No. Fax is a specific communication medium where you can send physical documents to others, and was replaced by email because email was a general communication medium that was more accessible (everyone had it), and didn't have as high costs to accessibility especially for non business users (fax machine).<p>The current trend is actually the reverse: general communication is being replaced by specific communication that is better suited for the type of communication it is. Social, pictures, group chat, business collaboration, negotiation/agreement, etc - email CAN function as the medium but is not ideal, whereas the apps that replace email streamline the communication experience.
In the sense that it's not used as widely, except in certain circumstances? No way! Email is here to stay for a long, long time (maybe even beyond the lifespan of anyone reading this in 2018). Even if person-to-person communication has shifted to different apps and platforms (like Facebook or Telegram or WhatsApp or Snapchat or Instagram or Google+ or what have you), communications within companies and communications from companies to customers, potential customers, suppliers and others, are cases of large scale regular use of email — as a communication platform and an archival platform.
Yes. We have our Exchange system setup that if we have 'SECURE' in the title it will check if we TLS agreement with the receiving server. If we do, we'll send the email through with encryption. If not, the receiver is required to sign-up for our secure web service and then use a one-time code to download the file.<p>We do limit the file size of what we'll send in encryption. But does someone really need a 3 gig PDF?<p>We really only keep fax for government requirements and the few outliers that will not cut the phone cord. We were getting some many junk faxes we had to implement a white-list.
Every "competitor" has the same problem: No federation and walled garden. Email is compatible with every programming language, device, operating system ... you name it. It's the most compatible system there is. Try sending a message from Slack to Whatsapp for comparison.
As in dated technology that is still chugging along? Yes.<p>As in terms of usage? No.<p>I still have to fax things to the government, and I have no idea why. For example, I had to fax an old tax return to California Franchise Tax Board, but they would only accept mail or fax.<p>And I never scan something and email it. Even banks went straight past email check deposits to smart phone photo check deposit. I put pictures on the web. I text things way more. I use Google Docs, Drive, DropBox, or the cloud for about everything else.
Whoever argues that Slack is the new thing, I give you this<p><pre><code> > sudo ps_mem | grep slack
564.3 MiB + 72.4 MiB = 636.8 MiB slack (5)
</code></pre>
I run it because I have to, but I really hate how bloated it is, and how the background color (white) cannot be changed.<p>Usually end up running "xcalib -i -a" (invert colors) before switching to slack.