Black Xanthus

Quick, someone ask the lettuce their opinion! We need an experienced post-holder as a counter point!

I don’t know if there is, but it feels like the email protocol problem.

Like, while the protocol sucks in many, many ways, it would take something revolutionary to replace it because it’s everywhere.

It’s been around so long that everything talks the protocol, the binaries that handle it are mature and stable.

Then you have to ask: what would you replace it with? It does the job it’s designed to do very well. There’s nothing the matter with the protocol, and it’s still fit-for-purpose.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems - spam, bad actors, and so on, but ultimately that’s not the fault of the protocol (though, maybe, for email, people have been arguing about protocol-level ways of dealing with spam for years).

I don’t have an answer, but I feel like there should be one, but I doubt the is.

It’s also difficult to ‘leave’ chromium when many of the alternative browsers are based on the engine.

I love Vivaldi, but at it’s cute it’s running the Google web engine. This is also going to be part of the problem.

There are very few non-Google web engines, and even fewer being used by other browser makers.

Why do big companies always mark you as spam, and why is it always Hotmail?

My experience is that I have to remove myself from spamhouse once every couple of months, because Hotmail decided that my 5 emails to different accounts was spam. TBF, it’s better than silently failing which is annoying as hell.

The problem with email is the same is always been: antiquated software.

The email protocol was never designed for an internet with bad actors and bots. It’s from the early hopeful days. We absolutely need a better email system - however, it’s simple use, the fact anyone can run one, it’s simplicity, is what made it so useful.

The difference with Lemmy(et. al.) Is that the protocol is designed in the modern age, and isn’t required to also keep up with bad actors for legacy reasons. If Meta decide to join and fill it full of bad actors, Lemmy has a choice email never had. Lemmy can choose to add verification, peer-conversation, trust keys.

It however still has the same basic problem: to be useful for everyone, it has to work with everyone. The discussions and decisions about how that happen are not just technological, but also moral and ideal-based.

Meta, then, in this context, is the first spam email server. How Lemmy/the community/etc respond will be the challenge.