NetMail: Email Before Email

If EchoMail was the public square, NetMail was the private letter. NetMail was FidoNet's point-to-point messaging. You addressed a message to a specific person at a specific node: To: John Doe, 1:234/567.5 Subj: Quick question about the source From: Mustafa, 1:235/100.0 The message would be packed up at your local node, routed through the FidoNet hub graph, and delivered to John's BBS. He'd see it the next time he called in. He could write a reply. The reply would route back. Done. Email, basically. 1989. ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── What made it different ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Three things made NetMail interesting compared to internet email: ▓▓ It cost SysOps money. Long-distance calls were not free. Routing your message across the country meant several SysOps paid real dollars to deliver it. You did not send NetMail casually. ▓▓ There was a "Crash" flag. Mark the message CRASH and your local node would call the destination directly, immediately, instead of waiting for ZMH or routing through hubs. Crashed mail arrived in minutes. Crashed mail also cost extra. Some SysOps disabled it. ▓▓ You could attach files. A NetMail with a small file attached was the closest 1992 ever got to "send me that source file." For larger files you used a separate tool called a file request, which was a different protocol on the same modem session. ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Etiquette ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Sending NetMail across zones was considered a favor you were asking of every SysOp in the routing path. The message had your real name and your address on it. You said please. You said thank you. You did not flame people. If you did, the SysOps would talk to each other about you, and your network access would quietly disappear. ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Why it matters now ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── NetMail was email built by people who personally knew the cost of every message. That changed how people wrote them. The average NetMail was longer, more thoughtful, and less reactive than the average email is today. It is probably not a coincidence that messaging quality went down as messaging cost went down. --- END OF MESSAGE ---