Email is the ultimate "killer app" you can digitally deliver anything to anyone via email, and many folks use it for all sorts of different processes and purposes. Solutions that claim to displace email don't really displace email -- they displace common use cases that were handled ad hoc using email as a lowest common denominator. Most of these use cases cry out for a more structured solution.
For example, There are 1,000 services that displace emailing pictures to each other. There is probably an order of magnitude more services for managing tasks, approving things, exchanging quick exchanges, or performing any number of other tasks.
But at the end of the day, for the core function of email -- unstructured written communication, email is the king.
Your summary makes me think that the reasons for which huge number of people uses Excel as a database at work are very similar. There is such a thing as not enough flexibility, too much structure.
Email is the ultimate "killer app" you can digitally deliver anything to anyone via email, and many folks use it for all sorts of different processes and purposes. Solutions that claim to displace email don't really displace email -- they displace common use cases that were handled ad hoc using email as a lowest common denominator. Most of these use cases cry out for a more structured solution.
For example, There are 1,000 services that displace emailing pictures to each other. There is probably an order of magnitude more services for managing tasks, approving things, exchanging quick exchanges, or performing any number of other tasks.
But at the end of the day, for the core function of email -- unstructured written communication, email is the king.