---
title: "I don't know how I feel about email"
date: 2023-07-16
tags:
  - satire
  - email
hero:
  ai: Counterfeit
  file: uncertain-foxgirl
  prompt: a girl with yellow eyes, pink hair, fox ears, a white hoodie, and a short skirt walking through a park; her hair is very long and is wearing a very uncertain look.
---

So recently I've been trying to use email and I just don't know how I
should feel about it. There's a lot of core problems with it that seem
to seep out to every part of the protocol, user experience, and the
entire thing is just leaving me uncertain for its future.

## I have to choose a server

One of the biggest things that confuses me is that I have to choose a
server to use email. I'm not really given explanations of what each of
these servers mean and what the differences are, but I have heard that
some servers can't interact with eachother due to petty administration
disputes. I don't know which server I should pick, but my phone keeps
trying to get me to use iCloud mail.

A lot of my friends use this Gmail thing run by Google, but I don't
know if I really want to put Google back in my life after I cut it
out.

<XeblogConv name="Mara" mood="hmm">
  Does it even matter if everyone else you talk with uses Gmail anyways? Google
  still has copies of the conversations and their recent TOS change allows them
  to train AI models on user data.
</XeblogConv>
<XeblogConv name="Aoi" mood="rage">
  What? They can read my email? It's not encrypted until I try to read it? Can't
  you do some end-to-end encryption or something?
</XeblogConv>
<XeblogConv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">
  Can and should are different words. PGP is hell. You don't want to.
</XeblogConv>
<XeblogConv name="Aoi" mood="facepalm">
  Oh god.
</XeblogConv>

Also apparently there's no real way to migrate between email servers
either, so whatever I choose is going to be my permanent home. Lots of
online applications will tie into your email address (some even make
your email address a primary key for your account with no way to
change it!), so whatever email address I choose will probably have to
be used forever. I can forward emails from an old account to a new
account, but [Google is going to delete inactive
accounts](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en)
and I can't imagine that other providers aren't going to follow suit.

Oh and if that server goes down and stays down, I lose access to any
of my emails that I haven't downloaded yet.

## I can't run my own server

Okay, so if I have to use a server can't I just run my own server? I
have an AnalogBrocean and I can set up an Ubuntu instance or something
to act as a mailserver. It shouldn't be that complicated right?

What do you mean spam is a thing? Doesn't the spamfilter take care of
that?

What do you mean email servers don't come with spamfilters by default?

What do you mean that the default configuration of email servers means
that I have to vigilantly monitor everything to ensure that bots don't
send emails and destroy my reputation at unreasonable hours of the
night?

What do you mean that if someone else on my server chooses a bad
password, bots will figure it out and start sending a torrent of spam?

What do you mean that IP addresses aren't a reliable way to detect who
people are?

What do you mean that the spamfilter software takes 12 gigabytes of
ram, 4 CPU cores, and 35 GB of local space in order to work?

What do you mean I can do everything right but some AI model will get
angry at me and all of the efforts I do to "fix" it are wasted time?

<XeblogConv name="Aoi" mood="rage">
  How does anyone deal with this shit?
</XeblogConv>

## I don't know which client to use

Once I have my email account (and maybe my own email server if I
really hate myself), I need to connect to it with a client. Every OS
comes with a mail client, but all of them suck (Apple Mail seems
decent though?). If I open the App Store and search "email client" I
get _hundreds_ of results. Same in the Google Play store. More if I
look for clients for Windows. Even more if I look for clients for my
Steam Deck. I don't know enough to know if these mail clients are
legit or not. Which ones are reputable? Which ones are made by
development teams I can trust? Which ones will support the kinds of
emails I will read?

Oh and even better, apparently Gmail is starting to lock down access
to your emails with only a username and password in the interest of
"security", so you have to go through convoluted hoops in order to
check your email in something that isn't the gmail web UI. It is
literally impossible for me to check my work mail in something like
Aerc.

And then comes the issue of clients and message formatting. When I
compose and send an email, I type text in the box, drag in
attachments, and maybe **bold** important things. Then I try to send
my email to a friend and they tell me they can't read it and send back
a bunch of HTML garbage. I don't get it. Why does the format of
messages matter? I just want to send my emails and have my friends
read them, but then I have to dig through confusing or impossible to
set configuration options to only send things in "plain text" instead
of formatted messages. My iPad doesn't have the option to send emails
in "plain text".

Apparently some smaller email servers will defederate with yours if
you send HTML emails too, so if my client fucks something up in the
eyes of another server admin, it could get my server defederated. What
the hell kind of user experience is that?

## Mailing lists

So email has groups called mailing lists, but using them with many
email clients is an exercise in futility. Apparently some of the
biggest open source projects in the world are developed on these
things? Every mailing list has their own unspoken rules on how you're
supposed to use your client, reply to emails, and more.

If you break these rules, you're threatened with banning. It's
bullshit. I don't know how people deal with this. I just want to ask
questions about the linux kernel, I don't want to have to entirely
redo my entire setup on my iPad just to send clarifying questions back
when I'm at a coffee shop. I don't care about "plain text", I care
about getting the answer to my question.

Maybe this is why Microsoft was looking at proposing the Linux kernel
move to something more amenable to the modern age. They got shot down
for this of course, but why can we have nice things when we have
"simple configuration options" in a billionty email clients?

---

I give up on email. If you want to talk with me, you'll need to
project to my astral sigil. You can find it in the upper left hand
corner of the website. There's a villa in the northwest corner of the
island. I'll be waiting there.

<XeblogToot url="https://pony.social/@cadey/110715083282612029"></XeblogToot>
