[geeks] Email: Dead as we knew it

[Jonathan Patschke]

On Tue, 18 Apr 2023, Mouse via geeks wrote:

>> The plain-text portion of email is entirely neglected anymore.
>
> Not quite, though if you use designed-for-mainstream email I can
> understand the feeling.

That's generally what I'm talking about.  Most of the folks here either
use plain-text primarily/exclusively or at least have competent MUAs
that can generate usable plain-text parts.

> I've had various people and organizations - doctor, credit union - ask
> for email for me.  I always tell them I don't give it out because it's
> not reliable enough, and most entities, once they have an email address
> for me, immediately assume it works immediately and reliably every time
> regardless of sender or content, which mine does not.

Email is my preferred method of contact.  In the US, doing business via
telephone is nearly impossible.  Well over 80% of the phone calls I get
are spoofed numbers selling some sort of vacation scam, so I usually
don't have my phone ring for anyone but family and close friends.

The days where I have to turn on inbound calls for everyone (because I'm
expecting a call) are filled with repetitive interruption.  Were it not
for needing a way for family to contact me in emergencies, I'd probably
not have a phone number of any kind anymore.

With email, I can at least programmatically file-away most of the actual
garbage.  Having a separate inbound address for each vendor, doctor,
etc. helps a lot.  When I want to stop hearing from someone, I just have
to tell Postfix about it.

> I recently heard it said that the local police would not take a
> phoned-in report for various minor things, instead telling callers to
> submit it online.  If they tried that with me I'd tell them if they
> want me to do it online they will have to bring me a machine capable
> of doing so and then administer it themselves, and I would then
> contact my city councillor about it.

That's really poor customer service.

> I'm not sure whether I'd go back to, say, the '80s.  There certainly
> are huge drawbacks to these days, but there _are_ benefits, such as
> connectivity being far cheaper and more available

It seems a false dichotomy that we'd need to go back in every way.
Technology has advanced in ways that outpaced social progress.  We
should neither have to give up the technological nor social progress
made along the way just to be rid of the ways that society regressed.

What's missing is consent. In the face of the force-multiplying power of
electronic communications, consent is more important than ever.  We
don't own telephones or maintain email servers so that we may be
harrassed, yet that seems to be the bulk of the interaction!

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
Austin, TX
USA