On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 8:40 PM, James R. Cutler<james.cutler@consultant.com> wrote:
(2) Saying "type our name into $SERVICE", where $SERVICE is some popular website that most people trust (like Facebook or whatever), and has come up with a workable system for disambiguation.
I can only hope that those who believe in "disambiguation" of mailing addresses, electronic or otherwise, will be sorely disappointed.
I'm not suggesting the elimination of email addresses any more than I'm suggesting the elimination of DNS. I'm asserting that people find it easier to use methods other than transcription to share email addresses, and that society gravitates towards such methods.
... And, I really want whitehouse.gov, not whitehouse.com, even though you could only guess my reason.
Thanks for proving my point for me. :) Why do you think <whitehouse.com> exists and is what it is? Why is it such a well-known example? I'm guessing it's because people frequently end up at the wrong website. Computers like using domain names, and are good at it. People don't, and aren't. It seems reasonable that computers will continue using domain names, while people continue to migrate to layered front-ends. I'm honestly stumped why people are having such a hard time speaking to this. Instead I keep getting told that DNS is more precise than Google. (Or email addresses are more precise than human names. Whatever.) Have I ever said otherwise? Indeed, my whole premise *depends* on the fact that DNS is absolutely precise while people are generally rather imprecise in their communications. The one counter-argument that actually speaks to my point -- that I can think of -- would be that computers are really lousy at deciphering human ambiguity. Which is true enough. But I think Google, Facebook, et. al., have demonstrated that it's not impossible to program a computer to deal with human ambiguity, provided you have enough computrons and limit the scope. Okay, one more counter-argument: To be useful, such services generally have to be popular. To become and remain popular, such services generally have to be widely available. Widely available services tend to get abused by spammers. Restricting service to block spammers is generally antithetical to making it widely available. Effective technological solutions are hard to find; political/economic solutions are expensive. -- Ben