this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
779 points (97.8% liked)
memes
22385 readers
2540 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Honestly, it's way past time to phase out email
Hell to the no.
For what reason? Email these days is basically just a machine for marketing and identity verification, and the latter can be done better by other solutions
Plus, despite the fact that email is designed to be open, it has been perverted by big tech into an effectively closed system, as your post makes reference to. I see no real reason to keep email going, when a better less centralized system could be built to replace it.
What alternative do you propose that is not based on some proprietary solution?
I can’t speak for @ShutUpWesley@piefed.zip, but I boycott both Google and Microsoft. This means 95+% of prospective people, corps, and gov agencies I would exchange email with are not getting email from me. They are also not getting an email address out of me.
I have been done with email for nearly a decade now, mostly. So, to answer your question, I use fax and snail mail. Not joking. I feel liberated and don’t give a shit about postage or inconvenience. There is still that exceptional 5% or so who I will exchange email with, which does not have GAFAM in the loop.
(edit) should add that I give friends and family an XMPP address (of my own, but often I also give them an XMPP acct for themselves). Google bounced from XMPP a decade or so ago and AFAIK Microsoft has no XMPP service. So it’s mostly snail mail and fax for govs and corps. XMPP for people.
Any friends or family who resist XMPP are mostly stuffed. They can either proxy through a mutual friend or call me if they are local.
I respect that. Reminds me of Donald Knuth, who stopped using email in 1990: " I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address"
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
Interesting to see his take on “e-mail” vs “email”. I bet he changes his tune on “email” vs “mail” -- where gen-z has decided that it’s okay to save keystrokes by dropping the “e” because no one uses snail mail anymore. Indeed I am always disguested when someone says “send a mail”. I have to ask for clarification and they always confirm that mean email.
Something new, that doesn't have the anachronism of a nearly 50 year old protocol.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is currently a good replacement, but I think one should be developed.
Its strange you think that I'm siding with a proprietary solution, when email is effectively controlled by major tech companies, which is one of its biggest flaws.
That is not the case. We both can setup a mail server and email each other without any issues.
Yes, that's true, but most people aren't going to host an email server, because it's a pain(I know, I administrate 3 of them), which means that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Proton, and the other big tech companies will always control the majority of email accounts, and that gives them effective control over the entire network. Our ability to self host servers outside of big techs bubble doesn't make the bubble go away.
I don't know where you are living, but in my place there are local "tech collectives" which are non-profit organizations that provide folks with an email address. Of course way too many people are still using gmail, but the alternative is there.
I think what's worse is that you are basically forced to have one of those corporations email account for a smartphone, and nowadays you are basically forced to have a smartphone to participate in society.
This is a weird take. Care to expand on why you dislike it?
I mean this meme does a good job of explaining my biggest grievance, despite being a theoretically open protocol, it's been lassoed into a nearly closed network controlled by big tech.
Beyond that, email(SMTP) is nearly 50 years old, and it has anachronistism that show
Outside of corporate life, email in the modern world is basically just a tool for marketing and identity verification, and that sucks, because I remember when it was more than that.
I appreciate your commitment to the bit, but, this is still a shit take. Shut Up Wesley!
Might I ask why you think it's a shit take? I'm genuinely surprised so many people seem to think email needs to be defended