It appears that Scott Mutter via mailop <mailopl...@amssupport.info> said: >Email - as we know it - should have been dead years ago. But instead we >keep adding band-aid after band-aid after band-aid to the system. > >Why is it impossible to take a look at what Instant Messaging protocols, >SMTP, SMS do that make them successful and then blend those together into a >new "email-like" system?
People have been making this exact argument for at least 30 years. Mail is awful, mail is obsolete, we should use something better. Then we keep using mail. Internet e-mail combines an unusual set of characteristics: * Anyone can write to anyone else without prearrangement * Open spec with many implentations that interoperate * No central control point (other than I suppose ICANN but they don't control much) * Store-and-forward so sender and recipient don't have to be online at the same time * You can send large or small messages * You can send attached files of many kinds I think that if you try and find a replacement for mail that can do all of the key things that mail can do, you will end up with something a whole lot like what we have now. There are a bunch of what I call Well Known Bad Ideas. For example, some people imagine they can fix the spam problem by requiring an introduction before someone can send you mail, but the introduction problem is if anything harder than the spam problem. Or if your system has only one implementation, or one place to switch messages (that's Signal) some things become easier, but it doesn't scale, or you run into political problems when the people who control the bottleneck have policies that some users don't like. If you can come up with somethng better than mail, great, but I'm not holding my breath. R's, John _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://list.mailop.org/listinfo/mailop
