StupidMailTransferProtocol (2020-07-30 12:20:26)

SMTP: email messages are sent through parties that neither the recipient nor the sender HAS ANY CONTROL of. Legitim messages are often not delivered (for various reasons), and unsolicited messages often pass through.

SMTP is fundamentally flawed.

Please note that hotmail.com is especially severely effected by this problem. It has been observed repeatedly that hotmail.com also uses broken methods to distinguish between spam and legitimate (incoming) messages, and often rejects or silently drops legitimate messages - if you use hotmail, and do NOT receive some expected messages (like automatic order ACK from shop), consider fixing hotmail or changing provider..

The email system is deteriorating continuously, and as of 2017 no one in their right mind should trust that messages pass as they should

It is not some small problem that could be fixed easily.

SMTP is fundamentally flawed.


There are multiple ways to pass messages.

It is unreasonable to use the message passing that is not guaranteed, when there are guaranteed alternatives (for lower labor cost and lower technical cost )


What are alternatives to SMTP ?

eg. wiki, webdav, git (these can be "direct", eg. via server controlled by the recipient)


25 cent doorbell

Sending a message should not cost "anything" if the recipient desires, but it should cost nonzero if the recipient finds it disturbing under the actual circumstances

The "25 cent doorbell" solved this (the exact time is irrelevant, but IIRC in the 1920's; patent nr ?) simply:

It has never been so important as today, when SMTP causes hundreds of billions of dollar damage (by being flawed in multiple ways)

[ethereum.org] made it trivial to (eg. recipients issue their tokens so anyone can reach them who they want) solve the micropayment infrastructure (although it is possible to solve many different ways, even more efficiently than with ethereum)

Friends get the tokens in advance (together with the recipient address),

  • others can send their first message for minor temporary fee (1 click through crypto currency market), fee returned to them in days if message is legitimate.