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Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:30PM (#27125675)
> I can interact with anybody with an e-mail address

Why is that a good thing? My email is full of spam both literal and mundane (email notification from stuff I only occasionally care about like CI or products). My Messenger account has zero noise because I can't be contacted by companies - only friends I've chosen to let in.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by andrewzah on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:43PM (#27125740)
There’s nothing preventing you from automatically filtering those emails. All of my GitHub / CI emails go straight to a subfolder. All spam gets added to filters, etc.

Depending on the registrar you use, you can set up a 2nd inbox or aliases for junk mail and filter anything that goes to those, etc.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:50PM (#27125783)
You're coming from a position that email is good and it's worth configuring it to work well. But I don't particularly like email. I have zero interest in setting up aliases or filters when the problem simply doesn't exist when I use a better tool.
Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by vlunkr on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:08PM (#27125875)
This doesn't make much sense to me. We're talking about functionality (being contacted by companies or automated processes) that doesn't exist at all in Messenger. You can't say it's the better tool in this case when it makes no attempt to compete with that feature.
Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:27AM (#27127315)
> You can't say it's the better tool in this case when it makes no attempt to compete with that feature

Sure I can. Something isn't better just because it has more features. Easy ability to be spammed with nothing more than a widely shared string ID is not a positive feature.

Even if I used FB auth to log into all of my various internet accounts, my Messenger still won't get spammed. It's a better tool (at least for me).

My email inbox just annoys me while Messenger is so good I haven't deleted my FB account.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by vlunkr on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:05AM (#27131199)
> Something isn't better just because it has more features

You're right, but being able to be spammed with a string ID absolutely is a positive feature. While your inbox may annoy you, I'm sure you also use to sign up for services, get marketing info that you're interested in, get billing notifications, etc. Could Messenger do all that? Yeah potentially, but now you've just moved the spam problem into Messenger. That's why I'm saying Messenger isn't the better tool because it doesn't have spam, it doesn't have spam because it lacks the features that introduce spam.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by thisCtx on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:10PM (#27125882)
So your messenger app read your mind?

Pretty sure you create a whitelist on that too, yes?

Of phone numbers, usernames, or …email addresses… depending on what the app uses, that you wish to hear from?

Check out Spike for IOS. I’m not saying you have to USE it, but that it’s a UX problem, not an “email” problem.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by bccdee on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:24PM (#27125950)
It didn't read my mind, it's just that my instant messaging is 0% automated messages and 100% people I know. My email is 98% automated messages from services I signed up for using my email, and 2% my mom.

The configuration is never over with email, because every time I sign up for something, I've got more filters to set up. With instant messaging? There was never a problem to begin with

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by lhorie on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:40PM (#27126013)
So you're saying you voluntarily gave out your primary email address and then don't like that they are emailing you? Why give it out in the first place then? It's free to setup a dummy email address for these purposes.

Unless you're complaining about getting reminder emails from upcoming doctor appointments, bills and the like. But my impression was that getting those are a feature...

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by bccdee on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @12:39AM (#27126649)
I could set up multiple accounts. But then I have to check multiple accounts. Either way, I have to go out of my way to make email as pleasant to use as instant messaging already is.
Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by lelandbatey on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @11:04PM (#27126141)
This is definitely a case of "that's just how you use it", as my phone number is relatively accessible and many services have asked for it, so I get plenty of spam straight to my phone via almost every messaging means that can be tied directly to my phone. That means things like whatsapp in addition to plain old SMS.
Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by thisCtx on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @11:07PM (#27126152)
That’s because email providers have it backwards.

They could deny by default unless the sender is in a contact list.

But I mean the messenger list has to be updated to allow people in every time you meet someone worthy?

You are still doing list management.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:35AM (#27127360)
> So your messenger app read your mind?

No it just read my pre-existing social network graph. And then very accurately predicts who I might want to add to that graph. But practically speaking it comes out to the same thing - I have never had to create a messaging whitelist.

While email and email tooling is completely ignorant of my multiple social network graphs that are stored in various places on the Internet.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by NikolaNovak on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @10:21PM (#27125940)
I don't feel that's a medium / tool issue, I've found it's a usage pattern issue.

I have many email addresses. My most personal is known to people I like and trust. I use it the way many people use IM. I get zero zero spam in it. The emails I use for business or subscriptions or untrustworthy friends of course is spammy.

I imagine if one uses any IM service to enroll into dozens of services / products / subscriptions / websites / etc... Spam will come regardless of medium :)

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:31AM (#27127334)
> I imagine if one uses any IM service to enroll into dozens of services / products / subscriptions / websites / etc... Spam will come regardless of medium :)

Not if I use FB auth. My Messenger would remain spam free. Because ability to authn someone and ability to send someone a message were decoupled, which is just better than email.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by jjav on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:25AM (#27127304)
> > I can interact with anybody with an e-mail address

> Why is that a good thing?

Because it is useful to have a communication mechanism which is universal. It is a standard and not owned or controlled (censored) by anyone. Sure there a dozens, possibly hundreds, of fragmented chat protocols that can't talk to anything other than their own proprietary clients. But only email is universally available.

> only friends I've chosen to let in

You could configure your email client the same way and then you have the same behavior.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @02:39AM (#27127388)
> Because it is useful to have a communication mechanism which is universal. It is a standard and not owned or controlled (censored) by anyone. Sure there a dozens, possibly hundreds, of fragmented chat protocols that can't talk to anything other than their own proprietary clients. But only email is universally available.

I have never found that to actually be useful in practice. Non-universal protocols with proprietary clients have worked well for me - they have been convenient, well-engineered, well-designed, and well-populated by the people I want to talk to.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by waheoo on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:39PM (#27125718)
You can very, very easily filter email in the same way to get the same result.

Just because companies haven't invaded WhatsApp yet doesn't mean they aren't trying, they are, and they already invaded everywhere else.

Hell Facebook and Instagram is an advertisers wet dream.

Re:Just Use Email – How to Use Email for Everything by solidasparagus on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @09:48PM (#27125771)
Not as easily as just using a tool that doesn't need any configuration to avoid spam. And it's disingenuous to say that email spam can just be filtered out to get an experience that is as spam-free as Messenger.