[GTALUG] OT: Shots fired - heads up

[ac]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2024 13:40:23 -0400
Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
<snip>
> I see nothing in email (whether in Google Groups, groups.io or a
> conventional list like GTALUG's) that isn't functionally done better on
> Reddit (which allows people to "upvote" the most useful contributions) or
> Discord (which includes streaming and virtual ad-hoc meetings) or WhatsApp
> (which is super simple and most people have it anyway). All three of these
> are free of cost to join or start a group of as many people as you can
> gather. Discord also supports  Markdown formatting which is easier to do
> than the HTML in most emails.
> 
> You're right, it is about the audience.

I am over 40 and I use discord and read reddit each and every day...


BUT, in the groups, specially the larger one's it is not easy to
read/scan each and every post, more so, when, like in email, the thread
devolves from Google being listed for abuse TO where do I think Glug chat
should migrate to... I usually avoid even reading threads with many replies as
I have no clue who would post anything useful, where in each reply (what I
would find useful, not the 'crowd' - I read upvoted drivel many times each day
and every times this happens I am sure I lose a braincell and seriously
consider leaving whatever platform.

In fact, if I had no interest in spam/abuse and email and only scanned the
first post in this thread, I would not be even reading any of this on other
platforms.

I have also had this same discussion, in a few formats and it always ends the
same way... (with everyone doing whatever they want to do :) )

 
> As I said, this is a generational issue.

hmm, maybe you are right, but maybe not for the reasons you think? 
I recall my first 'smartphone' a Nokia brick, but I could ssh into my 
servers (the Nokia had a shell) I could do IRC and so many things mobile. 
I also recall using my own first self written App, 2008? (three years after 
selling the Linux distro I made) App's were so cool, and surely now 
email would become useless. Point I am trying to make is that I 
used to be one of the charge leaders on 'email is now finally dead' :)

> Email works great for people over 40, because it's comfortable and they
> grew up with it.

Maybe you are right. maybe email is also now comfortable for me. I did not
grow up with it though. I used IRC way before using email. Email always 
seemed to 'clunky' and just too much :) 


> For younger people who grew up with smartphones and apps it's a very
> different story.
> 
maybe. but it does not mean that technically one should promote mobile tech.

we only now know that small kids should not have smartphones. we only now know
about myopia and so many many other harmful effects of where tech has taken
humanity. We will also still be paying that Invoice.

I could also argue that maybe younger people, Gen A for example, is not even
going to use discord or reddit. They struggle to focus and/or read anything
over 120 characters. (In stating this, I am looking at actual eye tracking
data and analytic data) - When comparing data Gen X and Millenials have the 
longest attention spans. imo, discord users are, on average, younger than
reddit users. Much more still needs to be known, but the foundations 
expose a trend.

You should think about what this means?

also, to add : The 'upvote' idea, the 'like' idea and the 'herd' has advantages, 
but as it turns out, has more disadvantages. 

this email has no "like' 'subscribe' 'upvote' 'downvote' and you have to
truly think about who the person is writing whatever and, if you have the
attention span, you have to really focus to understand what is being said :)

sure, hindsight is perfect. but even in knowing something, like planetary
change is going to extinct us faster, this does not change anything.

maybe we are evolving ourselves into extinction as we are truly disgusted at
our very nature and the herd is just the herd.

and, btw, as there are useful things in the bottom post, I have left it
intact, for the record, email allows me to reply inline, snip stuff and
allsorts of other things which, depending on the platform, is either
impossible, or just too much of an effort and just to hard to do...

> 
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 11:44 AM Karen Lewellen <klewellen at shellworld.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > As a counter to this idea I offer up groups.io.
> > www.groups.io
> > A location where email not only allows for exchange interaction and
> > communication, but   often a great deal of community building as well.
> > especially for folks who wisely wish to avoid the minefield that is
> > Facebook and so forth.
> > Perhaps?  it is less about how email may be declining generally,  and more
> > about how, in your personal experience, email is less important?
> > I could have listed google groups, and freelists in the place of
> > groups.io, with comparative results.
> > Perhaps its more about the audience?
> > Cheers,
> > Karen
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote:
> >  
> > > On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 4:56 AM ac via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >  
> > >> I read in a thread here recently that email is dead,  
> > >
> > >
> > > That would be me. Or something close to what I said.
> > >
> > > I never said email was dead, but rather it's evolved in a way that
> > > makes  
> > it  
> > > ever less useful ... just like postal mail.
> > >
> > > Email, like postal mail, is mainly these days for
> > > - Flyers and advertising
> > > - government, business and legal communications
> > >
> > > None of these uses is really interactive, at most they're occasionally
> > > transactional (ie, providing stimulus for me to do something that often
> > > itself does not require mail in response).
> > >
> > > The one benefit of postal mail that is not shared by its electronic
> > > counterpart is the ability to send and receive parcels; the
> > > consequences  
> > of  
> > > my doing e-commerce in a way that has zero to do with mail of any kind.
> > >  
> > And  
> > > the one unique benefit of email is that its addresses provide a unique
> > > identifier that can be used to create (and optionally authenticate)
> > > unrelated online accounts.
> > >
> > > I have been hearing that same thing for 30? years now and always for  
> > >> different reasons. But volumes of actual transactional email has seen
> > >> exponential growth, year on year, with not even a hint of any decline
> > >> in the growth itself.  
> > >
> > >
> > > For most email these days, "transactional" is an aspiration. Most have
> > > response rates of single digits at best.
> > >
> > > Sure, my spam filter is busier than ever ... but the signal-to-noise  
> > ratio  
> > > has plummeted. Same with postal mail. If it wasn't for flyer mail Canada
> > > Post would be in even more of a financial hole than it now is. Email
> > > marketing does not suffer quite the same financial fate as postal mail
> > > because costs are shared between sender and receiver.
> > >
> > > In a previous life I was on the other side of this. I was involved in
> > > choosing a bulk-mailing vendor and launching numerous bulk email  
> > campaigns,  
> > > for newsletters and announcements. (FWIW, the vendor we ended up using  
> > was  
> > > Moosend, based in London and India -- email doesn't care about domestic
> > > versus international rates.) It was cheap, but we never expected more  
> > than  
> > > low-single-digit percentage of recipients even opening what we sent, let
> > > alone responding by (say) going to the org's website. Providing
> > > strategy  
> > to  
> > > circumvent RBLs and spam filters has become a cottage industry of its  
> > own.  
> > >
> > > What interactive functions of email still exist -- mainly the social  
> > ones,  
> > > like personal mail and forums such as this -- are mostly the artifacts
> > > of the generation that grew up on it. Just like I still receive
> > > birthday  
> > cards  
> > > in the post, but only from relatives older than me.
> > >
> > > These services may very well never die. But both email and non-parcel  
> > post  
> > > are destined to continue their ever-further descent into pure nuisance.
> > >
> > > - Evan
> > >  
> 
> 
>