[moray]

I get a photographer, video maker or someone working in fashion (I am sure there are other cases, I know those) using facebook or <x social tool> for business communication because it is trendy or it is more convenient, but preferring it to emails?

There is obviously a problem here, there is so much talk about privacy and confidentiality and then you give all your communication in the hands of one company.

What I am trying to say is that there is a fundamental technical difference between emails and <faceslaktter>: The first is based on a distributed, well defined (RFCs??), open protocols and formats. The second? It is an application, running on the premises of some company...

[lj3]

Do you even read the posts you're replying to? Nowhere did I say I preferred closed platforms to email. I don't. I used the word "battle" in my previous comment for a reason. You're preaching to the choir.

> I get a photographer, video maker or someone working in fashion (I am sure there are other cases, I know those) using facebook or <x social tool> for business communication because it is trendy or it is more convenient

You know that's 99% of the world, right? You just described everybody but people who work in tech. How am I supposed to communicate with people who don't check their email?

> The first is based on a distributed, well defined (RFCs??), open protocols and formats.

Insecure open protocols and buggy formats. You know all emails travel in the open air, right? This was the primary reason I suggested we replace it, with a system that is secure, easy to use and that people can control.

[moray]

I do read posts, and I wrongly implied you end up preferring other means to email because people don't answer to emails, sorry about that, but let me expand on my thoughts.

I get that too, people not replying, but I don't think this is only a technical problem unfortunately. With IM systems where you easily get notifications on your phone you have more chance to get a faster response, also when receiving large amounts of emails one tends to skip many of them.. frustrating, for the sender, but that happens to me too from time to time.

I do work in tech though, also in academia, and email is still the first choice (well, from my experience, also I am in Europe.. maybe this counts?)

As for the technical aspect, SMTP and mail transfer protocols are part of a distributed system, and a distributed system must be open, this of course leads to the SPAM issue, but after what, more than 30 years? we have a couple of strong server side implementations that work well. And let's not forget TLS... emails travel in the "open air" as every other protocol that does not use encryption.

I agree that a redesign would be helpful to eliminate some basic issues we still have with emails, but it looks like that at the moment most are busy inventing new proprietary protocols for new way to chat and send emoji around...