I would agree that emails are not suitable for some use cases. Many to many updates on many projects, as you pointed out, is one that email is not a suitable medium. However, I don't see that particular use case as significant by the normal Internet users, rather an enterprise problem. The fact that emails have used for that just shows its robustness and popularity (hey it's good enough and all the people I need to connect with have it, so why not just using it?)

I don't think your analogy with vinyl records app as emails are actually the electronic version of the communication method human have been using for hundreds (if not thousands) of years: mails. People know exactly how to use email and what exactly do they expect from emails: - to send an email, you need an address - to receive emails, you need a mail box - once you hit send, you don't have control on the emails anymore, some thing (or post office workers) have control of it - you don't expect to get a reply right away, that lowers your expectation of an instant reply - a lot of emails are replies, which means there is a strong context which is what was said in the previous emails

There are many other good things with email such as the openness, federated and robustness nature of the underlying technologies. However, just from the end users perspectives, it matches perfectly with a communication model that most humans have used and understood for many years, and one that doesn't go away very soon.