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As a greybeard who was using Internet email in the 1980s, I could wave my cane around and claim this newfangled web thing is just a passing fad. Instead, I wil

As a greybeard who was using Internet email in the 1980s, I could wave my cane around and claim this newfangled web thing is just a passing fad. Instead, I will point out that, besides email's asynchronous nature (which others have mentioned here), email's biggest strength is that it is federated and open. (The latter two are also true of the web.) Sure, many people either get their email from or host it on Google / Microsoft / BigInternetCo, but there's nothing stopping anyone from registering a domain, setting up an email server, and actually communicating with the Internet. Try that with Skype / iMessage / Hangouts / Messenger / etc.

rsync 12y ago
Interesting you mention skype. I've been providing my own email since 1998. In the back of my mind the past few years, it's occurred to me that I ought to be providing my own dialtone. It's just a week or so of futzing around with asterisk and bringing a landline into my cabinet, right ?
- isomorphic 12y ago
  Years ago I tried configuring Asterisk and was defeated. Well, not completely defeated as I got it "working," but I couldn't claim to truly understand the configuration. Asterisk's configuration system isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it reminds me of Sendmail, which (if you don't know) is not a polite thing to say. Of course now there are probably glossy Asterisk distros you can run in a VM and configure via WUI. But I'm obstinate enough that I want to understand the text config. There is also FreePBX, but I know nothing about it. Even further off topic, I'd recommend the Obihai boxes as a cheap way to get started. No affiliation, I just have an OBi110. It's about as easy to configure as Asterisk itself. (Why is all this VoIP kit horrible to set up?) However, Obi has a through-the-web quick configuration that will hook it up to Google Voice with no other hardware/software. That alone is worth the price of the box (which occasionally goes on sale). ~US$40 flat and Google Voice gets you free phone calls in the USA.

rsync 12y ago

Interesting you mention skype. I've been providing my own email since 1998. In the back of my mind the past few years, it's occurred to me that I ought to be providing my own dialtone. It's just a week or so of futzing around with asterisk and bringing a landline into my cabinet, right ?

isomorphic 12y ago
Years ago I tried configuring Asterisk and was defeated. Well, not completely defeated as I got it "working," but I couldn't claim to truly understand the configuration. Asterisk's configuration system isn't the worst thing I've seen, but it reminds me of Sendmail, which (if you don't know) is not a polite thing to say. Of course now there are probably glossy Asterisk distros you can run in a VM and configure via WUI. But I'm obstinate enough that I want to understand the text config. There is also FreePBX, but I know nothing about it. Even further off topic, I'd recommend the Obihai boxes as a cheap way to get started. No affiliation, I just have an OBi110. It's about as easy to configure as Asterisk itself. (Why is all this VoIP kit horrible to set up?) However, Obi has a through-the-web quick configuration that will hook it up to Google Voice with no other hardware/software. That alone is worth the price of the box (which occasionally goes on sale). ~US$40 flat and Google Voice gets you free phone calls in the USA.