Email Sucks and Here is Why

Let's face it - it's 2015 (almost 2016!). Email, no doubt, is a key communication mechanism -- many of us cannot live without it.

But nowadays, the implementations are horrifying, and the applications we have available are, by far, even worse.

And as computing advances, the tools available today are far from useful.

Here's why...

I do not know about anyone else, but email is my primary communication means.

Everything from the choice email server, to local email fetch mechanism, to how I view my email. These are all critical.

I am a paranoid person when it comes to email. Everything is archived in at least two (separate) locations.

Everything.

I loathe IMAP. The absolute last thing I want to ever happen is a stupid bug in any of my email clients to "accidentally" lose all of my email across all of the connected clients.

So, in 2015, I still use POP3. Why? Because if my phone does something stupid, I know I have an archive of the email I may have missed "somewhere". And since I am still a Mutt email client user, I can easily deduplicate mail that had already been fetched locally.

Paranoia, and simplicity, are the key.

Why do I use Mutt? That is an easy answer -- in 1995, Michael Elkins, the original author of the Mutt email client said it best: "All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less."

And he is absolutely right. All email clients suck. Even 20 years later.

It is impossible to find an email client for an iPhone, for example, that does not brutally mangle email because it insists HTML email is a must. What I want is an email client that will only send/receive plain-text email, and not bloat my key communication mechanism with useless (and insecure!) functionality.

Can someone please explain to me why an email client needs to support JavaScript?

Before you try, do not bother -- an email client does not need to support JavaScript. That is the bottom line. Period. There is no justifiable use case for this.

What I want is very simple, in my opinion -- an email client for a phone that will not jeopardize (or bloat) local storage by storing garbage embedded (executable on view) code, and allow me to reply in-line without needing to modify most of the email to which I am replying to make it *look* like I a replying in-line.

It is absurd. It is 2015. What happened to Keep It Simple, Stupid?

And I will not even start talking about "smart mailboxes" -- that is just as much buzzword-y crap as "cloud computing."

End of rant.