I don’t remember the last time I actually emailed someone I knew as a form of communication. I forward newsletters to my wife sometimes. The culture of texting, where you can take your time to respond (within a day or two), has kind of made email obsolete.
Email is still really useful when you have a lot to say but don’t want to write a letter. If I’m catching up on the last several weeks with my parents, I’m not going to write a 10-page text. I can write a nicely formatted email and attach a few photos, though. It’s far more convenient than writing a letter and stuffing a bunch of printed photos into an envelope.
That’s a good point. I guess if I’m in the situation where I have a lot to say; I’d rather just talk on the phone with someone. Now that I think of it, I feel like the telephone replaced physical letters before email even came along. But, I do highly respect the long-form communication of letters and email. It’s just kind of rare these days.
You don’t email for work reasons or for setting up appointments? My job doesn’t even involve email but I get emails from my boss from time to time and for me to make appointments with certain things I have to do it over email…
Someone was complaining with me today that they weren’t able to leave me a voice mail (because I intentionally didn’t set it up). Like who the fuck still uses that shit? I knew they called and when they called, it’s in my log and I also had a notification. What more do I need to know? Text me ya lunatic!
I remember when Whatsapp started taking off here in Europe. Everyone was like “you can text for free now, even send media, it all just works over the internet.” And I always said “well isn’t it just the same as email? Your smartphone can do that anyway, what do you need WA for?” and I still kinda feel like that.
I really like email. Something about its free as in freedom nature/protocol fills me up with joy as I fire up my email clients! It’s just nice and warm compared to all the corpo bullshit messengers. Sadly, Google and Microsoft are trying their best to lock down email. But I believe it’s gonna outlast their shenanigans, hopefully. Meanwhile, I have my trusty local email clients to keep me company
Sadly, Google and Microsoft are trying their best to lock down email.
What do you mean?
Very solid reasons mentioned by @nobody158@sh.itjust.works in the sibling comment.
Another issue is that they forced people towards top posting which combined with the rise of html email led to the decline of plain text email, which really sucks for not just privacy but also accessibility
I feel you. I have a Gmail address for account logins, shopping, social media (Lemmy, Mastodon, LinkedIn). I have my own email domain and server for people I actually want to communicate with. Ever since I set it up a few months ago I’ve been enjoying email so much more again.
Do you have any tips on how to do that? Not even you writing stuff out but if you can post some links… I’m tempted to do that and leave gmail behind
The easiest way is with mail in a box. That’s what I used! You can message me if you’d like. I have a blog post with additional notes I’ll send you.
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).
email is the main way I want communications sent to me. I still get annoyed statements can’t be emailed over mailed. mailed is not more secure. just leave out most of the account number or better yet have a unique statement account number
