Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I don't know how I feel about email

xeiaso.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–69 of 69 posts

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#61

Post by mst »

goranmoomin wrote: post #56

I get that this is a satire post on the usual criticisms of Mastodon, but honestly the points on Email is valid, and the reasons are a big point on why non-business Email usage is declining… Especially the points 'there's no real way to migrate between email servers either, so whatever I choose is going to be my permanent home' and 'I can't run my own server' parts are very valid criticisms of the Email system…

I do like the way BlueSky lets you use your own domain much like hosted email providers do - presumably your account should be migrateable to other AT protocol systems as a result (eventually, hopefully, caveat, caveat).

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#62

Post by seabass-labrax »

> Every mailing list has their own unspoken rules on how you're supposed to use your client, reply to emails, and more. If you break these rules, you're threatened with banning.

It's an interesting and mostly correct article overall, but I must come to the defence of email here.

I would say this is a rather unfair characterisation of Internet mailing lists. I've been a member of dozens, if not hundreds, of mailing lists; I have never seen a member threatened with a ban, let alone being ejected. This may have been the predominant culture twenty years ago (and the archives witness that), but times have changed.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#63

Post by andreareina »

vel0city wrote: post #49

> Oh and even better, apparently Gmail is starting to lock down access to your emails with only a username and password in the interest of "security", so you have to go through convoluted hoops in order to check your email in something that isn't the gmail web UI. It is literally impossible for me to check my work mail in something like Aerc. Application specific passwords. If you have 2FA enabled on your Google acco…

You also need to have 2fa set up. And they don't have totp as an option unless you also set up either a security key or any number of options (sms, mobile push, others?) that involve getting entangled with google again.

Google really prefers you'd use sms 2fa over totp.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#64

Post by hsjqllzlfkf »

msla wrote: post #27
hsjqllzlfkf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I hate on anyone who's different for the sake of being different. Being unable to accept differences is a mark of immaturity.

Being able to draw a line is a sign of maturity. I'm sure you have a line too. Personally, I avoid shallow people.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#65

Post by lightbritefight »

CrampusDestrus wrote: post #51
jeroenhd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying email administrators are somehow above this all? They absolutely make weird personal choices when it comes to blocking servers and users. Microsoft will purge your account if it detects what appears to be a names child. Take, for example, email delivery: if you're simply running a Tor relay (not an exit node) on the same IP address. You'll end up on a weird lists of blacklists not because there's any c…

Email admins are not above this, but they have waaaayy less information available in order to ban stuff

How is you private life have way less data then you public life?

Email accounts have waaaaayy more information about you than a public social media account. I can find out your private thoughts, the things you buy, who you owe money too, your social graph, tons and tons of data. I can find out way more about than from some comments on a nerd forum.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#66

Post by CrampusDestrus »

lightbritefight wrote: post #65
CrampusDestrus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email admins are not above this, but they have waaaayy less information available in order to ban stuff

How is you private life have way less data then you public life? Email accounts have waaaaayy more information about you than a public social media account. I can find out your private thoughts, the things you buy, who you owe money too, your social graph, tons and tons of data. I can find out way more about than from some comments on a nerd forum.

If an email admin looks into your private correspondence your first thought is to get the hell out of his servers, whereas if a mastodon admin constantly monitors public posts from your and other instances then it doesn't seem like a big deal

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#67

Post by rakoo »

appplication wrote: post #54
rakoo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So either the product is so complex it can’t be simplified, or the developers of the project are so ignorant to user feedback that they aren’t willing to prioritize simplifying it. Both of these do not bode well for long term success or wide adoption. The fediverse is not a product. The fediverse is an organization of humans willing to interact together. There are dozens of softwares, documentation on how it works…

> The fediverse is a universe for everyone to have a voice and discuss and organize. Make conversing easy by giving back control to people. I think my main issue is that while this is great idealism, it’s fundamentally hypocritical in practice. The fediverse is not a place for everyone when the vast majority of people do not understand how or why to use it. It is not accessible across cultural barriers, and it’s not…

I understand what you mean and I fully agree. We want everyone to get rid of capitalist networks, take matter in their hands and decide by themselves. It's not far from democracy actually. But it's totally true that doing so takes time and energy that only a minority possesses, and learning how to use the fediverse is an activity itself.

But contrary to what you say, there is an ever growing amount of resources and orgs that take the active role of welcoming and guiding people into the network. This is where change happens: by teaching others, by taking time with them, by showing them, opening an account for them, having a space where they can come. It takes a lot of time and it's why the growth of open networks isn't as fast, but it's ok because that's not the point. The point is to make it together. It's not a technical problem, it's a social problem, and we're going to solve it with social solutions, not more javascript.

So, yes, it is only self-learnable by an elite. But no, it doesn't mean it is only for the elite. It just means tech isn't the only way.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#68

Post by xtiansimon »

Haha. Email was a strange beast to understand back in the day. Of course, you needed to have access to the internet, your ISP, so you would default to their server. Whichever platform you were on had leading software, so you use the default. Not really that hard to figure out—it was all just new.

Since then, I’ve obtained my own domain name to have a ‘permanent’ (while I pay for the domain) email address.

Now I just forward these emails to my gmail account. I don’t have any hang-ups about google using my emails to train my AI overlord. Maybe the AI will recognize me like a country cousin?

Post reply on HN