[ih] Better-than-Best Effort

[Jack Haverty]

Totally agree!  I was referring to the "plumbing" layer of The Internet, 
i.e., the basic IP datagram delivery service.  But certainly the 
"silo-ization virus" is well entrenched in application layers like 
messaging/email.   Apparently  it's working its way downward from the 
skins we see as applications through the layers towards the bones of the 
IP service, metastasizing through the whole stack.

An interesting question for historians might be "Why?".

Email has a long history of silo-izing.    I wonder if that occurred 
partly because we never proceeded very aggressively beyond the "simple" 
functionality of SMTP, and silos evolved to satisfy unmet needs.  So, 
for example, I have several "email accounts" provided by medical groups, 
financial groups, etc., that require me to visit their silo to read/send 
mail with them.   Sometimes they send me regular SMTP email to let me 
know that I should log in to seen my new mail.

I suspect one reason for their choice of a silo was the desire to be 
able to trust the identity and security of the parties involved in any 
conversation.  Although the header of this email says it's from "Jack 
Haverty", most of us know that you can't really trust such information - 
even when it comes from your old friend the Banker in Nigeria whom you 
can't remember.   Silos provide a bit more assurance, and might even 
keep your email from being read by someone along the way so they can 
send you better targeted advertising (except of course for that 
particular silo's operator).

Curiously, there is some technology in the SMTP-email world to address 
such needs.   My email app (Thunderbird) has the ability to sign and/or 
encrypt my email, using apparently well-publicized standards.   I don't 
know how well it actually works, but from observation I can tell that 
very few people and organizations I interact with seem to have embraced 
it.    In thousands of emails, perhaps there have been a few that 
arrived "signed".   But just a miniscule fraction.  I don't think I've 
ever seen one come encrypted.

So the question is "Why not?"   This is another example of the Internet 
History of what didn't happen....for historians perhaps to ponder.

/Jack


On 8/26/21 6:40 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
> On 8/26/2021 6:34 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>> If it comes true, the Internet will devolve into a set of competing 
>> silos,
>
> People keep using the future tense, for things that are already true.
>
> Consider just how extremely siloed messaging/email now is, in spite of 
> also still having the lingua franca if Internet Mail.
>
> Consider how often you are told a service runs better on this or that 
> browser and how often it actually isn't usable on some other one.
>
> and so on...
>
> d/
>
> ps. The realities of operating an Internet Mail service have now made 
> is quite difficult for a small operator to run well, so even that 
> service is highly concentrated.
>