clear how to get a rule to do what you want, but you have total power in building up your own walled garden to your personal preferences, not whatever preferences are studied to get the most ad revenue and waste the most amount of your time without wasting so much that you get frustrated and leave the platform.
  - javagram 8y ago
    Many people get an overwhelming amount of email. Also once you move from college into the working world you have a work email separate from home email typically. I check my work email daily of course since it’s critical to my job, but I can go days without checking personal emails. Most of the content of my personal email is hardly time sensitive and a lot of it is advertising or news I haven’t opted out of (although I have gmail filters and tabs). It’s not like IM where I would use to check and respond immediately because I only ever got messages from friends.
JohnFen 8y ago
> I get to have upon meeting a new person is a long negotiation about what baroque, proprietary messaging app I will have to use to reach them. I skip that negotiation entirely by letting them know that if they want to talk to me, the options are SMS and email.
massivecali 8y ago
Trillian used to be my goto for combining everyone's communication preferences. Worked great for the time. Sad none of those things work like they used to.

cydonian_monk 8y ago

I wish we still had email, but an increasing number of folks in my circles are refusing to use it too. And you can forget trying to call anybody - nobody answers because every phone call is a robocall or a scam. The balkanization of communications is real. I've become some sort of middleman/organizer in one of my hobby circles because I'm the only one who uses all of these disparate services; many of which I only use to connect to two or three folks.

jethro_tell 8y ago
>And you can forget trying to call anybody - nobody answers because every phone call is a robocall or a scam. Same for email, as soon as every site required signup, then felt the need to send a daily marketing email people just gave up on email. Now it's just for getting signup links and password resets and anything unexpected is just drowned out in the mess of advertising.
- asdff 8y ago
  Set up a rule to find "unsubscribe" in the body and push the email out of your inbox and into a folder or your junk/spam. Advertisers hate this one weird trick!
asdff 8y ago
Who are you in contact with? Tech workers with enough autonomy to fall off the map without consequence? I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't get critical emails that require a reply. You'd fail college without checking emails. You won't get hired if you don't check your emails. You'd get fired from my job without checking emails. You'd fall out of touch with collaborators in the field without checking emails. Who are these people who refuse to check emails, and what do they possibly do that gives them this privilege of avoiding the most basic and fundamental electronic communication? It seems just absurd to me.
- neurotrace 8y ago
  I had a roommate like that. The man missed out on a number of important opportunities because he just plain never checked his email. These people exist and it bothers me
  - tatersolid 8y ago
    Why would you expect investing a few seconds of your time to push your words unsolicited at someone to create a sense of obligation in the recipient? The problem with email is it’s too easy to send, and I get 100+ non-spam per day between work and personal. I do not have time to read, let alone respond to 100+ emails per day. So I triage them as best I can, and a lot get binned based on sender or subject alone. The walled gardens improve on email and XMPP because they’re walled.
    - neurotrace 8y ago
      Oh sure, I was never arguing for that. I'm just saying that you need to at least attempt to triage your emails. You can at least make the conscious decision of "I'm not going to deal with this email." However, I will say that walled gardens do not necessarily improve on this problem. If everyone is within the same walls then it's the same situation all over again.
    - asdff 8y ago
      You can't control those walls though. With email, you can craft the most convoluted rules and sure it's not always clear how to get a rule to do what you want, but you have total power in building up your own walled garden to your personal preferences, not whatever preferences are studied to get the most ad revenue and waste the most amount of your time without wasting so much that you get frustrated and leave the platform.
- javagram 8y ago
  Many people get an overwhelming amount of email. Also once you move from college into the working world you have a work email separate from home email typically. I check my work email daily of course since it’s critical to my job, but I can go days without checking personal emails. Most of the content of my personal email is hardly time sensitive and a lot of it is advertising or news I haven’t opted out of (although I have gmail filters and tabs). It’s not like IM where I would use to check and respond immediately because I only ever got messages from friends.

JohnFen 8y ago

> I get to have upon meeting a new person is a long negotiation about what baroque, proprietary messaging app I will have to use to reach them. I skip that negotiation entirely by letting them know that if they want to talk to me, the options are SMS and email.

massivecali 8y ago

Trillian used to be my goto for combining everyone's communication preferences. Worked great for the time. Sad none of those things work like they used to.