> What the average HN user and the average user want is worlds apart. The average person likes their emails to be nicely designed like a website with blocks of colour and the site logos.
Taste is generated. Cool trendy startups make "nicely designed" emails, users come to expect that. If scam emails looked "nicely designed" and Google sent emails in plaintext, the "nicely designed" emails would be considered untrustworthy. As a counterpoint, an "average user" wants software to work, and forcing every email client to parse HTML (which is far outside the scope of what an email client should do, especially with html as complex as it is today) often breaks things in unexpected ways.
In my opinion, html and plaintext are both inappropriate for email. HTML is far too complex, and plaintext is a bit too simple. I think a markdown-like syntax would be the best balance, but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.
Taste is generated. Cool trendy startups make "nicely designed" emails, users come to expect that. If scam emails looked "nicely designed" and Google sent emails in plaintext, the "nicely designed" emails would be considered untrustworthy. As a counterpoint, an "average user" wants software to work, and forcing every email client to parse HTML (which is far outside the scope of what an email client should do, especially with html as complex as it is today) often breaks things in unexpected ways.
In my opinion, html and plaintext are both inappropriate for email. HTML is far too complex, and plaintext is a bit too simple. I think a markdown-like syntax would be the best balance, but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.