"SMTP has outlived its usefulness" (was: Forwarding services)

Posted Jan 16, 2026 13:24 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
In reply to: "SMTP has outlived its usefulness" (was: Forwarding services) by taladar
Parent article: A note for MXroute users

>>If you know someone's email address, you can communicate with them with no prior arrangement.

> The real questions is why we would want this in a world that is so clearly full of scams, spam, people using your address because they think it is their own,...

Anti-spam software nowadays is pretty good; I rarely get a spam that makes it into my INBOX. So I think most email providers have figured out how to keep it manageable. As to why we want that, there are all kinds of reasons. If I want to send a quick enquiry to an online store, email is the most convenient way. If I want to let people contact me with questions about my open-source software projects, email is the most convenient way.

The phone system and regular mail work the same way. If you know someone's phone number, you can just call them up. You don't need to perform any setup work to be able to do this, and it's very convenient.