Ask HN: What do you use email for?

I think it's safe to say that email as a concept is pretty much broken. You're fighting spam. There's no true privacy between correspondents, not even with PGP. It's used everywhere as an identification token. Some people still even use it to exchange files.

There's no easy fix because it's next to impossible to retain backwards compatibility. So it got me thinking: what use case would you actually carry over if you were to replace it by redesigning it from the ground up and everyone got on board in an instant?

I took a peek at my inboxes and my correspondence (if you want to call it that, because let's face it: most of it is pretty one-sided) mostly falls into three categories:

  * Newsletters I was signed up for involuntarily by signing up to a website

  * Newsletters I actually signed up for

  * Commercial correspondence (e.g. insurance, bank, landlord)

The last one surely could use some privacy that scales. But the first two? Is that really what email was intended for? In the 90s you stayed in touch with friends and family. But that's been replaced by instant messaging platforms.

I'm curious what your opinions are.