[19eightyfour]

What people don't realize is that the invisible "lock in" cost of email is all the existing infrastructure. More specifically, it represents the cost of moving away from that infrastructure. SMTP, POP, IMAP, all the servers and protocols, not to mention all the software integrations ( for all kinds of apps and OSes ) with email.

Unlike something like FB, or Google, that grew up building out their defensible data assets and infrastructure from a for-profit perspective, email infrastructure has been baked into the internet since before the web ever existed.

It's not the whole picture, but try replicating the functionality of email with "something better" without replicating the whole infrastructural advantage it has? Good luck.