Subj : the offline way..
To   : Rob Mccart
From : August Abolins
Date : Tue Aug 26 2025 22:11:00

Hello Rob!

** On Tuesday 26.08.25 - 08:46, you wrote to me:

 RM> Maybe as the Big Social sites get less popular they will
 RM> make a bit of a comeback.

Yeah.. the current popular social sites are not really designed  
for dialog. They mostly seem to attract posts, rants, shares,  
#tags.

But apps like Sess, Telegram, Briar, and SimpleX would be  
smarter systems to use.  They all purport to support privacy.   
Whereas, fidonet/othernets/FTN, BBSing messages ..are all in- 
the-clear now.

In the past, echomail was pretty much "secure" in the sense  
that content wasn't tracked. Echomail exchanges were direct  
between two systems via a phone call connection. But now with  
many BBSes opening up their message areas to the internet and  
any website visitor, the messages are tracked easily and stored  
for data-eternity.

I don't think this form of messaging would gain a significant  
following to be considered a revived or preferred system.  
People are leaning towards using their smartphones for  
"messaging".  Except for Aftershock, and the Tg bridge, there  
really isn't any other easy way to participate in FTN messaging  
with a phone.


 RM> [...] Then the Global BBS feeds came out where you could
 RM> talk to people all over the world and it was amazing at
 RM> the time. These days that wouldn't mean anything to most
 RM> people.

I was already familiar with a global outreach with Compuserve,  
and even newsgroups back in the 90s - it seemed amazing to get  
read and get replies by people from all over the world.

Today, a system like Briar can support "groups", so a Briar  
account can appear to operate like a BBS, albiet the messages  
are still "chats" - that is, no real sortable Subject - for  
example - just one long stream of messages. But if people use  
the "R)eply feature as intended, the messages indent slightly  
so that you can see which message is related to the parent  
message.
-- 
  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.64
 * Origin: Stare into this point intently ->.<- (1:153/757.21)

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