Decentralized Email Concept Brainstorming | Hacker News Reader

Decentralized Email Concept Brainstorming

aleveo.com

2 pointsdejan3 comments

The alternative to such dictatorship over own content could be buying own domain and running own mail server. However, most people won't run such system, nor would they accept implied costs.

Or you can buy your own domain, and have an email service provider, of which gmail is a mostly free (cost wise) one, host it. I recently switched from running my own mail server to using gmail, and it was simple.

The idea of using "twitter style" (guh!) @some.name addresses loses a lot of functionality, like throw away or customized addresses, that perhaps many people don't use (but more people should). Plus, what importance does the @ have to do with this scheme? Just use some.name. One advantage of hierarchical email system, of user@domain, is that there isn't a landrush to get exclusive access to the user portion of the name. Two people named Joe can exist at different domains without conflict.

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, I use gmail for all my web domains, but have you seen the Service Agreement? Firstly, they own our data, so basically, our emails belong to them. We are just users.

Well, "twitter style" :) with the @ signifies an address. Without the @ it could be used as a universal login for other applications.

I am thinking that the domains have less and less importance, and that our data should be more integrated across the web. I am aiming at unifying the web data of a user just as it is available at local storage, and applying the desktop usage habits to the web.

It's just some thoughts passing, and I'd appreciate opinions.

Without the @ it could be used as an address too. The To: field is unambiguously a list of intended targets, independent of the formatting -- it's unfortunate that twitter has no metadata and the recipient list needs to be listed in-line with a special syntax. When someone wants to get my attention or directs something they say at me, they use the same string I use to identify myself, my name, not (necessarily) with any special prefixing/enclosing/suffixing embellishments.

I am thinking that the domains have less and less importance, and that our data should be more integrated across the web.

That a "domain" is something on the RHS of an @ and is the name for something you can "purchase" the right to use is inconsequential. I could just as well purchase a domain that is my name (independent of the fact that there are well-known TLDs that you are limited to purchase under). Domains are just the base-line identifier that we tie a bunch of internet related services to, through the DNS and zone files, there is nothing inherently "domain-y" about them.

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