When will email protocols (IMAP/SMTP/MIME) be a thing of the past? How many years do you give it? 

I'd say 15 years from now most people won't be using email.

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Brand Strategy @ Northern Army | Founding Member @ Bankless Consulting. web3 | strategy | org design

I'm definitely thinking of an evolved / open communications protocol that better supports the way most of the world communicates today - via chat.

I get very nervous when I think of replacing a free and open global protocol with something else, because it's less likely to be free and open and more likely to be controlled by one centralized power or another.

I think maybe you're right, but I hope the solution doesn't bite us in the ass.

If web3 can solve identity seems inevitable. 

Look at Sign-In with Apple. You don't need an email, you need a fingerprint. When new protocols emerge, couldn't we swap out the backend just as easily? Users wouldn't know the difference. They just get their communications from a different app.

I think we talked about this before but another option is to bridge a decentralized chat protocol by building a backwards compatible version with email

Also super interesting story that smtp is a federated open protocol… it got centralized by big tech because of ease of use for common folks and trust issues with spam. Web3 in early days still have these issues…

Would you say most people do not use snail mail? It’s true most people do not send snail mail anymore but they will certainly receive them still 15 years later+

It will either become a thing of the past or thrive anew when Google loses their dominance of email.

Email may fade into the background like snail mail did but it's not going anywhere.