Moving to non-Word formats [long]

[Peter Flynn]

On 15/06/2020 16:49, Liam Proven wrote:
[...]
> Item: I submit that MS Outlook, by intelligently combining what had 
> been 3 different apps -- email, scheduling and contacts management
> -- made itself the killer app for business email, and because it has 
> broken quoting and cannot handle top-quoting, it has effectively 
> destroyed email as a discussion tool.

They saw the opportunity to wrest control of the email format out of the 
hands of the people who value information.

> This has destroyed Usenet,

That was going to happen anyway, dating from the time that Internet 
access was commercialised, because upstream feeds no longer dared cut 
off an offending connection (eg one allowing spam), because they would 
lose revenue.

> created the entire market of social and business communication tools 
> from Slack to RocketChat to MatterMost, as well as nightmares such
> as "business social networks".

That has to happen, to keep the business and social users quiet.

> All because it made business email users use Microsoft Word as their 
> email editor.

Right.

> An entire generation of users now do not know how to use threaded 
> online discussions, and this is considered entirely normal and
> nothing to worry about.

Given that 99% of non-spam email is probably ephemeral and of no lasting 
value, I'm not really very worried.

Peter