4 ms·

Email sucks. It doesn't need replacement with something else that does the same but encrypted. The whole skeuomorphic concept of electronic mail is just not gre

by tormeh 6y ago

Email sucks. It doesn't need replacement with something else that does the same but encrypted. The whole skeuomorphic concept of electronic mail is just not great and needs to go away. What we need is federated chat, like Matrix maybe. Apropos: Is anyone aware of an email client that groups mail by sender, like a chat client? That would make email far more usable for me, as addresses that send a lot of mail and addresses that send little mail would get the same amount of screenspace. Currently my company email is drowning in automated internal semi-spam.

beagle3 6y ago
Thunderbird and Outlook both group by sender, and have for more than 20 years.
BubuIIC 6y ago
I think delta chat does exactly this: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/ (email as chat)
- tormeh 6y ago
  Thanks! This looks great!
RcrdBrt 6y ago
Deltachat maybe? Check it out. You might like it, it's a federated chat (since mail is) and built on top of the email tech stack https://delta.chat https://delta.chat
- tormeh 6y ago
  Thanks! This looks great!
na85 6y ago
>Email sucks Email is great. I can choose between umpteen providers or run my own mail server, it's a standard protocol with many different clients to suit one's needs, I can't get banned by a faceless FAANG corporation for no reason and with no recourse, I'm not locked into some walled garden and dependent on the benevolence of corporate overlords and I don't need to worry about some intern at Google suffering from NIH syndrome deciding to make completely unneeded "improvements" that negatively impact my UX. Email is old but that doesn't mean it sucks. Internal "semi-spam" is a social problem and needs a social solution. Changing protocols won't change the spam problem at your company.
- tormeh 6y ago
  All the benefits you're listing are benefits that any federated protocol, for example Matrix, has. Completely orthogonal to email itself.
  - na85 6y ago
    And the problems you listed with email aren't actually problems with the technology so much as problems with the way people at your company (and others) misuse the technology. They're completely orthogonal to email itself.
    - mac01021 6y ago
      I'm not sure that's true. Email has a somewhat archaic data model that has suboptimal support for things like threading.
      - rakoo 6y ago
        What exactly does it need to do better threading ? Today a client can write anything they want in the References: and In-Reply-To: headers, and the server doesn't verify that it's valid. Would that be enough for you ?
    - tormeh 6y ago
      I only mentioned one problem with the clients, and an abstract complaint about doing one electronic communication but pretending it's physical. Some problems with email, from a user perspective: - The latency is too high for truly real-time communication - There is no cryptographic verification of the sender's identity (this problem is also shared with telephony). This has lead to really harsh anti-spam measures that make it hard to self-host. Sender verification + client-side sender whitelists would solve spam for good. It also means grouping by sender gives a very false sense of security regarding identity continuity between messages - There is no good support for groups or threads. Subject lines of type "Re: Re: Aw: Re: Sv: new proposal" is not an acceptable solution, as they look ugly and clients often disagree on how to parse and write them, leading to breakage of the thread - Clients do not group by sender, group or thread, partly because these concepts do not actually exist in email (see above) and partly for social reasons - Partly for historical reasons (it's just mail on a computer!) and partly for technical reasons (there is no sender, etc.) email is presented as huge letter-like affairs, leading to a felt need for all sorts of formalisms for every single message even if the messages are two minutes apart. Also email signatures (with logos?!) being attached to every message are just so wasteful both in terms of storage and in terms of screen space

by tormeh 6y ago

beagle3 6y ago

Thunderbird and Outlook both group by sender, and have for more than 20 years.

BubuIIC 6y ago

I think delta chat does exactly this: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/ (email as chat)

tormeh 6y ago
Thanks! This looks great!

RcrdBrt 6y ago

Deltachat maybe? Check it out. You might like it, it's a federated chat (since mail is) and built on top of the email tech stack https://delta.chat https://delta.chat

tormeh 6y ago
Thanks! This looks great!

na85 6y ago

>Email sucks Email is great. I can choose between umpteen providers or run my own mail server, it's a standard protocol with many different clients to suit one's needs, I can't get banned by a faceless FAANG corporation for no reason and with no recourse, I'm not locked into some walled garden and dependent on the benevolence of corporate overlords and I don't need to worry about some intern at Google suffering from NIH syndrome deciding to make completely unneeded "improvements" that negatively impact my UX. Email is old but that doesn't mean it sucks. Internal "semi-spam" is a social problem and needs a social solution. Changing protocols won't change the spam problem at your company.

tormeh 6y ago
All the benefits you're listing are benefits that any federated protocol, for example Matrix, has. Completely orthogonal to email itself.
- na85 6y ago
  And the problems you listed with email aren't actually problems with the technology so much as problems with the way people at your company (and others) misuse the technology. They're completely orthogonal to email itself.
  - mac01021 6y ago
    I'm not sure that's true. Email has a somewhat archaic data model that has suboptimal support for things like threading.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      What exactly does it need to do better threading ? Today a client can write anything they want in the References: and In-Reply-To: headers, and the server doesn't verify that it's valid. Would that be enough for you ?
  - tormeh 6y ago
    I only mentioned one problem with the clients, and an abstract complaint about doing one electronic communication but pretending it's physical. Some problems with email, from a user perspective: - The latency is too high for truly real-time communication - There is no cryptographic verification of the sender's identity (this problem is also shared with telephony). This has lead to really harsh anti-spam measures that make it hard to self-host. Sender verification + client-side sender whitelists would solve spam for good. It also means grouping by sender gives a very false sense of security regarding identity continuity between messages - There is no good support for groups or threads. Subject lines of type "Re: Re: Aw: Re: Sv: new proposal" is not an acceptable solution, as they look ugly and clients often disagree on how to parse and write them, leading to breakage of the thread - Clients do not group by sender, group or thread, partly because these concepts do not actually exist in email (see above) and partly for social reasons - Partly for historical reasons (it's just mail on a computer!) and partly for technical reasons (there is no sender, etc.) email is presented as huge letter-like affairs, leading to a felt need for all sorts of formalisms for every single message even if the messages are two minutes apart. Also email signatures (with logos?!) being attached to every message are just so wasteful both in terms of storage and in terms of screen space