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> It is and will be yet another technology available to those who want to use it. Email is not an evolution of papermail, the internet is not an evolution of th

> It is and will be yet another technology available to those who want to use it. Email is not an evolution of papermail, the internet is not an evolution of the telephone. It adds value, it does not displace the internet. I disagree. The only thing most people get via papermail is important government/bank communications and bills. Lots of people forgo the use of a telephone and communicate exclusively via internet chat/calls. There is a reason to be worried. Like those older technologies, VR/”metaverse" may render more classical paradigms of computing, communication and interaction obsolete - meaning, leave them either for legacy uses only, or make them only useful within a smaller circle of friends or family where the use of such classical methods can be pre-agreed and enforced.

dataflow 5y ago
> Email is not an evolution of papermail It definitely is! So many people get so many things exclusively by email that they would otherwise get by mail. > the internet is not an evolution of the telephone Weren't dial-up and then DSL quite literally evolution of the telephone connections? And aren't VoIP and other internet communication platforms displacing a large use case for the telephone?
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  I was just quoting these sentences from the parent comment.
- LocalH 5y ago
  I wouldn't call them an evolution of POTS so much as an overlay. Dial-up standards were a form of encoding that allowed a digital payload to be delivered over lines intended for analog signals. DSL is more or less a purified version of that.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    What would constitute an evolution? Would voice calls gaining video capability count...? Mail that can include digital attachments...?
_8j50 5y ago
People use email but they also use papermail. No one writes a love letter or send a regular message over paper mail but plenty of correspondence still happens by paper mail. Email itself is becoming obsoleted now bu newer message protocols but papermail will be around. Being used less does not mean displaced. Papermail lost the popularity contest but is still alive and kicking because the infrastructure is still very useful. You wouldn't vote by email but you would via papermail. And to your point, there is a reason paper mail is used for official purposes. It is the only way to deliver a message to the person residing at a fixed physical address.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Yes, plenty of correspondence still happens, but it's usually a receive-only basis limited to, again, legacy applications. You wouldn't vote via email, but you can definitely vote online in multiple countries. And again, that's a legacy application for interfacing with an "important" entity (the government). > It is the only way to deliver a message to the person residing at a fixed physical address. Fixed physical addresses are overrated, and they change (tenants, recent home buyers). If you want to ensure you can deliver a message, you need to know how to contact them in other ways too.

dataflow 5y ago

> Email is not an evolution of papermail It definitely is! So many people get so many things exclusively by email that they would otherwise get by mail. > the internet is not an evolution of the telephone Weren't dial-up and then DSL quite literally evolution of the telephone connections? And aren't VoIP and other internet communication platforms displacing a large use case for the telephone?

selfhoster11 5y ago
I was just quoting these sentences from the parent comment.
LocalH 5y ago
I wouldn't call them an evolution of POTS so much as an overlay. Dial-up standards were a form of encoding that allowed a digital payload to be delivered over lines intended for analog signals. DSL is more or less a purified version of that.
- dataflow 5y ago
  What would constitute an evolution? Would voice calls gaining video capability count...? Mail that can include digital attachments...?

_8j50 5y ago

People use email but they also use papermail. No one writes a love letter or send a regular message over paper mail but plenty of correspondence still happens by paper mail. Email itself is becoming obsoleted now bu newer message protocols but papermail will be around. Being used less does not mean displaced. Papermail lost the popularity contest but is still alive and kicking because the infrastructure is still very useful. You wouldn't vote by email but you would via papermail. And to your point, there is a reason paper mail is used for official purposes. It is the only way to deliver a message to the person residing at a fixed physical address.

selfhoster11 5y ago
Yes, plenty of correspondence still happens, but it's usually a receive-only basis limited to, again, legacy applications. You wouldn't vote via email, but you can definitely vote online in multiple countries. And again, that's a legacy application for interfacing with an "important" entity (the government). > It is the only way to deliver a message to the person residing at a fixed physical address. Fixed physical addresses are overrated, and they change (tenants, recent home buyers). If you want to ensure you can deliver a message, you need to know how to contact them in other ways too.