It's Time to Give Up on Email • Hacker News Board

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#31

Post by GoblinSlayer » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:04 PM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #20

esperent wrote: post #18

Over the past two years I've been working on a business in Vietnam and one of the (many) frustrating things I've had to adjust to is that other businesses don't respond to email here. It's my automatic response when I need information from a business to check their website for the email address and shoot them a quick email. What happens in Vietnam when I do this: silence... Unless the business happens to be run or ma…

It's because in many developing countries, phones are their only computers. They don't have a laptop. Therefore, quick messages is the preferred way over writing formal, formatted, long emails.

I wrote short emails. Am I doing it wrong?

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#32

Post by GoblinSlayer » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:11 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #7

stonogo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What commentary would that be? What irony is on display here? Everything in this article applies to literally every communications media available on the internet. As group discourse moves across protocols and platforms, the same problems occur. I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between "plonk" and "lol blocked".

Right, but Usenet died.

And now we have walled gardens and monopolies abusing people to death.

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#33

Post by GoblinSlayer » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:24 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #10

hooverd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? I just can't think of another technology that facilitates the async behavior of email messages. I know some businesses just use WhatsApp but I don't love it. Maybe we would mandate everyone uses Microsoft Teams.

I talk to friends on Slack, Messenger, Signal, and WhatsApp. I virtually never talk to someone I actually know on email, a trend that started in ~2014 when I discovered Slack. I do still use email! But only for transactional stuff, like FOIA requests or scheduling local government meetings.

Is it an improvement to have a whole new vendor locked litigious monopolistic Electron technology stack to communicate with yet another person?

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#34

Post by aurareturn » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #31

aurareturn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because in many developing countries, phones are their only computers. They don't have a laptop. Therefore, quick messages is the preferred way over writing formal, formatted, long emails.

I wrote short emails. Am I doing it wrong?

Yes. In Vietnam.

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#35

Post by tptacek » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #33

tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk to friends on Slack, Messenger, Signal, and WhatsApp. I virtually never talk to someone I actually know on email, a trend that started in ~2014 when I discovered Slack. I do still use email! But only for transactional stuff, like FOIA requests or scheduling local government meetings.

Is it an improvement to have a whole new vendor locked litigious monopolistic Electron technology stack to communicate with yet another person?

I haven't thought much about it, because my revealed preference (and those of so many people I talk to) is so extraordinarily clear.

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#36

Post by tptacek » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #32

tptacek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but Usenet died.

And now we have walled gardens and monopolies abusing people to death.

To death, you say!

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#37

Post by hulitu » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #8

hooverd wrote: post #6

Don't use email... use [BLANK] instead?

Literally anything else. Email is a means to an end. Do you use email today as much as you did 10 years ago? Most people would say "no".

Yes. Email you can archive it. Chat messages, not so easy.

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#38

Post by hulitu » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #10

hooverd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? I just can't think of another technology that facilitates the async behavior of email messages. I know some businesses just use WhatsApp but I don't love it. Maybe we would mandate everyone uses Microsoft Teams.

I talk to friends on Slack, Messenger, Signal, and WhatsApp. I virtually never talk to someone I actually know on email, a trend that started in ~2014 when I discovered Slack. I do still use email! But only for transactional stuff, like FOIA requests or scheduling local government meetings.

Need to ask for something ? Email. Need a new job ? Email. Need talk to friends ? Whatsapp.

Re: It's Time to Give Up on Email

#39

Post by esperent » Fri, Mar 08, 2024, 12:04 AM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #25

esperent wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because in many developing countries, phones are their only computers Do you really think that people who work in offices in developing countries don't have computers? For sure there are many people here for whom their phone is their only computer. But those are not the people I am emailing. Besides, for it's development level, Vietnam is a well educated and fairly high tech country, especially in the cities.…

Well, how else can you explain why you don't get replies via email in Vietnam and most businesses prefer to use chat? Why don't you take a crack at explaining it.

It's because they still use Zalo and FB Messenger on their laptops, not because they don't have laptops.