This is actually interesting question as for the official and formal conversation email is still king
One of PG's "ambitious startup ideas" is a protocol to replace email. Kinda crazy to think how ancient yet pervasive email is.
Hard to replace email imo. Everyone has one, easy to get one, easy to use, and reliable
hard to say in China you sign up everything with phone number..
I would hope yes (it's nice to write letters), but on a different foundation. Instead of smtp emails I would really like that we can start sending encrypted emails through web3, using ens domains as sender/recipients
Yes! Try answering this question, "what didn't change in the last 10 years or the 10 before that?" A small snippet from my coldemail101.com handbook (it's free btw)
I think email will only be replaced by a more imitated version of async communication (not sure if this is a right word lol) like a Metaverse-form of prescripted video of a person speaking
How emails work will most likely change, but email as a concept will probably never go away.
I was discussing this with a friend recently. Some people using it? Yup, just like people use fax today. But I don't think that everybody will be using email like they are now.
Most of the world is still using paper mail. My guess - more people will use email in ten years then today
My two cents is yes, especially given it's built on shared rails. Shameless plug - I actually wrote a blog post about the power of crypto and used email as an example of how something becomes so hard to disrupt: https://www.dynamic.xyz/blog/web3-the-shared-rails-for-everything
Yes. Front end won't meaningfully change, even if the backend is completely transformed. Email defines and enforces its niche.
I hope not, I’ve pretty much completely stopped using email except to sign up where they still ask for one.
email is very lindy in web terms. I can't see it being displaced for at least another 30.
absolutely. email hasn’t replaced letters yet, still a long way to go
Yes. My prior is simply that physical mail is still big. Though the question is whether email will be more like: - Snail mail (unglamorous but still useful) - Faxes (locked into antiquated but necessary hardware like doctors offices) - Telegraph message (single legacy incumbent uses it for some weird reason)
Email is best easy to have a sync convo and threads help. A peer to peer conversation and a decentralised email service providers is something that seems interesting and could exist
Extend that to 50 years and I’m still not sure if people would pivot
it will be a backend service interfaces will be so immersive that most things we do ourselves today will be infrastructure
My money is on Postgres open source still having all conversations on email lists
💯 A business needs to collect info from you so it can communicate with you in the future, which does it choose? 1. SMS: 5.1B mobile #'s (still growing) 2. Email: 4.1B email addresses (still growing) 3. Facebook: 2.9B users (no longer growing) 4. Many long tails... Maybe one day an FC ID will be the answer? �
Yep. There are still so many people who just started using social media < 10 years ago. Email will be as reliable as SMS in the long term.
Yes. The long tails in tech are looooooong. To this day, people still use Fortran, COBOL, and floppy disks.
I think about the things I use email for: - signing in / up - communicating with ppl i know - newsletters - notifications - spam / flyers OTOH we have the tech to replace these things and yet we haven’t OTOH I use email sparingly and begrudgingly, and would get rid of it in a heartbeat if everyone else weren’t on
Messaging does seem like a more efficient, fun, and ephemeral way of communicating. Why doesn’t email look more like a messaging app? I don’t buy that there’s something in the current UX/UI of email that is inherent or natural. Is messaging not just a better interface in every way?
Yes. Top-3 protocols. Things come and go but email is king.
related: fast forward ten years, is anyone using passwords still? email and auth are still pretty tightly coupled. i believe email will continue to be used so long as passwords are. relying on phone numbers alone, which can change frequently, is not as robust as email imo. mass adoption of sc wallets could change this
also, it looks like the folks at odd lots read my mind: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?i=1000596697685
With increased concern over privacy and security, there may be a shift towards more secure communication platforms that use end-to-end encryption, such as Signal, Telegram and Element AND Blockchain-Solutions
Yes. Just as we still use post mail. But email will be on blockhain.
if u fast backward 10 years, or 20, or even 30! people were asking the same question
Until something like matrix.org’s protocols become more adopted and interoperable, can’t see messaging replacing emails (email passed this hurdle a long time ago).
emails will evolve imo..phone numbers now those I don’t see people using in 10years, or at least I hope not.
