Just Use Email

The lights went out on Just Use Email for a little over six months.

Let me explain. No, there is too much… let me sum up.

The short is: I got busy, got tired of running a web server, needed to make some website changes here, and after pulling it down to place elsewhere… I stalled. I just couldn’t find the energy to finish what you now see in front of you.

For that, I’m sorry.

However, in between other events in my life, I have to confess there was a few moments when I thought about abandoning this project.

Since we’re all human, I felt it would be transparent to share a bit about that with you. Perhaps you’ve felt likewise about your own interests.

My top 5 considerations for sending Just Use Email to the digital trash bin were:

1. I’m busy and no one will care anyway.
2. I’ll never make a dime off this and I need to focus on dimes, not hobbies.
3. What did fans of Just Use Email expect? That we’d really change the culture and see a resurgence of email as a primary tool over and above all the other apps we are hammered with each week?
4. There are too many attacks on email each week. How will I ever defeat them all without nuclear warheads?
5. (And in a bit of sophomoric philosophy), why not truly “just use email” and abandon this html/www website because I mean, really, how can I just use email if I’m also managing a website?

Now, I didn’t give these thoughts much weight. I was busy, but here and there, on a solo drive, they would pop in my head and I’d wrestle a bit with them.

It was no irony to me that I also did not “just use email” to do everything in life. I managed to scramble eggs numerous times each week without email, so I think I had reached the saturating state of mind where I had to remind myself that this website needs it’s own mission statement.

And yes, I do mean “mission statement”, not manifesto.

Here’s are the 5 principles I came up with:

Mission Statement of Just Use Email

1. HISTORICAL: To stand as a testament to the greatest digital communication method ever created by man, even if it is one day overrun by corruption or cowardice.
2. RESOLUTE: To stand as a bulwark to the inherent power of email that can restore sanity to our Information Age.
3. HUMANITARIAN: To gently help those lost in a sea of notifications unaware that there is a better way.
4. FELLOWSHIP: To provide a path forward for those who want to find like-minded hearts on this and similar topics (more on this in a moment).
5. HUMOROUS: To mock and deride those who would attempt to besmirch 50+ years of human communication with untested sweeping statements such as “Email is dead”. We all need humor and this may be, in some respects, our most important mission in this cold and callous world.

Now, before I elaborate on #4, let me tell you why I decided not to abandon Just Use Email and, instead, double-down on it.

Why Just Use Email will Stay

Here are my top 5 reasons for keeping – and now growing – Just Use Email.

1. The fans. That’s you if you’re reading this and like using email. I received numerous inquiries as to the site’s status (some of you will be getting personal replies). I was reminded of how important that #4 mission is, not just here, but in communities in general. You don’t just abandon ship. Other people are carrying the flame of hope, too. (I realize this sounds a bit larger-than-life. Just Use Email is not a suicide hotline service, of course, but I think we’ve all grown oh-so-tired of losing a favorite website or service over the decades. The least I can do is my small part).
2. If there are too many attacks on email, then that just gives me more to choose from. I don’t have to reply to them all – and never could – but I can start responding to some of them – perhaps even skewering them – and maybe others will one day slow down their hatred of email. Hey, like any good cult, we’re looking to have a splashy front-page conversion story. Maybe one of these attackers will one day convert to a defender and, well, wouldn’t that be something?
3. Who cares about making money, really? I make money elsewhere. This and other hobbies of mine bring me joy. Joy is priceless. I don’t get to do it every day – or even every month – but when I do, I’ve never regretted the time I’ve spent on it.
4. Perhaps it’s just me, but the need for Just Use Email isn’t fading, but growing. Each week feels like 100 more reasons that I need to keep trumping this idea that email can handle nearly all of one’s communications in life – and that there’s some great ways to implement email that a lot of people don’t seem to know about. Over time, I had imagined the need to go down as people just “adapted” to a world without email, but it seems almost the opposite. People are struggling and want a way out. Sure, some will go to Alaska and never return, but the rest of us just want to have a calmer communication lifestyle.
5. Lastly, I began to think… bigger. What is Just Use Email, really? A blog? A website of resources? Will I ever really write all those articles I once imagined I would in my initial welcome post? What I realized is that Just Use Email, at its heart, is a community.

A Community of Email Lovers is about more than Email

In getting emails from people all over the world about this site, both during this lights out time and for a few years before, I realized we shared some common interests.

Some just like “the old way”.

Some just like “simplicity”.

Some are tired – oh-so-tired – of all the endless interface variations foisted upon us, the monitoring, the privacy violations, the “web first” approach to everything, and the slowness to all the modern solutions.

Some truly love email – as I do – for it being a web standard, for being universal to mankind, for having all its superpowers.

Why then, don’t we all talk amongst ourselves more often? Why should Just Use Email be only about me writing articles?

Now before you think I’m going to start a forum (just use forums!), start bringing on guest authors, or creating an annual conference. Think again. I’m busy; so are you.

However, I believe you want to share and to hear from others. My gut instinct is to create a type of email ListServ to share ideas, critique things, encourage each other.

However, I’m not going to just charge straight ahead here and do that. First, I want to hear from you all. Let ideas mull over and then contact me via the Questions page with your thoughts about all this. No rush on this.

I don’t think it needs to be about email only, per se. It could be a little bit of all matter of topics: bloated apps, retro computing, internet standards, email tricks and tips, ways to convert others away from messaging apps (especially when there’s that one Uncle who wants everyone to move to Discord), typing and keyboards, and anything anyone wants to talk about.

Of course, there are million places on the internet where these discussions sometimes occur, but I feel that with Just Use Email as a home base, we might agree that a more narrow crowd would want that as their underlying platform of beliefs and perhaps the discussions here would be interesting in a different way.

In summary, if you’re willing to give Just Use Email a second chance, I’d be grateful. If you’re able to write me with some ideas for next steps, I’d truly love that. If you just want to lurk — or send these articles to your bombastic I.T. department — that is more than I could ask.

I greatly appreciate all of you and your passion on such a niche topic in such a crazy complex world. If you have fun with it, or a smile here and there — as I do when I write here — then that is enough.