It seems like a category error to compare email to Discord or Slack. The latter two are distinct companies and not protocols.
You’re right in theory, but in practice the point is that email survives because it’s not a closed, proprietary protocol.
Unfortunately I don’t think the issue is quite so simple. We used to have open chat protocols that were slowly strangled by big tech until only their solutions remained.
I think the biggest problem is simply user apathy, if users cared more we wouldn’t have the whole US green/blue bubble problem
We kind of still have IRC.
Irc is still great. I feel there is more tech channels then social channels nowadays tho.
Only tech people know about irc I suppose.
Because it’s not as user friendly, but it could be. Things like KiwIRC or IRCcloud make it easier, but it could be more socially focused. Fuck if I had money I’d do so many things just for the fuck of it.
You can do it from a terminal. Us Linux kids will never let it die.
yeah, aerc and neomutt are two decent options
telnet email_server_ip_addr 25
Helo server.net
ehlo
Matrix, IRC, XMPP
Also Email is useful and you probably shouldn’t waste your time consuming info from people who think otherwise.
xmpp is underrated
Also Usenet. Still around after decades. As long as people are hosting news servers, it will stay. The original decentralized protocol.
My emails are just: bullshit, crap, order confirmations as most stuff is bought online and boatloads of phishing.
My emails are: correspondence, article follow-ups, LAN party planning, and of course the occasional Luis Vuitton handbag offer (quite reasonably priced, actually).
I do have the kind of transactional message slop you describe, but I have a seperate email address for those.
It’s an ongoing debate in one of the projects I work with if we should move to a more forge oriented development process. For all it’s faults email does provide a good record of discussion as well as evidence of review.
I’ve not heard of this before, and a search finds a lot about Minecraft?
Forge is a newish term for systems like github, gitlab, forgejo, gitea, etc that provide source control, project management, issues, and discussion features for projects.
And more to the point, Forge is a free, open-source server that allows players to install and run Minecraft mods. It was designed with the intent to simplify compatibility between community-created game mods for Minecraft: Java Edition.
It sounds like maybe OP and their crew were maintaining Minecraft compatibility via e-mail prior to the release of Forge.
Wait does that mean comment thread OP isn’t using any of those things?
It’s not uncommon for older projects to use plain git, patch files, and email groups. Linux kernel development still gets done that way every day.
The project management capabilities of GitLab are pretty nice, for what my opinion is worth.
Then Sourcehut is built around email, so that might be a good middle ground.
Something could replace it easily if they tried to use the open standards and decentralized system like email has. But tech companies have gone too greedy, they won’t make anything that works with other tech companies. Every one of them are trying to pull users to themselves. Now we have people with account in 5 different websites to communicate with different people instead.
It is sad how far the technology has come. It’d allow so much improvements in quality of life and yet it’ll all being used to extract more money, making life shittier.
deleted by creator
Hahahaha, good one!
And even instant and encrypted when using https://delta.chat/
It’s why SMS still exists too. It’s from an era where everyone just used open standards instead of trying to create their own thing for money. Big tech conglomerates like we have now didn’t exist. The state of the tech industry and it’s proprietary standards is absolutely fucked.
Rather than build for humanity they build for the demon capital.
Google is trying to kill SMS. My new android by default has sms disabled, defaulting to RCS with “try sending sms instead if rcs fails to send” option being off by default, which makes no sense from user perspective
which makes no sense from user perspective
I’d say it does have some merit from a security perspective though.
I agree it should be something that’s at least more clear for users to enable/disable on setup, but I personally don’t think having it enabled by default is ideal, considering how insecure SMS is.
…but I can literally send infected files thru RCS to my grandma.
True, as is the case with almost any messaging service. But the benefits of RCS do include:
- Not having a government/telecom company be capable of snooping on your messages
- Branded messages that clearly distinguish real companies from fake ones, which can prevent an untold number of scams as it becomes more commonplace
- Uses more modern protocols instead of still being capable of sending over old, insecure ones like 2G.
It’s purely an improvement over SMS in terms of security and privacy, and personally, I don’t think users should be defaulted into having their phone downgrade to insecure protocols. It should always be an opt-in decision they have to make. (although they could definitely make it clearer that someone could enable it if their messages are failing to send with RCS)
RCS is actually a huge improvement over SMS, as it is fully encrypted. One of the few times I’ve ever approved of something Google did…
If only it was an open standard…
It… is? It’s an open standard that anyone can use and implement. The main provider is Google and there has been a huge push from them to get Apple to adopt, which they mostly have. It’s not ‘owned’ by any company. It’s predominantly serviced by Google, but is in fact an open standard. Google and others have their own format which is how they and their apps interpret and interact with each other, but it is an open standard. There are some backend and requirements for it which stops most from setting it up and implementing off the shelf and just going with Google, but you absolutely could use and make your own format with the standard.
Yep, main reason it’s associated with Google because they bought a company (Jibe Mobile) making one of the main backend service offerings and offered cloud hosting of it, so providers just went with that rather than rolling out their own software.
Also with Apple ignoring it in favour of iMessage, Google was the only one supporting it on handsets. Google client + Google backend = people think it’s Google’s iMessage competitor.
It’s from an era where everyone just used open standards instead of trying to create their own thing for money.
SMS is literally from a time when every mobile phone manufacturer had their on charger plug. And some tried pushing proprietary headphone jacks.
Vendors LOVE vendor lock-in.
Yeah that’s because vendor lockin for hardware had already started. It’s kind of a miracle we got everyone to agree to USB. Look at cars, same thing. Everyone agreed to the same gas pump, but it’s been decades and we can’t agree on a standard for electric car chargers. That’s what happens when industries mature under capitalism
The GSM protocol was an actual standard enforced on operators across Europe, which is why back when mobile telephony took off, it very much exploded in Europe (in turn propelling companies such as Nokia and Ericcson) but was much slower to take of in the US were there were various private and competing mobile telephony protocols.
The vendors didn’t agree on anything on their own, they were forced to agree as part of the conditions of the various radio spectrum auctions all over Europe. The US then finally followed at around GSM v3.
You see a similar thing for USB - it’s an international standard and standardization around USB 3 and the USB-C connector it is being forced on vendors by the EU.
SMS was never intended to be available to end users. It was built as a side channel to help field techs with diagnostics. When consumer handsets started to add features, it was co-opted to provide what we know it as today.
That explains why way back when I tried to read the GSM (1.x) specification out of curiosity, it turned out SMS were going via a “control channel”.
Always wondered why the data for those was going via a control channel rather than some kind of data channel.
If by something else email will out live I agree
This is why I kind of hate microblogging platforms. This could just be part of a conversation, but shown of context every post is turned into a soundbite and takes on levels of faux-profundity that they can’t possibly support. Yeah, email has been around forever; so what?
What faux-profundity is on display here? Sometimes people just talk. Sometimes this includes observations. Kinda like what you did with your comment. I don’t understand why you’re bringing hate to a tea chat, but I suppose it can be good to get off your chest.
Thousands of years after humanity has destroyed itself with nuclear weapons…
As the sun peeks through the gray clouds and lights up a solar panel…
A long-forgotten server hums to life…
And sends an email…
“Attention Required: Your Order is Delayed”
We’ve been trying to reach you about your car insurance
See my h0t n4ken body here ---->
getallmylinkscom/usr/urieoop0oooojwhwhfb
I’m using cpanel email and it’s terrible. Can someone recommend something cheap but better than cpanel?
What’s wrong with cpanel?
Some places block email coming from my cpanel email.
It’s reliable, it’s simple, it’s free, and virtually everyone who uses the internet has one. Email won’t be replaced for a LONG time.
To be fair, if it is “free” you are probably paying your mail provider with your data.
Not necessarily. My university provides a mail box for every student and their privacy policy is quite transparent and honest. The only limitations are related to the rate you can send emails, to prevent spam.
Wouldn’t recommend it.
That’s like using your company email.
Ive met a bunch of people who deeply regret sending everything to their university email to have that inbox shut down after a few years. Heck, had a junior hire recently complain that her university email was the primary for her banking, and once it was shut down, she was struggling with trying to reset her password.
Well this discussion has turned from “there’s no free emai!” to “I don’t recommend using free email from your university because I heard this caused trouble to somebody else once” which is not the point, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to reply.
Generally email that’s tied to your school or job is only active as long as you are a student/employee there, and given how many services don’t let you transfer email accounts at all even if you know you’re about to lose access and start migrating away you might not be able to.
Best practice is to separate out business, personal and academic into separate accounts and separate devices. No personal crap distracting you from your studies, no personal stuff that might endanger your job on your work email, and no sharing your personal email with randos at your job
I also have a work email address, but I use it for work stuff and I lose it if I end my contract. Can you keep your university address after you graduate?
Or your ISP just provides you with one when you sign up.
Their point still stands
I mean, not necessarily in that case I’d imagine, since one presumably pays the ISP for internet services, so any “free” things bundled with it could also simply be priced into that contract already.
That ToS definitely gives them the right to sell whatever data you provide to them though, at least in the US.
Sure, but won’t that happen regardless of if you use their email service or not?
Yes. The point I was saying stands is the “paying with data” bit more than the “free (as in beer)” bit. I know youre still paying to use an ISP :p
Not all of them anymore. Verizon doesn’t, for example.
Can never trust ISPs with that data.
They’re marketing companies too. And imagine sending critical health emails to a company who wants to also sell you services, and suddenly, you get ads for it.
critical health emails
If you’re concerned about privacy, then that’s a no-no. Unless your clinic accepts PGP encrypted messages.
And we both know they don’t.
I assume he meant free like speech, not free like beer.
There are no gatekeepers to email, anyone can get a domain and their own server.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC would like to have a gatekeeping word
Blacklists, greylists, whitelists. All just a big fuck you from the big vendors to anyone trying to self host.
You try that once, but it doesn’t last.
There are definitely gatekeepers. Even if your hosting provider isn’t blocking port 25 by default, SPF, DKIM and DMARC will see your emails going straight into the recipient’s junk folder/spam filter if not correctly configured. Hosting your own mail server is also a fantastic way to piss off your ISP, lose emails to downtime, have your IP blacklisted from many services and open up your environment to exploitation. It can be done but let’s not pretend that it’s easy or that there aren’t barriers to entry.
Mostly agree, but as someone who has been hosting my own email for years I can tell it is, in fact, better.
Quick note for hosting one on a residential IP - that would no longer piss any ISP off. You would simply not deliver anything anywhere due to IP being blacklisted by default.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, hosting an email server will not be a good time. It’s very easy to produce an environment that is easily exploited.
A somewhat inexpensive shared hosting plan allows you to host your own email though. I get it done for <$100/yr. and have little to no limitation over self-hosting.
My mail server is in the cabinet above my desk.
I guess you’re right - my mail provider does have all my data - but my mail provider is Me!
There’s kinda no replacement
I wouldn’t call it reliable at all but it works good enough. All the other points are so big that they make up the flaws more than once.
Finally someone who understands email is a best effort model.
I guess that’s why someone decided to build a chat app on the email protocol and infrastructure.
Several people have tried to do this.
Delta was first one I have heard of, but when you think about it, it would be surprising if it was the first one when email over network has existed over 50 years. What other ones are there?
I usually dismiss them as quickly as I discover them because I know how the underlying technology behind email works and I don’t agree that it should be presented in the form of chats.
So each time I see it, it only resides in my mind for a few minutes at most.
I love that this exists but never have used it.
