> Email is unencrypted because some value-extracting tech companies are controlling large parts of the infrastructure, and there is a systemic problem with gatekeeping that suppresses innovation.

Huh? I can only assume that the other isn’t referring to S/MIME or PGP, etc., but to encryption of transport and/or storage. Or maybe they are limiting their consideration to web based email?

That assumption is based on decades of PKI experience: unless every message is encrypted and signed, by default, without user action, and somehow (notice the hand waving) users are automatically enrolled in a seamless, invisible, low friction, key management system, encrypted email is just too complicated for most people.

There are so many moving parts, from getting a certificate, be it PGP or X.509 or something else, to having a working email client with encryption, to knowing that everyone else does, to deciding whether or not every email should be cleartext, signed, encrypted, or encrypted and signed.

I’ve taught this stuff and it is surprising how many people think a signed email has some level of confidentiality protection just because it isn’t readable text anymore (clear-signed aside).

The reason that web clients don’t offer encryption or signature is most likely because it is a support nightmare.

We’ve known HOW to do this stuff from a technical perspective for decades. What we have yet to figure out is how to make the UX acceptable or elegant or pleasant or seamless.