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Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

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Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#281

Post by ajdude »

Siira wrote: post #254
lhorie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, I like email now because these days people in my circles only use it for informational purposes, which means no annoying chain messages, empty inspirational videos, Facebook conspiracies and their ilk. Also, unlike the unfiltered stream model of chat, you can organize emails into folders, delete useless ones and actually have a decent chance at finding past things via keyword search (because email subjec…

The last paragraph can be done with a good IM, such as Telegram, as it has not crippled itself to virtue signal E2E, and has functional cloud sync and search. I even forward my emails to it as it’s easier to organize them there.

At this point, I use telegram for essentially everything, not just email either. I found this HN thread through the Hacker News telegram feed[0]. I don't check reddit, or have other RSS feeds anymore, I just subscribe to the equivalent telegram channels. I even use the "to me" telegram channel for searchable notes

[0] https://t.me/hacker_news_feed

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#282

Post by bradjohnson »

kureikain wrote: post #267
bradjohnson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to throw my hat in here because there are plenty of the "works for me" crowd. I've run a personal mail server for the last 5 or so years and I have SPF, DKIM, DMARC setup correctly, get 10/10 for mail-tester.com and get graded "not spam" for all the other spam tester sites. Spam Assassin loves me and I have a .com mail server. I can land more or less into personal emails (occasionally I get filtered into spam)…

did you send to gmail/hotmail/icloud? hotmail and icloud are very sensitive and if IP isn't reach a certain reputation(mail volume+age) it's easiser to land on spam even SPF/DKIM/DMARC are passed. But if the recipient interact with sender(mark as non spam, send a reply) then moving forward email send from that won't be flag as spam anymore. So their spam filtering is kind of weak and they used previous interaction as…

I've not tried icloud, but for personal email addresses that I have tried (gmail, outlook, hotmail, protonmail) I've not had many problems landing in inboxes. For corporate mailservers I almost always have trouble even getting beyond the mail filtering solution. Microsoft EOP (which seems to be the most ubiquitous) will basically blackhole any mail I send without telling me.

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#283

Post by blaydator »

> Using email as a reminder and productivity task list

I am using emails as a reminder tool for a long time and it’s very efficient as the first thing I do in the morning is to check my inbox. I have even built an app to email myself in one tap or with Siri : https://boomerang-app.io

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#284

Post by nikisweeting »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #199
dvt wrote: post #5

I don't think this kind of Luddism is useful. It's purported by the same kinds of people that, upon seeing a new SaaS, quickly retort: "couldn't you just do that with Google Docs/Word/pen and paper?" Not to mention that email absolutely sucks . The confusing threads, the forwarding, the constant CC'ing, someone making it or not making it into a list, the spam. It's absolute garbage. In fact, people have been seeking…

Sometimes I get a glimpse of my wife's email account ... And it is no surprise she doesn't use email. She gets dozens of emails a day. None of them are spam exactly. Every single website you've ever signed up for your in your life sends out email "for engagement purposes". Drips, reminders, flash sales, weekly roundups. A dozen different job boards from when she was looking for work a few years ago. Several dozen sho…

I religiously unsubscribe from every drip I get, and my email is still a barrage of 40+ mostly noise notifications every day. I used to love Unroll.me before they started selling ppls info, am trying LeaveMeAlone these days as a replacement and it's pretty good so far. In general I think this is an uphill battle though, email is too prone to being the catchall noise bucket and it takes constant work to stop it from becoming unusable.

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#285

Post by fioawjpoifajio »

sneak wrote: post #57
williamtwild wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have called people rubes and not provided any examples of this proper configuration. Dissapointing and trollish.

I didn't call anyone a rube.

> If you use email like a rube, it is expected to be absolute garbage.

Go ahead and explain an actual configuration that actually works if you'd like to help.

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#286

Post by stephenhuey »

atatatat wrote: post #129
addicted wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Google and MS created excellent IM systems based on email. It can be done. It isn’t because there is no billion dollar exit possible on an email based system.

What IM systems are you referring to..?

Pretty sure he's talking about the original chat embedded in the Gmail interface. The earliest records I can find in my logs are from February 2006. For at least 7 years I used it, and for many years my usage was quite extensive. Either due to changed preferences when I got older or iMessage or other things, it looks like I generally stopped chatting in there around May 2013. From my perspective, Google was sitting on a gold mine because so many people I knew in the USA and across the ocean were using it and it worked very well until they started fiddling with the product in ways that made it more clunky.

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#287

Post by [deleted] »

darau1 wrote: post #117
paxys wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

End-to-end encryption, large attachments, managing group messages (aka "reply all" problem), changing message subject, quoted messages when replying, HTML/CSS formatting, sorting/labeling/folders, tracking protections, sending messages over websocket, heck even basic message threading. None of this works consistently across different clients.

But those are problems with /the client/. Not the protocol.

[deleted]

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#288

Post by babypuncher »

jjav wrote: post #204
darau1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then should we not amend the protocol to define these things? Why reinvent the wheel, when we could improve it?

> Then should we not amend the protocol to define these things? Most of the OP list of things they don't like are about client UI presentation. Inherently unrelated to the protocol itself. I don't have any of those issues because I use a client that does the interaction and presentation exactly how I like it.

You have some magical email client that turns "reply all" firehoses into clean Slack/Discord-style message threads?

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#289

Post by approxim8ion »

twobitshifter wrote: post #276
approxim8ion wrote: post #196

I love email, it's great for long letters and so. That said, I have trouble (further) adopting and especially recommending a fundamentally insecure and flawed medium like email in 2021 when clearly technically superior channels of communication exist. Signal, Matrix etc are not 1:1 replacements for email at all, but when it comes down to it, they are simpler and more secure.

If you go back to the beginning of email you’ll see it was the simplest invention possible. you@domain.com was just your user account on an actual Unix computer. Mail messages were appended to a text file in a folder for each user. Somebody could get your IP address/email if they had your machine in their host file, but at that time you didn’t have to worry about spam, viruses, or eavesdropping. You didn’t even need…

Yes. Even beyond that, my understanding is that the fundamental issues with email are that:

a. It is used as the basis for setting up a lot of accounts, but there is no clear way to establish identity with an email account.

b. SMTP is very dated, and the large amounts of metadata (if not the entire body of every mail as well) that goes through it is doomed to be in plaintext forever

c. Encryption is far from standard, PGP is very clunky and has problems of its own, and just doesn't have adoption. It works, somewhat, but it's not really good enough.

Re: Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything

#290

Post by benhurmarcel »

chriswarbo wrote: post #242
benhurmarcel wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you move to a new country that has a dominant messaging app, you can't avoid installing it without making your life a lot more difficult. And moving already makes your life difficult enough.

That's a heck of a claim. Could you give an example of such a "messaging app"? I don't have any "messaging apps"; although I do have a 'phone which supports SMS (I assume it supports email too, although I don't know how comfortable email would be without a physical keyboard). Do you have examples in mind about how my life might be "a lot more difficult" than if I installed the sorts of software you allude to?

For example, in Spain, people will not communicate in written form with you outside Whatsapp. You can try sending an SMS, they won't answer to not risk being charged.

Your friends will communicate and organize events only on Whatsapp. Your colleagues will have social interactions on Whatsapp, even send you work messages when on the go. Your landlord will communicate via Whatsapp, including sending you utility bills to pay. The person you want to buy second-hand stuff from communicates via Whatsapp. The real estate agent trying to find you a place to live will send proposals by Whatsapp. Many businesses advertise customer support on Whatsapp also, although in that case it's never the only option.

It's not literally impossible to live without it. I know some grandparents without smartphones. But it does make your life a lot more difficult.

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