I read too many uneasy references to modern "communication" and "the web" that give me cause for concern about the future of the email utility, here.<p>Is this soft language hinting toward chasing the "nobody under thirty uses email" tail? I may be reading too much into the post, but the use of any word other than "email" whenever possible is unsettling.<p>Comments about the pending Firefox 5 already threaten my browsing experience with a dump of "social" that I simply don't wish to have, so it seems feasible that this could be a direction Thunderbird is following, too.<p>Personally, I want more innovative email functionality. Things that my feeble brain couldn't even conceive of until someone else puts it in front of my face. I could really do without having the client crammed full of Facebook messaging hooks and twitter and FourSquare and other things popular amount the self-indulgent attention-whore population.<p>Edit: Okay, the page went away for a bit and when it was back up, it was edited to include a few more comments and a bunch of links to things like F1 and Raindrop, which seems to shed some light on where their heads are at.<p>Am I just being old and grumpy or do others feel it's reasonable to want a light utility that performs one function superbly? Granted, Thunderbird is more than a simple email client, but those things it currently includes benefit the email experience (such as the very useful indexing and search improvements). Do I just need to be five years younger to grasp how incredibly necessary it is to have Twitter and Facebook and URL sharing services in my email client (or all the social stuff Firefox 5 may be looking to include in the browser)?<p>As long as these things remain extensions that you can add by choice to either Firefox or Thunderbird, it of course isn't a problem. Choices and options are a great thing. The more I hear, the more I suspect much of this will be slowly embedded over time as part of the finished product. And the more activity I see focused on these things, the more I have to wonder if there is actually a demand among the user base for this or if it's just throwing throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and hope something gives an edge over the competition?<p>I guess the best comparison I can make is the swarming of the market with media button keyboards. Remember how IBM mechanical keyboards were just fine? Extremely good, in fact? And then someone got the bright idea that we needed a button on the keyboard to load a home page for us. And load our email for us. And set the volume for us. And shut down our computer for us. And bring up a Google search page for us. I've never used the buttons. I've never known someone who does. Never actually seen someone use one in front of me. Ever. But they're on every keyboard. Even today. You have to go out of your way to even find a standard keyboard without all the garbage on it.<p>Is that what all this social crap is going to be? Sticking a bunch of superfluous limbs onto your creature in the Will Wright Spore Character Creator, just for kicks?