3 ms·

... yup, email was a total failure.

OccamsMirror 3y ago
Do you think email would be a success if it was invented now?
anigbrowl 3y ago
Email succeeded because there wasn't anything better, and of course it's become baroque in the meantime as the need for security and other features have been added. What worked 50 years is not going to work today just because it's technically similar, the environment has changed and it's foolish to ignore that.
- boudin 3y ago
  There is still no replacement for email though. It still very much work today and is the only solution to send message over the Internet, regardless of the person you want to reach. Non federated networks will never reach the adoption of email.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    You're missing the point; it did indeed succeed and is now embedded in our digital infrastructure because it got there first. But it does not follow that launching something else today using the same model will be able to get the same uptake, because there are many competing offerings.
    - boudin 3y ago
      I don't see many competing offering. I can think of XMPP, Matrix, I'm sure there are a few others but it's definitely not many. You're right that the environment changed, but not for the best. Many people would jump on a federated messaging network, not because it's federated but because they won't need to use dozens of app and accounts to communicate. It is more the business incentives that are not there. Email surely has succeeded because SMTP was the de-facto communication protocol when Internet developed, but it is still successful and relevant because it is still the de-facto communication protocol.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Yes you do, you just aren't acknowledging them: centralized services like Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. You are thinking of 'competing distributed technologies' but consumers are thinking of 'way to communicate with people' because most consumers do not care how the underlying technology works or what philosophical principles it is based on. First movers in a market or technology space have an advantage because the costs of switching to something else rise over time, creating economic inelasticity. Go read up on preferential attachment and consider the fact that success is accidental or lucky as much as merit-based.
Hamuko 3y ago
From a federation standpoint, it arguably is. If you try to host your own private email server from your garage, you're going to struggle with the big email providers not accepting your emails in fears of spam. And trying to debug your way around this is extremely tricky because the email filters are black boxes, again in fear of spam. I wouldn't be surprised if Mastodon also went the distrust-by-default route if it gains in popularity, at least for the big instances. Looking at the server moderation for mastodon.social, there's 256 different Mastodon instances which are completely blocked from reaching mastodon.social.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  I've been running my own email server for myself and a dozen or so friends since 1998. It hasn't been a problem. I had to evolve it over time and set up DKIM and DMARC. Spamassassin, greylisting, etc have helped me cut down on my incoming spam. It hasn't been a ton of work, maybe a day or two a year to deal with a new version of whatever that needs to some config changes. I've been running my own mastodon instance for me and a few friends as well. It's been fine, we federate fine, no bans that I know of, no reports about my users. I think more smaller instances is probably better for the health of the network than a few huge instances. Especially if those instances are free to users. Large instances need more moderation than a couple of admins can handle, I am concerned that instances like msdn.social or whatever may not be sustainable from both a 'actual costs' standpoint (bandwidth, hardware, etc) but also from a moderation standpoint. In terms of my instance, the costs are very low, the mastodon software itself is frankly kind of painful to maintain, it's designed to run in a way that is scalable but that makes it a bit too complicated for a smaller instance.. I hope we see some more interesting experiments in moderation, tools like spamassassin for mastodon to automatically score and flag local posts for moderation review. It's early days. I think we may just end up with what we see in email like the blackhole list. Have an instance full of nazis you refuse to moderate, your instance ends up on the list and everyone who subscribes to it will just defederate automatically.

Do you think email would be a success if it was invented now?

Email succeeded because there wasn't anything better, and of course it's become baroque in the meantime as the need for security and other features have been added. What worked 50 years is not going to work today just because it's technically similar, the environment has changed and it's foolish to ignore that.

boudin 3y ago
There is still no replacement for email though. It still very much work today and is the only solution to send message over the Internet, regardless of the person you want to reach. Non federated networks will never reach the adoption of email.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  You're missing the point; it did indeed succeed and is now embedded in our digital infrastructure because it got there first. But it does not follow that launching something else today using the same model will be able to get the same uptake, because there are many competing offerings.
  - boudin 3y ago
    I don't see many competing offering. I can think of XMPP, Matrix, I'm sure there are a few others but it's definitely not many. You're right that the environment changed, but not for the best. Many people would jump on a federated messaging network, not because it's federated but because they won't need to use dozens of app and accounts to communicate. It is more the business incentives that are not there. Email surely has succeeded because SMTP was the de-facto communication protocol when Internet developed, but it is still successful and relevant because it is still the de-facto communication protocol.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Yes you do, you just aren't acknowledging them: centralized services like Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. You are thinking of 'competing distributed technologies' but consumers are thinking of 'way to communicate with people' because most consumers do not care how the underlying technology works or what philosophical principles it is based on. First movers in a market or technology space have an advantage because the costs of switching to something else rise over time, creating economic inelasticity. Go read up on preferential attachment and consider the fact that success is accidental or lucky as much as merit-based.

Hamuko 3y ago

From a federation standpoint, it arguably is. If you try to host your own private email server from your garage, you're going to struggle with the big email providers not accepting your emails in fears of spam. And trying to debug your way around this is extremely tricky because the email filters are black boxes, again in fear of spam. I wouldn't be surprised if Mastodon also went the distrust-by-default route if it gains in popularity, at least for the big instances. Looking at the server moderation for mastodon.social, there's 256 different Mastodon instances which are completely blocked from reaching mastodon.social.

sleepybrett 3y ago
I've been running my own email server for myself and a dozen or so friends since 1998. It hasn't been a problem. I had to evolve it over time and set up DKIM and DMARC. Spamassassin, greylisting, etc have helped me cut down on my incoming spam. It hasn't been a ton of work, maybe a day or two a year to deal with a new version of whatever that needs to some config changes. I've been running my own mastodon instance for me and a few friends as well. It's been fine, we federate fine, no bans that I know of, no reports about my users. I think more smaller instances is probably better for the health of the network than a few huge instances. Especially if those instances are free to users. Large instances need more moderation than a couple of admins can handle, I am concerned that instances like msdn.social or whatever may not be sustainable from both a 'actual costs' standpoint (bandwidth, hardware, etc) but also from a moderation standpoint. In terms of my instance, the costs are very low, the mastodon software itself is frankly kind of painful to maintain, it's designed to run in a way that is scalable but that makes it a bit too complicated for a smaller instance.. I hope we see some more interesting experiments in moderation, tools like spamassassin for mastodon to automatically score and flag local posts for moderation review. It's early days. I think we may just end up with what we see in email like the blackhole list. Have an instance full of nazis you refuse to moderate, your instance ends up on the list and everyone who subscribes to it will just defederate automatically.