[asciident]

I'm generally wary of suggestions to overhaul a working long-lasting sociotechnical system. Everything that has been around for decades is patches on patches.

The the world wide web, ipv4, IRC, the US constitution, the telephone system, email, were all developed in older times, and as times change, they develop flaws which need (ugly) patches. That's a sign that they're successful, that no one company has come and replaced it and then killed it when things got inconvenient.

Think about the opposite situations: Google Groups replaced Usenet, and now it's completely dead; Google Reader took a lot of marketshare from RSS and almost killed it when they shut it down.

So let's not hastily destroy the only online communication system we have left, that's not controlled by a mega tech company.

[GekkePrutser]

I agree normally, but in this case email is just not fit for the original purpose anymore. It's undermining its own relevance in today's world. We don't trust it anymore and its key aspects like decentralisation are being undermined.

Personally I think google groups was not a replacement as such, more an extension of usenet. Usenet also had some very serious problems that made it hard to maintain and more specialised discussion fora took over. I don't think it was google groups as such, that was more one of the many ways to interface with usenet.

I'm absolutely not advocating replacing it with something a mega tech company has their hands in though! Any replacement should be decentalised. I would love to see an email replacement tech along the lines of what Matrix is doing for the chat world.