11th March 2010, 12:51 PM
Etoven, how is mail obsoleted by the existance of market competitors that are EXACTLY the same service? The argument was that mail was still useful, not that USPS, a specific provider of mail, was the best way to go. They are all the same service, sending material packages from one place to another.
As it stands, right now the majority of the mail I get is junk mail. Of USEFUL stuff I get, it's all packages. I manage everything else electronically.
Faxing is utterly and completely obsolete. The only reason companies keep them is because companies keep them. Every single company feels the need to maintain a fax line because they want to make sure they are able to recieve faxes from other companies. It's a catch 22 of idiotic proportions, maintained only by fear of losing contact. However, as Weltall pointed out, every thing a fax machine can do, e-mail and a scanner can do better, faster, cheaper. Heck there are programs you can set up to automatically print every e-mail a specific e-mail account recieves, if you feel the need to have everything "on paper". Hah! On paper, most documents don't NEED to be on paper any more. The excuse I hear all the time is "for security", but how is being on a single flamable piece of paper locked away in a single building, lost in a maze of boxes of other papers, a better solution? You can back up any digital copy of that same document a billion times nearly instantly and remotely to a dozen locations, and these redunancies combined with modern data security to make sure it hasn't been tampered with are a million times more effective than anything paper can provide. Paper provides only one thing, mobility, that is, you can walk around outside and have someone sign a thing.
The iPad will remove this last weakness forever. Then we'll be using those tablets everyone in Star Trek has been using, except our's will be better because we won't have half a dozen and the files will just be transferred wirelessly to a single "tablet".
Paper is good for quick notations when you don't have access to anything else, and it'll still be good "in a pinch" in the future, but it's being replaced by stuff that's just plain better.
Personally, I'm just glad e-mail replaced snail mail. I remember as a kid when phone calls were considered "not as personal" as sending a letter to someone. I really expected people to complain about me sending e-mails instead of paper mail, and for it to have a tough time penetrating the cultural "moral superiority" of the "old ways". Fortunatly, it hasn't.
For some reason, paper "cards" are still considered better than e-mail versions thoughl. Never really "got" "cards". I mean, it's just a letter except you fold it in half. It's a folded piece of paper! How the hell did Hallmark get away with making that a cherished proof of endearment that people are EXPECTED to get for each other every now and then or they don't love ya?
As it stands, right now the majority of the mail I get is junk mail. Of USEFUL stuff I get, it's all packages. I manage everything else electronically.
Faxing is utterly and completely obsolete. The only reason companies keep them is because companies keep them. Every single company feels the need to maintain a fax line because they want to make sure they are able to recieve faxes from other companies. It's a catch 22 of idiotic proportions, maintained only by fear of losing contact. However, as Weltall pointed out, every thing a fax machine can do, e-mail and a scanner can do better, faster, cheaper. Heck there are programs you can set up to automatically print every e-mail a specific e-mail account recieves, if you feel the need to have everything "on paper". Hah! On paper, most documents don't NEED to be on paper any more. The excuse I hear all the time is "for security", but how is being on a single flamable piece of paper locked away in a single building, lost in a maze of boxes of other papers, a better solution? You can back up any digital copy of that same document a billion times nearly instantly and remotely to a dozen locations, and these redunancies combined with modern data security to make sure it hasn't been tampered with are a million times more effective than anything paper can provide. Paper provides only one thing, mobility, that is, you can walk around outside and have someone sign a thing.
The iPad will remove this last weakness forever. Then we'll be using those tablets everyone in Star Trek has been using, except our's will be better because we won't have half a dozen and the files will just be transferred wirelessly to a single "tablet".
Paper is good for quick notations when you don't have access to anything else, and it'll still be good "in a pinch" in the future, but it's being replaced by stuff that's just plain better.
Personally, I'm just glad e-mail replaced snail mail. I remember as a kid when phone calls were considered "not as personal" as sending a letter to someone. I really expected people to complain about me sending e-mails instead of paper mail, and for it to have a tough time penetrating the cultural "moral superiority" of the "old ways". Fortunatly, it hasn't.
For some reason, paper "cards" are still considered better than e-mail versions thoughl. Never really "got" "cards". I mean, it's just a letter except you fold it in half. It's a folded piece of paper! How the hell did Hallmark get away with making that a cherished proof of endearment that people are EXPECTED to get for each other every now and then or they don't love ya?
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)