[zaphar]

Email's federation is an escape hatch. It's presence means that I can go to any provider I want to if I'm dissatisfied with my current provider. I can even run my own as a last resort. (Or first resort if that's your preferred mode of operation). Until that escape hatch disappears, which is unlikely, I will always have choice of providers.

I don't have whatsapp, or discord for that matter. I have slack for work but I don't use it externally. I will probably never have those systems for my personal communication which means that if a company wants to communicate to me they are going to have to use email, full stop. I think there is a large barrier to email ever going away. Removing it from the market would require coordination that most companies and providers will probably never want to engage in. It's a lowest common denominator that all of them will want to support to avoid their users getting silo'd into a system that is not theirs.