> Honestly I think email needs to be rethought from the ground up, just a whole new protocol with a killer app to get it going. That's why it hasn't and won't

> Honestly I think email needs to be rethought from the ground up, just a whole new protocol with a killer app to get it going. That's why it hasn't and won't happen any time soon. > My ideal replacement for email would look something like a decentralized/federated identity protocol with default whitelist for contact upon which you build out data formats for sharing. Nobody stops you from implementing sender whitelists with email. > Another tool that works decently in a decentralized system is introductions/vouching. This idea boils down to PKI but that's far from perfect due to humans, not tech. We could already absolutely significantly increase mail trustworthiness if we'd use S/MIME en-masse. If postmasters aren't improving mail integrity, end-users could. A few EU countries have deployed certificates to people, but it hasn't reached critical mass to act as an indicator yet.