From: pww@bnr.ca (Peter Whittaker)
Subject: Re: Pet Peeve "No E-mail"
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 19:53:39 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.133111.11125@auto-trol.com> mattel@auto-trol.com (Matt Telles) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.235323.28800@unislc.uucp> hastings@unislc.UUCP (Clint Hastings,B1E05,5119) writes:
>>Gee. Like it would be so hard to give email access to those who need it.
>>Businesses were fairly quick to jump on the fax bandwagon, yet they
>>won't even consider email, which is far more efficient as a means of
>>easy communication than fax.
>
>Sigh.  No, e-mail is *nowhere* as efficient or easy as FAX.  As a point of
>...
>instantaneous.  Here, I am writing this letter on Tuesday morning at 7:30 a.m.
>Want to bet you don't read it before *at least* noon?  If I were FAXing to you,
>it would be there by 7:32. 

So it gets to me by 7:32 am.  So what?  Any one who manages their time
worth a damn won't get around to that FAX until they get around to
their correspondence in general.  That includes email, snail mail,
FAXes, voice mail, etc.

And as another poster wrote with regard to email resumes vs. snail mail
resumes, it isn't a race:  the email and the snail mail resumes get
read at the same time.  It is the convenience of email, not its speed,
that makes it infinitely more attractive than FAXen.

As for the convenience, I explicitly ask all vendors with whom I have
frequent dealings to send me email, if possible, and to provide me with
a return email address:  the vast majority of my correspondence, daily
work, at-my-fingers information, etc., is electronic and never sees
hardcopy.  I make exceptions infrequently, and don't care for them.  I
can't grep a FAX.  And I hate having to reference a filing cabinet,
especially when it contains so little of the information I need or deal
with.

Oh, and if I *need* to send a FAX, I send it email via a FAX gateway:
at least that way I can grep my original, file it appropriately, make
links to it, easily quote or include it in other documentsm, etc.

>find your article, respond to it, tell rn to send it, wait for the computer to
>send out the articles, etc.

You are either exaggerating, or you have not yet realized the tremendous
benefits of the paperless office.  The "extra effort" you imply is more
than justified by the tremendous advantages of having all correspondence
available softcopy, and ready for manipulation by the full repertoire
of information processing SW.

You need to do a keyword search on ASCII resumes?  grep $keyword
resumes/*.  You need to do it on hardcopy?  Hire a temporary, if you
can find the budget.

It is true that most of these advantages are not yet available as
consumer commodities, but I'm sure they will be soon.  This
availability will be driven by increasingly demanding business
enterprises of all sizes who realize the tremendous advantages of
purely electronic communications.

> To FAX, I just type it up (maybe even by computer)
>print it out and stuff it in the machine.  Then I dial a number.  That's all.  

You print it out?  What's the point?  Buy a FAX modem or subscribe to a
mail service with a FAX gateway.  It won't run you much more than that
FAX machine in your basement.

>Sorry, e-mail is not likely to replace FAX machines in the near future.

I cannot disagree more.  At first, I was going to allow that FAXes are
more useful for some types of document, but on further thought, I
cannot justify that idea:  EDI, X.400 based systems, the ability to
send multi-media attachments or bodyparts, the ability to
cryptographically secure and authenticate senders and recipients....
All these things spell the death of the FAX machine (and physically
insecure snail mail) as a business communications tool.

Personal communication may still take place via FAX, but that market
will slowly shrink to the point where it is insufficiently large to
justify marketing FAX equipment as commodity items.

>Sigh again.  I think you need to take a class in human behavior and response.

What?  I'm afraid I don't understand this statement.  Are you saying
that "people in general" will not care for the all-electronic way of
doing things, and that most will prefer to stay with snail-mail, etc?
If so, I disagree.  Some will remain with pen-and-ink letters for
sentimental, personal, or humanist reasons, but most will "convert" (I
do not denigrate the personal or humanist responses:  most of my
personal, "for enjoyment" writing is pen-and-ink).

It is true that many people have to be "dragged kicking and screaming"
into the world of email, but even the most technophobic or techno
illiterate users that I know (including members of my family and some
of my best friends) have fallen for the technology once they came to
use it:  instantaneous, cheap, worldwide messaging?  Beat that with a
stamp!

"The change" may be slow to take off, but when it does (end of the decade
at the latest, IMHO), it'll be massive.

pww