> * Every year, the number of people and businesses that rely on email gets smaller --- in the last 5 years or so, by something like 15%.

If that's true then where's that stat from and how are these businesses getting contacted online?

There's no decent replacement for email in that department at all to my knowledge.

Can't answer the source of the stat, but where they're getting contacted - FB messenger or Twitter, for starters.

I've done most of my non-B2B communication with businesses over the last year or so via FB messenger, Twitter or phone.

>I just think we should figure the nuts and bolts out before we decentralize

Bolting on decentralization works about as well as bolting on security.

Can you qualify that third point?

What's considered reliance? What's the name of some place that stopped using email? I can see a drop in businesses that are running their own email, and that outsourcing maybe represents a big shift in terms of how they see it as "not critical and must be kept in house" but I don't know that they rely upon it much less.

How are these businesses messaging and communicating?

There's a big dilemma with using centralized systems for sensitive communication.

* You have to use one that is not economically or legally dependent on a jurisdiction hostile to you.

* There can never be many different centralized messaging systems that are economically viable because that requires network effects.

As a result, there will always be a large number of people who will not be able to find a centralized system that protects them reliably.

> * Email remains important for middle-class Americans because it's used for business. But that is a small subset of the whole population, including very large numbers of Americans.

Middle class Westerners (not only Americans by any mean) that are doing business are also pretty much the only ones that are willing to spend money on written communication. E-mail might not be on the rise, but I'd guess it grosses way more money than all IM platforms together.