EmailDiscussions.com - View Single Post - Email is not dead. But email IS changing.

pjroutledge · 14 Jul 2020, 07:04 AM

I think the key difference (and source of endless frustration) is that the alternatives generally don't talk to each other.
Email and SMS have the one great advantage of being universal. You can write an email to anybody (who has an email address) anywhere using any email application and any email service provider. Runbox users can write to Fastmail users and Google mail users - they can even write to users of multiple unrelated email services in one message. Try to send a message from Line to a Snapchat user.
I also think it's unreasonable of people to expect me to install a specific non-universal app just so that I can communicate with them (with that one individual, because other people are using their different preferred services).
I can understand that each of these app developers wants their particular app (Facebook messenger, Line, Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc) to be the universal winner. By not inter-communicating with other services though they're effectively forcing users to install multiple apps and then having to try to juggle their communications and choose the right app depending on who they're trying to communicate with.

14 Jul 2020, 07:04 AM	#9
pjroutledge Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Melbourne, Oz Posts: 133	I think the key difference (and source of endless frustration) is that the alternatives generally don't talk to each other. Email and SMS have the one great advantage of being universal. You can write an email to anybody (who has an email address) anywhere using any email application and any email service provider. Runbox users can write to Fastmail users and Google mail users - they can even write to users of multiple unrelated email services in one message. Try to send a message from Line to a Snapchat user. I also think it's unreasonable of people to expect me to install a specific non-universal app just so that I can communicate with them (with that one individual, because other people are using their different preferred services). I can understand that each of these app developers wants their particular app (Facebook messenger, Line, Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc) to be the universal winner. By not inter-communicating with other services though they're effectively forcing users to install multiple apps and then having to try to juggle their communications and choose the right app depending on who they're trying to communicate with.