6 ms·

> We can argue about whether emails should be chonkie-bois or not. But they are. People want full styling, images, and fancy features - not just ASCII text and

> We can argue about whether emails should be chonkie-bois or not. But they are. People want full styling, images, and fancy features - not just ASCII text and the occasional uuencoded attachment. That's the world we're in now. Literally the only people effected by this are advertisers. Saying that people want it to be fixed is just not true, almost everyone hates ads especially in their email. If consumers were voting with their dollars on ways to improve email I highly doubt that longer message sizes would be the result.

Arnt 7y ago
The most recent message in my inbox contains a friendly greeting, two sentences telling me to do the usual thing with the attachment, a signature and an attachment. The signature uses a font and a logo and stuff, because some brand consultant cared about that. To me, that message seems to be the archetypal email of 2019, and the styled signature is no more optional than the friendly greeting. Sigh.
4aceb14e 7y ago
> Literally the only people effected by this are advertisers. Exactly. If your are writing newsletters with multiple megabytes per issue you deserve a special kind of hell.
edent 7y ago
I read several long-form newsletters which have this problem. You can argue that they ought to be blogs - but people like semi-private social networking. If you click on the links in my blog post, you'll see normal people complaining about this. They're not all advertisers.
katzgrau 7y ago
I work with a number of magazine publishers who have very strong newsletter subscriber bases (city and regional magazines especially). Staff at magazines take a lot of pride in layout, content, imagery, and attention to detail. Saying that only advertisers care is untrue.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- theamk 7y ago
  Sounds like email might not be the best medium for them. Every email client sanitizes email a bit differently, and images are often omitted, so I cannot imaging how anything but the most basic layouts can work.
  - DanHulton 7y ago
    Maybe you're underestimating the popularity of newsletters? People like getting useful stuff in their inbox, and RSS really isn't a thing for non-technical users. Getting regular "deliveries" of a newsletter/magazine is ideal for a lot of users, even if it makes life hard for those "delivering". As far as layouts, you can actually do a whole lot these days, depending on how far back you're willing to go, in terms of compatibility. There are a variety of tools designed to help you build a widely-compatible layout, and then confirm that it looks correct in your target email clients. And it's largely a "do once, then re-use" task, which is great.
- akerro 7y ago
  >Staff at magazines take a lot of pride in layout, content, imagery, and attention to detail. Their attention to details is wasted on some people, my thunderbird and roundcubemail never shows remote images and styles, and none of my family members ever complained on that.
- dual_basis 7y ago
  Most print magazines are 90% ads. As for the "local newsletter" style, at least where I live these have all been bought out by larger media groups. To say the content is anemic would be generous, but I can't "unsubscribe" from the physical copies because they are delivered to every mailbox in the area, therefore I cannot voice my opposition to this wasteful media. I'm sure they list me under their distribution numbers of "satisfied readers" of their publication. With online publications it is obviously different, but I wonder to what extent people are actually engaging with the content of these newsletters. What percent simply get auto filtered into the spam or trash, because the native unsubscribe link was too hard to find?
aequitas 7y ago
You'd be surprised how many people actually want advertisements, even ones with lots of styling and colored pictures. I worked on a email filtering solution in my previous job. One of our biggest challenges was not how to classify spam from normal mail, but how to make sure to distinguish between spam people wanted and spam.
- coffeefirst 7y ago
  Correct. I use email newsletters to stay on top of upcoming concerts. It’s not spam, and most are heavily styled. Is it advertising? Sure, definitely, but it’s advertising I actually want.
nostalgk 7y ago
How else am I going to have my 1024x768 picture of a lion and inspirational quote as my email signature? I can tell you that there are many people who would be affected by a size limit... and I want them to be.
emilfihlman 7y ago
Literally 100% untrue. I'm in many associations where just normal html newsletter of what's happening and what events are coming, _without_ _any_ _pictures_ _or_ _media_, is clipped. It's insane and there is no excuse.
- dual_basis 7y ago
  Then you have way too much HTML formatting in your email. Maybe people are using something like Word to create it, which will add all sorts of duplicate and remnants of tags everywhere. 102kb is a lot of text.
johannes1234321 7y ago
Looking at the mails I see from Outlook loving business people in corporations I would say it's true that people want colorful mail - not only colorful in words, but in display. And used properly there can be a value in having more options in formatting. For my mails I try to be plain with 80 chars per line, but I've sent two HTML mails this year already, in situations where specific highlighting seemed useful.
- sly010 7y ago
  It is an excuse. Formatting (should) add virtually nothing. 102kb is a lot of text. There are pdf books that are smaller than that.
- michaelt 7y ago
  I too use colours and table from time to time in e-mails. But unless their e-mails are the length of a Shakespeare play, people aren't hitting the 102 KB limit with <b> tags. They're hitting it with <td valign=3D"top" class=3D"pre= headerContainer" style=3D"padding-top: 9px;mso-table-lspace: 0pt;mso-table-= rspace: 0pt;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><ta= ble border=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0" cellspacing=3D"0" width=3D"100%" class= =3D"mcnTextBlock" style=3D"min-width: 100%;border-collapse: collapse;mso-ta= ble-lspace: 0pt;mso-table-rspace: 0pt;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-te= xt-size-adjust: 100%;"> tags
  - johannes1234321 7y ago
    Well, if I were writing by hand I certainly won't produce such a code. If I were using a visual editor where I can produce a table and drag columns and rows and make it nice (just like a non-technical user would) such code is produced quickly. Especially tables can become verbose, especially if the toolmaker wanted to support as many HTML rendering engines (in mail the variety is higher than with browsers) as possible while providing "pixel perfect" results. Of course 99% of mails doing this, do this for spamy/marketing reasons, not since it brings benefit to the content. (Which is no difference to typography and layout in web or print - brand recognition before content is common)
rhplus 7y ago
almost everyone hates ads especially in their email This may surprise you, but there really are people who like getting "circulars" from their favorite stores by email. I know (older) relatives that intentionally stay subscribed to supermarkets and clothing retailers so that they can read every single email looking for special offers, just like it was 1995 and they were clipping coupons from the Sunday supplements.
- petercooper 7y ago
  I'm not "old" and I love getting my daily email from eBuyer (basically the UK equivalent of Newegg) and seeing what new products, peripherals, SSDs, etc. are on offer and available. Indeed, there are quite a few such mails I enjoy.
syntheticnature 7y ago
I get plaintext (enforced by the list software) emails of meeting minutes from an organization that are clipped. Or at least did; these days I've got a personal account elsewhere for such things.
woah 7y ago
I often paste images into emails
- dual_basis 7y ago
  Those are attachments, even if they don't look like it in Gmail. Images aren't subject to this particular constraint.

Arnt 7y ago

The most recent message in my inbox contains a friendly greeting, two sentences telling me to do the usual thing with the attachment, a signature and an attachment. The signature uses a font and a logo and stuff, because some brand consultant cared about that. To me, that message seems to be the archetypal email of 2019, and the styled signature is no more optional than the friendly greeting. Sigh.

4aceb14e 7y ago

> Literally the only people effected by this are advertisers. Exactly. If your are writing newsletters with multiple megabytes per issue you deserve a special kind of hell.

edent 7y ago

I read several long-form newsletters which have this problem. You can argue that they ought to be blogs - but people like semi-private social networking. If you click on the links in my blog post, you'll see normal people complaining about this. They're not all advertisers.

katzgrau 7y ago

I work with a number of magazine publishers who have very strong newsletter subscriber bases (city and regional magazines especially). Staff at magazines take a lot of pride in layout, content, imagery, and attention to detail. Saying that only advertisers care is untrue.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
theamk 7y ago
Sounds like email might not be the best medium for them. Every email client sanitizes email a bit differently, and images are often omitted, so I cannot imaging how anything but the most basic layouts can work.
- DanHulton 7y ago
  Maybe you're underestimating the popularity of newsletters? People like getting useful stuff in their inbox, and RSS really isn't a thing for non-technical users. Getting regular "deliveries" of a newsletter/magazine is ideal for a lot of users, even if it makes life hard for those "delivering". As far as layouts, you can actually do a whole lot these days, depending on how far back you're willing to go, in terms of compatibility. There are a variety of tools designed to help you build a widely-compatible layout, and then confirm that it looks correct in your target email clients. And it's largely a "do once, then re-use" task, which is great.
akerro 7y ago
>Staff at magazines take a lot of pride in layout, content, imagery, and attention to detail. Their attention to details is wasted on some people, my thunderbird and roundcubemail never shows remote images and styles, and none of my family members ever complained on that.
dual_basis 7y ago
Most print magazines are 90% ads. As for the "local newsletter" style, at least where I live these have all been bought out by larger media groups. To say the content is anemic would be generous, but I can't "unsubscribe" from the physical copies because they are delivered to every mailbox in the area, therefore I cannot voice my opposition to this wasteful media. I'm sure they list me under their distribution numbers of "satisfied readers" of their publication. With online publications it is obviously different, but I wonder to what extent people are actually engaging with the content of these newsletters. What percent simply get auto filtered into the spam or trash, because the native unsubscribe link was too hard to find?

aequitas 7y ago

You'd be surprised how many people actually want advertisements, even ones with lots of styling and colored pictures. I worked on a email filtering solution in my previous job. One of our biggest challenges was not how to classify spam from normal mail, but how to make sure to distinguish between spam people wanted and spam.

coffeefirst 7y ago
Correct. I use email newsletters to stay on top of upcoming concerts. It’s not spam, and most are heavily styled. Is it advertising? Sure, definitely, but it’s advertising I actually want.

nostalgk 7y ago

How else am I going to have my 1024x768 picture of a lion and inspirational quote as my email signature? I can tell you that there are many people who would be affected by a size limit... and I want them to be.

emilfihlman 7y ago

Literally 100% untrue. I'm in many associations where just normal html newsletter of what's happening and what events are coming, _without_ _any_ _pictures_ _or_ _media_, is clipped. It's insane and there is no excuse.

dual_basis 7y ago
Then you have way too much HTML formatting in your email. Maybe people are using something like Word to create it, which will add all sorts of duplicate and remnants of tags everywhere. 102kb is a lot of text.

johannes1234321 7y ago

Looking at the mails I see from Outlook loving business people in corporations I would say it's true that people want colorful mail - not only colorful in words, but in display. And used properly there can be a value in having more options in formatting. For my mails I try to be plain with 80 chars per line, but I've sent two HTML mails this year already, in situations where specific highlighting seemed useful.

sly010 7y ago
It is an excuse. Formatting (should) add virtually nothing. 102kb is a lot of text. There are pdf books that are smaller than that.
michaelt 7y ago
I too use colours and table from time to time in e-mails. But unless their e-mails are the length of a Shakespeare play, people aren't hitting the 102 KB limit with <b> tags. They're hitting it with <td valign=3D"top" class=3D"pre= headerContainer" style=3D"padding-top: 9px;mso-table-lspace: 0pt;mso-table-= rspace: 0pt;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><ta= ble border=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0" cellspacing=3D"0" width=3D"100%" class= =3D"mcnTextBlock" style=3D"min-width: 100%;border-collapse: collapse;mso-ta= ble-lspace: 0pt;mso-table-rspace: 0pt;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-te= xt-size-adjust: 100%;"> tags
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  Well, if I were writing by hand I certainly won't produce such a code. If I were using a visual editor where I can produce a table and drag columns and rows and make it nice (just like a non-technical user would) such code is produced quickly. Especially tables can become verbose, especially if the toolmaker wanted to support as many HTML rendering engines (in mail the variety is higher than with browsers) as possible while providing "pixel perfect" results. Of course 99% of mails doing this, do this for spamy/marketing reasons, not since it brings benefit to the content. (Which is no difference to typography and layout in web or print - brand recognition before content is common)

rhplus 7y ago

almost everyone hates ads especially in their email This may surprise you, but there really are people who like getting "circulars" from their favorite stores by email. I know (older) relatives that intentionally stay subscribed to supermarkets and clothing retailers so that they can read every single email looking for special offers, just like it was 1995 and they were clipping coupons from the Sunday supplements.

petercooper 7y ago
I'm not "old" and I love getting my daily email from eBuyer (basically the UK equivalent of Newegg) and seeing what new products, peripherals, SSDs, etc. are on offer and available. Indeed, there are quite a few such mails I enjoy.

syntheticnature 7y ago

I get plaintext (enforced by the list software) emails of meeting minutes from an organization that are clipped. Or at least did; these days I've got a personal account elsewhere for such things.

woah 7y ago

I often paste images into emails

dual_basis 7y ago
Those are attachments, even if they don't look like it in Gmail. Images aren't subject to this particular constraint.