What people like or hate about email


Lars Wirzenius rounded up some responses to an ask about what people like and dislike about email. Here’s the full list, but I’ll pluck off a few:

Likes

  • It’s not real time
  • It’s established
  • Separation between discussions
  • Subject lines

Dislikes

  • Unreliable (no strong guarantee reciept gets it)
  • Spam
  • Quoting, specifically top-quoting
  • Organization is difficult

I think the whole list is fair, but the lists of strengths are really strong, and the list of dislikes feels solvable and not a problem for many/most. For example, I don’t really get much spam. I don’t have a problem searching. I don’t have a problem with deliverability. Email ain’t perfect, but it’s overwhelmingly good.


One response to “What people like or hate about email”

  1. personally, I hate subject lines because I never know what to put there, for example do I just write “request” or “request for this and that”, “document” “here is the document you just told me, in person, to send to you”

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: