Earlier quoted context omitted.
My opinionated 2¢ on why e-mails will live while many an "e-mail killer" dies mourned by no one. E-mail is just better way of doing snail-mail, a technology that we had since we first invented writing. One could say that our whole civilization is built on such communication, as one could not conduct business, make a war or govern a country without mail. E-mails is just the same, only faster, and it shares all the ben…
I assume the only reason people boldly claim they will kill email is so they can get VCs excited about their disrupt strategy. It's always about taking out an entire existing industry or system (see Uber).
To quote:
"Recall that advertising is when someone pays you to tell your users they'll be happy if they buy a product or service.
Yahoo is an example of a company that runs on advertising. Gawker is a company that runs on advertising.
Investor storytime is when someone pays you to tell them how rich they'll get when you finally put ads on your site.
Pinterest is a site that runs on investor storytime. Most startups run on investor storytime.
Investor storytime is not exactly advertising, but it is related to advertising. Think of it as an advertising future, or perhaps the world's most targeted ad.
Both business models involve persuasion. In one of them, you're asking millions of listeners to hand over a little bit of money. In the other, you're persuading one or two listeners to hand over millions of money."
Most startups indeed do run on investor-storytime.