[thayne]

1. GPG has a lot of problems. Perhaps the biggest of which is that there isn't a critical mass of people who use it, and it is pretty difficult to us at all, much less to use correctly.

2. I have tried several MUAs and haven't found one that IMHO "doesn't suck." Although search isn't always the problem. (The biggest problem I've run into is actually getting them to work with logging in using an SSO method like SAML or OIDC). And this point was specifically in response to the parents statment that "Had IMAP addressed search in a better way, I think it would have made a huge difference."

3. Not sure what you mean by that since email _is_ decentralized and federated. Meaning, if you use gmail as your email provider you can still send messages to people using a different email provider. As opposed to say something like Signal or Whatsapp, where you can only message people using the same service as you.

4. Well, some subset of html has become the de facto standard for rich text in emails. Although what subset that is depends on the client...

6. Different issue from what? It is a very real complaint I have with email. Changing your email address is a pretty big pain, possibly more so than changing your physical address or phone number. For many people, myself included, the thought of having to change my email address is a pretty good motivation for staying with the service I currently use. Now it is possible to use your own domain with many email providers. But doing so is beyond the technical skills of most people, and costs more for essentially insurance in case you stop liking your current email provider some time in the future. Unfortunately, I don't know of a good solution for this. At least not one that is scalable.