Pulling the plug on email?

Filed in archive Spam on January 30, 2007

Frantic Industries says that 94 per cent of email is in fact unsolicited, which leaves us with 6 per cent of emails which we in fact want to read. Although this is nothing new to us all, the author things we are this close to drawing a line and giving up on email:

"Think about it. If your phone rang a hundred times a day, and only 6 calls were actual calls and not people trying to sell you stuff you don't need, would you use it? Would you invent clever ways to recognize fake calls and only answer the real ones, or would you give up and move to another way of communicating?"

Sounds tempting, doesn't it? If email and spam gives you headache, just stop using it. And start using IM, private chat rooms, or what t he heck, meet all those people in private and say what you've got eye to eye (which is rather scary, I know:)

I can't agree with this standpoint. First of all, a vast majority of people I deal with in everyday life has only learnt how to use email properly. Like attach files to their messages, Cc an Bcc, reply and forward. I have installed vigorous spam filters to more than one mail reader and explained hundreds of times that there is no Viagra without prescription. How am I supposed to tell those people email is over with, and more importantly teach them to IM?

Second, if we give up on email, it's plain running away without a fight. We have to get more responsible in our communications, and I have more and more positive experience even with the n00best ones among us. Also, don't get fooled - if we all stop using email spammers won't just go to dealing drugs or trafficking people to earn a buck, they will follow wherever our communication goes.