> removing members of our connection circles
Does it really? Whatever happened to just a friendly weekly email?
Does it really? Whatever happened to just a friendly weekly email?
Man I'd love it if I could communicate socially via email, nobody I know would go for it
I'll make a point to give it a go :)
The issue with email is partly a slight inconvenience. Unless you input large content, the UX time overhead is significant enough to prefer IM. EMails has not been designed for frequent back and forth on the same thread even if occasional. From there you loose most people. Email hasn't changed much, from the time we barely had Internet connections, the burden to find a connected client was enough to forgive the UX issue.
Enter email address, autocomplete, type text, click send is enough a deterent for most of us to favor a chat window, type and press enter. And scroll up to see what was communicated prior. Got an image or audio? Drop it in, press enter. You can even record a quick audio message and boom, sent. Email client and protocol simply don't support that. At best you get addons which aren't necessarily supported on the other side.
Openness is the solution, but email protocol doesn't have what is needed for current needs of communication. Corporates building these tools now have the network effect, keeping the crowd in their walled gardens.
For me, the point of SM is burnable bridges. It's a place to take risks and later apply the lessons to meatspace. In spite of that, I've cultivated many lasting online relationships but I can't see myself ever meeting any of them in person.
(I have one friend I send mails to occasionally, though)
Efficiencies and user experience are better for more users on social media than email, despite it's obvious flaws.
Did regional steel mills _have_ to replace local blacksmiths? No, but they did.
The problem sadly isn't tech related. It's education. Corporates will market to the masses who are mostly tech ignorant, if not politically and economically ignorant too. So even with alternatives, the power of commercial communication is greater than what non profit are able to afford.
We will have to wait for people to suffer further and further, more will open their eyes to it, until radical resistance settles in people's limbic systems. We are getting close I think, I hope.