Yes. $$$. Nobody makes much/any money off email because it is
so de-centralized. People who build wonderful new applications
build them in a centralized way so that they can control them.
And they want to control them so that they can monetize them.
That is even true of the large email providers who are happy to
provide "free" email in return for being able leverage their
other products and/or "sell" the users and user base to
advertisers.
It is very true that innovation can only be sustained with a revenue stream.
But we could argue that several services have now become pretty much
standardized, with very little additional innovation going on. Those services
are prime candidates for an open and distributed implementation. I mean, could
a WG design a service that provides a stream of personal updates and a store of
pictures and is only accessible to my friends? And could providers make some
business by selling personal servers, or maybe personal virtual servers? Maybe
I am a dreamer, but hey, nothing ever happens if you don't dream of it!
-- Christian Huitema