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by wpietri 3030 days ago
I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. I love email and I'm sure I'll be using it in the retirement home. But it is not very popular among the youth:

https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/email-is-dying-among-mobil...

And there's good reason for that. Email is basically the electronic equivalent of postal mail, a first pass at digital communication that aped the old medium. But the first email RFC was 35 years ago. MIME is more than 20 years old, and that's the last major capability improvement.

From the point of view of a teen who grew up on Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter, email is weird, old, and feature-deficient. They think of email in the way that I think of paper mail (mainly for formal and commercial use, not really for friends, somewhat quaint), or possibly how I think of a fax machine (quirky, obsolete, use only when forced).
2 comments
dullgiulio 3030 days ago
E-mail is not preferred by the youth until they use it at work. Then it is a godsend that you can only ignore it and reply when you have time.

We have been chatting since we have had networks. Believe me, e-mail is here to stay.

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nasredin 3029 days ago
Maybe we could do something about voicemail then?

ducks

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dullgiulio 3029 days ago
What do you mean? Voicemail was never successful and the reason is simple: verba volant, scripta manent, spoken flies, written remains.
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wpietri 3029 days ago
Voicemail was very popular in the US for an extended period. Email becoming popular helped reduce that; so, later, did texting, especially once we got past the T9 keyboard.
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ajeet_dhaliwal 3029 days ago
The only people who leave me voice messages in 2018 are unsolicited job ‘recruiters’ here in London. It’s guranteed when I have a voice mail it’s them, like it’s 1998.
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dvdgsng 3030 days ago
I'm currently in a country where access to social network sites like facebook, instagramm & twitter is being blocked for two days due to political issues (Sri Lanka). One fellow travel (21yo) does not know how to reach out to any of his friends and family besides using facebook & whatsapp. Sadly, he didn't even think of using email to reach out, even though everyone has one. Can't blame him for not knowing about VPN and TOR. So, reality is that we're (still) living in times when a simple, reliable and independent service like email does have it's advantages and can be very useful from time to time, esp when travelling or when politics change.
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