Ask HN: Prove me wrong: email ain't dying | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Prove me wrong: email ain't dying

20 pointshoodoof19 comments

There seem to be lots of people who think email is dead or dying, being replaced by all sorts of others ways of being in touch.

However, I've seen nothing that indicates that email is really dying at all when it comes to business communications.

The universal standard for being in touch is still an email address.

So if you're a believer that email is dead of dying, what's the evidence? As far as I can tell email is going to remain the primary method of business communication for the foreseeable future.

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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 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.

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 ?

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.

The messaging protocols that are still here from the older days of the Internet are not going anywhere. Email is here to stay. IRC is still going strong. Hell, even Usenet is still kicking. Ignore the FUD.

Email will never (in any reasonable time-frame) die, but the use cases are narrowing. A large percentage of people in their teens and early twenties use email for personal reasons rarely, if at all, preferring other tools like SMS, Facebook messenger, and other social networks. Of course they will still have an email address, and most will check it occasionally for emails from their parents or tuition reminders or whatever. To contact friends though, they'll use other means. This seems odd to many people in their 30s and 40s, given email's ubiquitous, straightforward, and open nature; but, if all your friends are in your facebook contacts and everything is happening on facebook, that will be the most convenient place to send messages. Or for close friends, you'll just text them. What's the point of sending an email that won't get read for hours or days? And what's the point of checking your email regularly if all you get there is spam and bill notices and stuff?

I'm 34 and email is my preferred method of communication. I certainly lament that some people eschew it for closed, proprietary alternatives, but I can understand their reasons for doing so.

"email is dying"

- people that are building social networks for cats

So you're saying that fewer cats are using e-mail?

more cats are using social media.

My cats email spelling is crap. I think his paws slip on the keyboard.

I'd much rather prove you right.

I do think email will change (not just new MUAs but improvements to current protocols for more modern use cases) but it will always remain in some form since it is so basic and universal. Your email address is currently your core online identity and it would take a major shift to change that. That alone fortifies email's position psychologically.

I see four main uses for email: 1) communication within a business, 2) communication between businesses, 3) social communication between individuals, and 4) communication between businesses and individuals. Groupware solutions/messaging/etc have tried to replace email for #1 for some time but email is still needed alongside it for communication with the outside world (#2, #4) and because a lot of enterprise software relies on email for their workflows. Social networks have made huge inroads in replacing email for individual to individual communications but their adoption is still not yet universal. I've also personally seen many people default to email after using a social network as an address book-- maybe email is just a more personal method since there is a stronger sense of owning the messages? Or maybe it's easier to check email than keep up to date on several social networks. Finally, as an individual interacting with a business (legit marketing, but also order confirmations, other notifications, etc.) email still is preferred since it is so universal and won't require leaning on another business for them to conduct their own business.

I'd be interested to know if others have a similar taxonomy or if they are aware of better, non-email solutions that can simultaneously cover more of those use cases.

Email is different from other communication tools such as Skype where email is fully asynchronous. I think no other tools now are able to replace email regarding this property.

Doesn't SMS have that property ?

I hate it, and I hate that people use SMS instead of email, but isn't it fully asynchronous ?

It just can't, email is like a part of one self. It may go in the more secure direction with some privacy under the hood, like HTTPS is for HTTP.

It's definitely "dead of dying" - most businesses I know are primarily communicating through pinterest or snapchat.

Serious question: are you joking or is this a serious comment? I can't imagine a company deciding that moving to pinterest or snapchat would be a more efficient method of communication.

I've seen Facebook used for code management. Thankfully not at a business, but still.

Joking :)

There's a difference between being "The universal standard for being in touch" and being the primary tool for business communications. Yes, email is not dying for inter-business communications (intra-business is a different story, slack et al).

But as "The universal standard for being in touch" it's definitely dead. I don't even know emails of most of my friends nowadays.

It will die when the crucial percentage of people using it does.

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