Thoughts on the future e-mail

We all use e-mail, but rarely think about how things work. What are the disadvantages of mail? Why do we still use mail in spite of its shortcomings and the availability of alternative communication systems, for example, instant messaging systems like ICQ? To say that e-mail is one thing, and ICQ is completely different, means to say nothing. We must try to understand exactly what the difference is. Here is my list of mail issues:

1. Spam
2. Low security
3. Disadvantages with active correspondence
4. Relatively slow message delivery
5. Lack of information about the status of subscribers

The main reason for spam is the lack of a reliable system for identifying the sender of the message. If we imagine a system in which it is unambiguously known from which user of the system spam is coming, then this user can simply be blocked. In today's e-mail system, spammers can easily put anything in the “Sender” field. This is one of the main reasons for low security.

What inconvenience do I see with active correspondence? Every time we click the "Reply" button, a message is quoted. This leads to the fact that many users are tempted to respond to a message not at the top, above the quote, but right inside the quote, under the text to which the user responds. As a result, after several posts the message becomes unreadable. Every time you have to look for answers given by the last person to write quotes among the piles. In order to somehow solve this problem, users begin to delete old quotes, which leads to the fact that the last message does not contain the entire history of correspondence, and to return to the roots of the discussion, you need to look for old messages. There is an option to make everyone write answers only above (or under) the quoted message, but then, to answer a specific phrase, you have to quote it manually, copying it, inserting it in the right place and adding quotation marks. In addition, it is not always possible and the desire to "force." You can still write a lot on the subject of such inconvenience, but I do not want to inflate this article.
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Message delivery is slow when compared with instant messaging systems. A delay of 1-10 seconds, and sometimes more, of course, does not seem so big, but it’s already inconvenient to communicate in chat mode.

Despite this, we use it. In my opinion this is due to the fact that e-mail:

1. Provides good guarantees for successful message delivery.
2. Provides a flexible and convenient messaging system
3. Allows you to create messages with complex formatting and pictures. Allows you to attach any files to the message.
4. Allows you to store the history of communication either in the mailbox on the server or on the client, to choose from
5. It can integrate and provide interaction with various services.

I think it is clear what I am doing. It would be nice to have a system that combines the advantages of mail and systems such as ICQ, Skype and Jabber. Google is clearly moving in this direction, they simply integrated their instant messaging system with mail. Plus, they are developing such a direction as collaborative work on documents, the most recent example is Google Wave. Is this the right direction? Will such integration be sufficient? Or will the new generation communication system not based on the web be replaced by e-mail?

It seems to me that developing such a system is quite realistic. The main problem in the business idea for such an undertaking. After all, if it is not profitable, then it probably will not be done. With all due respect to the open source community and its developers, in most cases, open source software only repeats ideas implemented for the first time in commercial software, and the reasons for this are quite understandable.

I would be very grateful if someone would comment on my "thoughts out loud."