[netdog]

I think part of the problem is that many, if not most people using email don't have a good understanding of what email is and is not.

Email is not a reliable messaging system. It gives enough of an appearance of reliability that most people using it think it is reliable. But if you have ever had a very important message disappear into a black hole with no notification, you learn not to treat email as reliable.

Email is not private. But most people do not realize this, and act as if it is. The quantity of proprietary business information and very private personal information transmitted by email is astounding. Governments can, and many do, slurp all email messages. Email "providers" such as ISPs, Google, Yahoo, et al have all your emails, even those you think you may have deleted. PGP/GPG are attempts to add a privacy layer, but have failed because they are too difficult for almost everyone.

Email is useful, for what it was intended for. If you expect it to be something it was not designed to be, then of course you might think "email is broken".

Today there is a need for a reliable and private global messaging system. SMTP is not such a system, but it is still used as one because it's "good enough" and so widespread that nothing better has been able to displace it.