Email, so they say, is “the way old people communicate”. But if the alternative is a proliferation of inboxen breeding out of control, then sign me up for that senior citizen card.
Granted, a lot of what those articles are (or “were” – they’re old) talking about is communication in a different medium – e.g. SMS, IM (arguably) – which can fill niches that email can’t1. But a lot of it is pretty much email by another name – inboxes in Facebook, Myspace, WAYN, BallOfDirt, other social-network sites, and other “weren’t a social network but now shoehorning one on top of our existing stuff because all the cool kids are doing it” sites.
I’ve already got an inbox. Feed me through that, and spend the rest of your time, effort and money making other, cooler stuff for me to use.
[1] This is a potential branch-point for a whole big tangential thing about mobile broadband, always-on connectivity, etc. But I’ll leave it.