MIME not only arrived after SMTP (the 'E' in MIME stands for 'extension'); it doesn't infect the SMTP part of the stack. There's nothing in SMTP that would have

MIME not only arrived after SMTP (the 'E' in MIME stands for 'extension'); it doesn't infect the SMTP part of the stack. There's nothing in SMTP that would have to change if MIME was abolished. SMTP provides no special support for MIME. They are disjoint. Since HTTP/1.1, HTTP hasn't been premised on HTML, and vice-versa; again they are disjoint. I don't know why author makes these claims.