Reader Tyler Mercer writes in with a link to a nice essay from Terry Godier about the underlying systems of the internet.
The reason your mee-maw and your bank and your boss can all reach you at the same email address is that the protocol that made it possible was published more than forty years ago, and the people who published it did not successfully capture it inside of one company.
There is a lot of different reasons I like email, and I admit “the protocol” isn’t one I generally trot out as one of them. But in terms of importance, it’s near the top. If some new amazing communication tool came along that nailed the UI and UX above and beyond email, if it wasn’t built on open protocols supported widely, it’s not going to unseat email. This has been done over and over. Slack is touted as the great email replacement, and acts as that for many people. Until you lose that job, then it’s useless. Until you don’t like what that company is doing you either have to swallow your morals or be left out. Until Slack goes out of business. Replace “Slack” with “whatever other thing you think is better than email”.
I remember folks who thought Twitter DMs were a nail in the coffin of email. Lolz.
What I don’t really know is if anyone is working on a replacement open protocol (or evolution) of the emails ones (SMTP, IMAP, POP3, DMARC, etc).
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