Can you imagine a day without an email? To be exactly without XX emails. Or even XXX emails if something is wrong. Some teams moved from email to slack, hipchat or [put your stuff here].
But do we need them?
History
Email history is really interesting. Just take a look at Wikipedia:
Electronic mail is a method of exchanging digital messages between computer users; Email first entered substantial use in the 1960s and by the 1970s had taken the form now recognised as email. Email operates across computer networks, which in the 2010s is primarily the Internet. [...]
Some early email systems required the author and the recipient to both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging.
Wow! We are using email for more than 40 years and we still don't know how to use it properly.
Day with emails
When I look at my day, I check email too often. Probably you too. Why? Because of the notifications. To be precise email is totally asynchronous stuff. Same with instant messaging. But almost everyone expects that we answer ASAP. With Slack is even worst:
Make it even worse
A lot of us is getting emails from automatic systems. For example issue tracker, CI server or intranet information. Lots of unread emails.
Why unread? Because we create email filters to delete such useless emails.
So why are we sending them? Why do we subscribe to notifications that we don't even read?
Here you can say: I read all email notifications. They are important. But do you always take an action after you get a notification? Do you think about them or just read and delete?
Imagine
Imagine that email does not exist. Instead, you have to print a message, put it in the envelope and address it manually. If you want to send the same message to two people, you have to print it twice and address it twice.
How many messages would you send then?
How many would you receive?