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Email is not broken, we are.

joshualyman.com

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Re: Email is not broken, we are.

#31

Post by aethr »

nck4222 wrote: post #15
toast76 wrote: post #13

What ever happened to "there are no stupid users, only stupid websites/applications"? The user is not broken. Wanting email to be MORE than it is does not mean users are wrong. The fact is that email does not do what the average user wants it to do. Telling people to change their habits is...well...stupid. Before anyone chimes in with "email isn't broken, but the clients may be". Whether this is a client issue or pro…

I agree. If a technology is causing people to use it sub-optimally, then the technology should be improved.

I disagree. The structure and/or implementation of email is not "causing people to use it sub-optimally".

If you want to manage projects and tasks, there are very good tools available for accomplishing that goal. But don't expect all your clients to start using your management tool because you think it would be "optimal". Email is convenient and easy for them, and they don't have to learn a new system to use it.

If you want to send files to other people, there are already specialized tools for that. Tools that have no size limits, that don't limit file extensions, etc. But don't expect all your clients to start using those tools unless they have a good reason to. Email is convenient and easy for them, and they don't have to learn a new system to send files with it.

There are endless other workflows for email, most of which have a specialized alternative, an "improved" version of the underlying technology. When an individual gets tired of the inadequacies of a certain facet of email, they will find it and start using the alternative. Until that point, they will use email because it is "good enough".

People actually are sub-optimal. I meant to start riding my bike to my new job, the money and health benefits would be optimal. But I'm not optimal, so I'm still taking the train. Until I find a compelling reason to start riding again, I'm going to keep taking the train because it's "good enough". That doesn't mean that the train system needs to be fixed.

Frankly, I think the whole "let's fix email" debate is a complete non-starter, and the bevy of related blog posts popping up for the past two weeks is a whole lot of noise from people who haven't actually thought the complexities of "the problem" through, at all.

Re: Email is not broken, we are.

#32

Post by Iv »

toast76 wrote: post #13

What ever happened to "there are no stupid users, only stupid websites/applications"? The user is not broken. Wanting email to be MORE than it is does not mean users are wrong. The fact is that email does not do what the average user wants it to do. Telling people to change their habits is...well...stupid. Before anyone chimes in with "email isn't broken, but the clients may be". Whether this is a client issue or pro…

There are stupid users. That is a fact.

Your mantra is useful to try and make an idiot-proof application (and God knows how essential it is to capture a big market share) but sometimes a technology is a bit complex to use and some users who do not accept these constraints are just not fit to use it.

For example, asymmetrical cryptography is not broken, it is hard to use and understand.

Re: Email is not broken, we are.

#33

Post by kenrikm »

peterwoo wrote: post #19
kenrikm wrote: post #14

It's 2012 we have a 100mb up/down connection and yet I still can't attach a file over 10MB and not have it bounce back. I can't believe that any self respecting hacker does not see room for improvement in that situation. I should not have to work around that situation (yousendit, dropbox etc..) it should just work. I'm firmly in the "it's broken" camp.

Would you be willing to suggest a global minimum bound on the amount of data that you should be allowed to push onto anyone's mail server?

That's the issue, the sender should be doing the heavy lifting (serving the file or at least delegating it) what I propose it more of a seamless imbed/download link on files over a certain size. This could be implemented in email apps using services like iCloud, Dropbox, YouSend it etc.. I know that plugins can be added to certain email apps to accomplish this however that is going down the same path that Netscape did with the browser back in the day and is only now being corrected. Seamless is the goal I should not have to upload/copy/paste It should just be able to take a normal attachment and decide how to handle it based on size etc..

Re: Email is not broken, we are.

#34

Post by barik »

dredmorbius wrote: post #30
kenrikm wrote: post #14

It's 2012 we have a 100mb up/down connection and yet I still can't attach a file over 10MB and not have it bounce back. I can't believe that any self respecting hacker does not see room for improvement in that situation. I should not have to work around that situation (yousendit, dropbox etc..) it should just work. I'm firmly in the "it's broken" camp.

It's 2012. We have servers/services on which we can post files/attachments, either encrypted or access-controlled, and email links to those documents.

But that's just it. Being that it's 2012, the e-mail client should be smart enough to do this. I should be able to attach a large attachment to an e-mail (since that's the logical place to make the association), and then, depending on the attachment size, the e-mail client should automatically move it to Dropbox or some other service and translate the attachment into a link for me.

The difference between the your first approach and the second is that yours requires a behavioral change. The second approach does not. Put another way, it is often easier to change the situation (by making it the path of least resistance) than the person when you want someone to do something else.

It seems like some of this is already in the works, fortunately:

http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/15/thunderbird-to-get-dropbox-...

Maybe it already exists in certain clients (Exchange and Outlook?) and I just haven't looked hard enough.

Re: Email is not broken, we are.

#35

Post by dredmorbius »

barik wrote: post #34
dredmorbius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2012. We have servers/services on which we can post files/attachments, either encrypted or access-controlled, and email links to those documents.

But that's just it. Being that it's 2012, the e-mail client should be smart enough to do this. I should be able to attach a large attachment to an e-mail (since that's the logical place to make the association), and then, depending on the attachment size, the e-mail client should automatically move it to Dropbox or some other service and translate the attachment into a link for me. The difference between the your fir…

Now ... there's a thought.

Agreed: better to put this in the client than require user behavior change.

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