We’ve lost the most widespread service on the Internet to an entire generation. Most people under about 25 don’t use electronic mail by choice, largely because it’s so infested with spam.She notes that:
They seem to be supplanting it not only with IM, but with private messages sent through social sites (MySpace, or any other blogging site that is allowing user registration and private messaging). The latter has the advantage over regular email in that it’s easier to secure from spamming. Comment spam is still a problem, but PM spams aren’t because the ONLY way you can send a PM is to register by hand. Spammers still try to abuse one site or another, but they’re detected quickly and kicked off; they can’t automate the process enough to make it worth their while. Social sites’ software by and large doesn’t support bulk private messaging.Plus mobile phone text messages. That seems to be what I see, too. And this isn’t a lot different from what I do; I use mail all the time, still, weeding through the spam, but I do most of my correspondence in smallish mailing lists that I can easily file and read in a bunch, and I use forums such as this blog, plus the occasional mobile text message. Younger folk text a lot more than I do and don’t have near the same tolerance for spam; after all, they’ve never known mail without spam.
I don’t know if I agree with her diagnosis of the problem with mail. Continue reading