Member-only story
Why email will outlast messaging apps
The only digital communication method that plays nice with others
I’m old enough to remember when you had to pay for an email account. It was that valuable. I used my real name and found a provider that gave me free access, thanks Juno! And suddenly I was spreading the good word.
No, you didn’t need to create an account with my email provider. You gave your email like you gave your phone number. Except I could check your messages anytime with email — I didn’t have to be at mailbox or sitting next to the telephone.
Email disrupted
Because the next best alternative was mail. And forget about fax — only businesses used it and they charged a dollar a page (some places still do!). First class mail, to be sure, never died, but email really crippled the postal sevice. But it’s now the domain of package delivery, magazines, and junk mail.
Email fought and won the spam wars
Ads are killing blogs. Robocallers are overwhelming cell phones. And Apple has ruined SMS texting by making iMessage too good.
We thought that’s where email was going to end up too. There was a point in time where our inboxes were getting too full of spam and junk mail. Yes, we get a lot of bad emails, but spam filters won that war.
