why people have moved from email to im is beyond me.
one gives up topical conversation threads with relevant aubject lines, easier search and retrieval, thread-specific groups and readers, more robust spam-filtration, the lack of necessity of a phone number, more flexible options for cross-platform access, downloadability of your messages, options to host your own server, and so on.
in return, you get perhaps a tad more convenience from an im – even that is debatable, though.
it’s high time we all returned to the friendly envelope instead of the intrusive chat bubble.
edit: another benefit: with email, you can still communicate with people who’ve chosen a different email platform. they don’t have to have the same domain as your email provider.
The IM format is meant to be more conversational. Do you tag and categorize the conversations you have with people IRL? Probably (and hopefully) not. That’s the sort of comms that IM is meant for.
Both have their place, IMO. And it’s not like if you can only choose one or the other, anyway.
tag and categorize
that’s a whole other angle; one which i avoided altogether.
but i do converse in different contexts on different topics. i do like to recall things in an easier manner. i do like to do all the other things i listed in my OC.
im may have started as a conversational tool, but it’s pervaded every aspect of our lives now to such an extent that “whatsapp me” has become a generecised verb. in that process, as society, we’ve forgotten the benefits of email.
It’s simpler to type a quick a text without needing a subject line. Also internet messaging is usually more secure because even though email now usually uses TLS it stored on your email providers server without encryption. Using apps like Signal this is not the case (texting still is unencrypted or proprietary though).
