On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 06:08:37PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 01:09:12PM +0100, Sam Kuper wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 09, 2020 at 09:32:01AM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: >>> On Wed, Apr 08, 2020 at 01:17:12PM +0100, Sam Kuper wrote: >>>> On Tue, Apr 07, 2020 at 09:23:34PM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: >>>>> Sorry, but this is an archaic way of looking at the problem. >>>>> People have been doing this for decades now, has become the norm, >>>>> common practice, and really it is therefore WE who are being >>>>> inconsiderate by not accepting de facto standards that have been >>>>> widely adopted for a very long time. >>>> >>>> I disagree. You have made a "roads were built for cars" argument*: >>>> it assumes that today's "de facto standard" trumps historical >>>> precedent and considerate behaviour. > > And by the way, I ignored this point originally, but doesn't it?
No, it doesn't. Inconsiderate behaviour is by definition inconsiderate. Likewise, the fact that something is currently popular does not make it good. It is better to be considerate of others, and to evaluate the merits of one's proposed approach, before acting. > Even in the case of cars, which you can argue have had deleterious > effects on society (but I think there's plenty of support for the > counter-argument), we got to where we got to because it was what most > people wanted. Technological evolution is about as democratic as it > gets... I disagree. Consumption is ultimately constrained by the choices available to consumers. If a region's developers and government planners, etc, space houses far apart and provide negligible public transport or cycling infrastructure but plentiful cars and car-oriented infrastructure, cars will predominate there because the region's consumers are hampered in pursuing other choices. For example, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Revised_petrol_use_urban_density.jpg or https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/entrepreneurship-and-the-american-automobile-industry/127DE4B6237E8510ED8501D65DB6C973 Propaganda (e.g. advertising) also has an effect. Technological evolution is no more democratic than is a gerrymandered district rife with vote suppression and dubious publicity. > You can assert that a different solution is better, and your argument > might be correct on technical merit, but if most people don't agree > your correctness is irrelevant; you still lose. If most people dismiss an argument that is technically correct, then we very likely *all* suffer. That suffering is not the fault of the people who back the technically correct argument; it is the fault of the people who dismiss it. > Just ask BetaMax. That's a quagmire of a topic! It's also not relevant here. Betamax machines couldn't generally play or record VHS tapes and vice versa: "Customers had to choose between the two as tapes and machines were not compatible between the two standards," per https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp0720.pdf By contrast, non-GUI MUAs *can* often render at least some parts of HTML emails, and GUI MUAs *can* render plain text emails. It's also not clear that Betamax was "better" than VHS, as you seem to imply. Betamax's primary advantage over VHS seems only to have been Betamax's smaller cassette size. Betamax was *worse* than VHS in terms of recording time: - Early Betamax tapes could only record 1 hour whereas VHS could record 2 hours at similar quality. So of the two, only VHS tapes could be used for (typically 90-120 minute) movies. - Early Betamax tapes could only record 2 hour whereas VHS could record 4 hours at similar quality. So of the two, only VHS tapes could be used for (typically 3-hour) NFL games and other lengthy events. Betamax camcorders ("Betamovie") were *worse* than VHS ones insofar as they could only record tapes, not play them back, whereas VHS camcorders could do both. These factors were compounded by Sony's reluctance (and high fees) to license Betamax so that other manufacturers could profit or innovate within the format, or even simply rebrand Sony products. I.e. unlike email, Betamax technologies were not open standards that anyone could implement. (VHS was much more widely licensed, and therefore more widely implemented, than Betamax.) All of the foregoing means that equating text email with Betamax and "rendered" (for want of a better word) email with VHS, just seems too much of a leap to be historically or technologically meaningful. In any case, Betamax and VHS (and derivations thereof) both survived for about the same duration: their products were manufactured in some form from ~1975 (Betamax) or ~1976 (VHS) until at least the 2010s. Betamax and derived technologies captured a large share of the professional video market in the 1980s; VHS the home market. So, even the idea that there was a clear winner *overall* (rather than just in the home market) seems moot. My sources include: - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3299610 ("Arthur (1988) argues that VHS won over Beta despite Beta's technical superiority. The actual superiority of the Beta picture is, however, in dispute (Cusumano, Mylonadis, and Rosenbloom 1992; Klopfenstein 1989). ... [Two] factors were necessary for VHS to win. One was VHS's longer tape playtime relative to Beta, which enabled pre-recorded tapes earlier. The second was OEM production.") - https://wiki.epfl.ch/sony/documents/doc/case%20analysis%20betamax%20final.pdf ("By asking 100$ more per device for licensing Betamax than JVC did for VHS, Sony prevented themselves from having partners that helped to flood the market. Sony should have focused more on gaining market share than on making profit. Introducing Betamax 2, which wasn't compatible with Betamax destroyed all advantages of having a market share with Betamax. The introduction of new products that compete with own products should be evolutionary and by no means revolutionary" - https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/17091/JP-WP-91-08-23715224.pdf ("RCA had given 200 of its own VCRs to U.S. customers in a market test during early 1974 and concluded that a minimum 2-hour playing time was necessary for commercial success. RCA executives knew from the Betamax demonstration that their efforts to develop VCR technology had been far surpassed by the innovative Japanese, and they terminated their own program. But they decided to wait for further progress in the technology, especially for longer playing times, before committing to market a particular VCR. ... Another issue is whether the market performance of VHS resulted from differentiating features, prices, or quality. A comparison of models introduced during 1975-1985 by Sony, Japan Victor, and Matsushita, the major home VCR producers, indicates some differences in all three dimensions. In general, however, at no time did either format establish more than a transient advantage in features, prices, or picture quality. ... A large part of the VHS advantage came from the sheer ability to deliver more machines than Beta producers could make early on in the competition. As early as 1978, because of Matsushita's massive capacity, the VHS group accounted for approximately 66% of Japanese VCR production capacity totalling 191,000 units per month.") - https://personal.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/paths.html ("The only real technical difference between Beta and VHS was the manner in which the tape was threaded and, more importantly, the size of the cassette. A larger cassette allowed more tape to be used, and for any given speed of tape, this implied a greater recording time. For any given recording technique, slowing the tape increases recording time, but it also decreases picture quality. Because of its larger size cassette, VHS could always have an advantageous combination of picture quality and playing time. Otherwise, the differences between Beta and VHS were fairly trivial, from a technical point of view, although both of these formats were clearly superior to many of the alternatives. ... The different choices of cassette size were based on a different perception of consumer desires: Sony believed that a paperback sized cassette, allowing easy transportability (although limiting recording time to 1 hour), was paramount to the consumer, whereas Matsushita, responding to the failure of its "Autovision" machine, believed that a 2 hour recording time, allowing the taping of complete movies, was essential. This difference was to prove crucial. Sony, in an attempt to solidify its dominance of the US market, which it had virtually monopolized for almost two years, allowed its Beta machines to be sold under Zenith's brand name (Zenith being one of the major US television manufacturers). To counter this move, Matsushita set up a meeting with RCA to discuss a similar arrangement. RCA had previously concluded and publicly stated that a two-hour recording time was essential for a successful home video recorder. By the time the meeting took place, however, Sony had announced a two-hour Betamax, Beta II. RCA proposed to Matsushita that it produce a machine that could record a football game, which implied a 3 hour recording time. Six weeks later Matsushita had a working four-hour machine which used the same techniques to increase recording time that Sony had used in the Beta II. ... Although Sony was able to recruit Toshiba and Sanyo to the Beta format, Matsushita was able to bring Hitachi, Sharp, and Mitsubishi into its camp. Any improvement in one format was soon followed by a similar improvement in the other format. The similarities in the two machines made it unlikely that one format would be able to deliver a technological knockout punch. Similarly, when one group lowered its price, the other soon followed. The two formats proved equally matched in almost all respects save one: VHS's longer playing times. When Beta went to two hours, VHS went to four. When Beta increased to 5 hours, VHS increased to 8. ... Klopfenstein (1989: 28) summarizes...: Although many held the perception that the Beta VCR produced a better picture than VHS, technical experts such as Weinstein (1984) and Prentis (1981) have concluded that this was, in fact, not the case; periodic reviews in Consumers Reports found VHS picture quality superior twice, found Beta superior once, and found no difference in a fourth review. In conclusion, the Beta format appeared to hold no advantages over VHS other than being the first on the market, and this may be a lesson for future marketers of new media products.") >>>> I've nothing against people sending emails with multiple >>>> attachments. But expecting the recipient's MUA to parse multiple >>>> attachments into some kind of combined document is presumptuous, >>>> because clearly not everyone's MUA does this. >>> >>> There's a HUUUUUGE difference. Roads existed for millenia before >>> cars. >> >> The timescale isn't the point. My analogy refers only to your >> argument that today's "de facto standard" trumps historical precedent >> and considerate behaviour. In this respect, the analogy is accurate. > > If you're talking about historical precedence then time scale very > much is the point. If your historical precedent was 5 minutes old > that doesn't make for a compelling argument. If your time scale > includes a period when something was not in widespread use, and then > suddently it was, that too seems pretty uncompelling. I feel you are engaging with a sideshow, in an attempt to distract from the force of the analogy. Incidentally, the roads that existed before bicycles? They were used for transportation by foot, or by horse. As long as the people or horses involved are not abused, and the infrastructure is used considerately (and adequate sanitation is available, e.g. street-sweepers to clean up after the horses), I've no objection to either of those forms of transport. I.e. the fundamental point is that people should be considerate towards other people, including towards pre-existing users of a shared infrastructure. > But even so, you're basically saying, "It was this way, and so it must > always be; no evolution of technology should be permitted." No. That is not my position, and I have made no such assertion. >> I *disagree* that by the mid 90s, most GUI MUAs could handle this. > > I may be off by a few years, and it's fairly difficult to collect data > about what e-mail clients supported what features when, but I > certainly recall getting tons of complaints about it by the time I was > in my first sysadmin job where I also had to do desktop support, which > was in 1997. > > It doesn't really matter. This seems inconsistent on at least two separate fronts. 1. You claim that GUI MUAs could handle such email by some point in time. But then you note that you received "tons of [desktop support] complaints" about such email shortly after that time! Clearly, then, you were mistaken to imply that such email was unproblematic during that period. 2. You said earlier that "If you're talking about historical precedence then time scale very much is the point." But then you said, "I may be off by a few years ... It doesn't really matter." Clearly, you can't have it both ways. > The point is by now, the feature has been available in the vast > majority of major e-mail clients for a very long time, and is in > widespread use. You can rail against technological evolution if you > like, but that doesn't help people get work done. All I'm after is to > not have to fight with my tools to get them to show me what everyone > else around me can see effortlessly. By "effortlessly", you seem to mean, "at substantial risk to their privacy and security". We've been over this already in this thread. "Evolutions" in technology that reduce people's privacy and security should not be lauded: they should be criticised and avoided wherever practical. Nor should they be considered inevitable: they are not. > At that particular thing, Mutt sucks quite a lot. I'm glad that Mutt helps to minimise its users' exposure to malicious content. > I used to be one of the people who argued vehemently against > non-plaintext e-mail. But over time, the arguments against it have > largely become moot for most people, and the fact is it IS better, > because of its ability to more efficiently (in terms of what is > visually rendered, not necessarily in how it is encoded) present other > kinds of information besides simple unformatted plain text. Non-plain text email is *not* objectively better. It has numerous significant problems (privacy, security, compatibility, complexit), as already indicated in this thread. > Me personally, I just want the ability to render italics, to represent > emphasis. IIRC, some GUI MUAs quite sensibly add emphasis, e.g. using asterisks like *this*, to the relevant plain text parts of the multi-part emails that they send, if the sender used italics when composing the email. IMO, a MUA that allows senders to add emphasis in the rich text part, but does not somehow translate that emphasis into the plain text part, is arguably broken: it has failed to convey the sender's message intact to the recipient. > And to be able to read what my boss sent me... whatever it might be. Even if it contains tracking beacons or other forms of spyware/malware? If so, that sounds like being unhealthily in thrall to your boss :( -- A: When it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: When is top-posting a bad thing? () ASCII ribbon campaign. Please avoid HTML emails & proprietary /\ file formats. (Why? See e.g. https://v.gd/jrmGbS ). Thank you.
