5 Nov
2019
5 Nov
'19
3:57 p.m.
Sadly I think the only thing keeping email alive is
the fact that
almost every non-email platform requires an email address for user
identification and authentication. There’s a big shift now for
linking to Facebook and Google etc. for doing that, but those are
obviously very specific and platform dependent mechanisms, and even
those require an email address. Sooner or later there will be a
common, platform-agnostic mechanism that will become dominant, and at
that point I suspect email die.
off-topic, <random rant>: Most hipster apps require a phone number
nowadays rather than an email address. Worse, they expect phone numbers
to be allocated in blocks (e.g. mobile numbers with a specific prefix),
as if VoIP never existed. Then they send SMS (!!!) as verification.
IMHO that is way worse than an email address as identification. (sooo
80s!).
It's all quite rubbishy. Given all the data floating about on the 'net
about us there shouldn't be any need whatsoever to log in anyways!
Email is, however, atm, quite unique, as in, it doesn't require any
prior connection between parties to communicate (good and bad - think
"spam")....
It also is 'owned' by the individual rather than a 3rd party. I own my
email addressed, as in, it does not change when I change supplier
(different to say phone numbers or google/facebook logins)
</random rant>