Why Augmented Humanity Is Paid to Receive Email

Written by Everett Bogue | Twitter will always be free.

Email was invented 40+ years ago. Back then the closest thing to email that anyone had heard of was snail mail, which came to physical locations such as homes and offices. People also used rotary phones back then, to give you some perspective.

Over time, email has spiraled out of control.

Most of humanity receives hundreds if not thousands of emails a day from people they don’t want to hear from. We’ve created a society of people tethered to their email boxes. This will be remembered as modern day inbox-slavery.

For some the number of emails they respond to is a badge of honor. For me, responding for the sake of responding is an absurd waste of time.

We’ve developed a number of social constructions in order to attempt to tame email, such as the difficult to enforce two.sentenc.es rule or the well-known processing strategy Inbox Zero. The problem is that both of these systems don’t reduce a key element of why email has spiraled out of control… They simply give you an effective way of dealing with the email so you can spend less than 26 hours a day in your email box.

Anyone can send an email to anyone with no friction. There are no barriers to entry in email. This results in massive amounts of lengthy emails being sent around without mindfulness to the energy drain on the other side. It’s a vicious cycle.

This slavery to our inboxes will stop, but in order for it to stop we need to step up and take control over the situation.

Email needs to be your sanctuary.

It’s a place for your mom to email you, your friends to catch up, a place where no one expects you to be, but they are grateful to hear from you if you are home.

This is why I’ve decided to begin charging a small fee to send me an email.

If I consider you a friend, and you will know if I do, there’s no need to pay to contact me. Anyone who subscribes to the Letter.ly is welcome to email me at any time.

When you pay for access, you will be re-directed to a contact form with more details.

The current e-mail exchange rate in the universe is: $5 per email.

*paying for email does not guarantee a response, see below for details.

How to get in touch for free:

I’ve been directing 95% of my communications to Twitter: @evbogue, you can always get in touch for free there. Twitter places the friction of space (140 characters) on communication, which allows for breath. I do not respond to most Twitter communications, but if you send something interesting, maybe I will! Twitter also can turn you in to a psychic cybernetic creature with incredible superhuman powers if you use it correctly. Also, simply tweeting to Twitter is a great way to get an answer to most questions.

How to guarantee that your email will get a response.

I can’t respond to all emails for a number of reasons:

1. Many emails I receive are absurd “can you do this crazy thing for me that will take up hours of your time?” Of course I can’t! I’m a highly paid business coach, leader of cybernetic humans everywhere, and I also have a lot of writing and living (making out! drinking tea! traveling the world!) to do. If you ask me to do something that will take up hours of my time, I will probably just hit ‘archive.’

2. Many emails are too long. If you send an email that’s more than 3 paragraphs, it stands a rather large chance of being archived. Most intelligent communications can be reduced to less than 140 characters and sent on Twitter. If you want to tell the world your story, the best way to do that is to launch a blog and start posting. Keep it short, and to the point. Put actionable items first, put supporting information (if you think I need it, I probably don’t.) after actions.

3. Google it first, chances are someone else may have answered the question in collective consciousness already. Better yet, search on google “site: farbeyondthestars.com: insert question here.”

4. I probably won’t respond to pitches, press releases, requests for advertising space, and other spammy type requests. If I want to support your product, I’ll get in touch. Permission Marketing came out in 1999, upgrade already…

5. If you have a question about Minimalist Business, chances are buying and reading the book first will answer your question.

6. Consider subscribing to the Letter.ly first, so our brains can sync up.