I will make the predication that 2004 will see the demise of email as we know it.  My email has become nearly useless, between the thousands of viruses I'm getting, misfiled spam (see previous post), and lost emails.  I had to resort to the telephone (gasp!) to call my French translator because neither of us could receive the other's emails.  And then I spent two hours on the phone with MSN, trying to figure out why I can't send email to any hotmail or MSN users (they were no help at all, of course).

I don't know what the solution is, but I think that some kind of authenticated email scheme or micropayment system for sending email will solve many of these problems.  I'm sure others have thought about this more than I have, so I won't make any off-the-cuff suggestions.

As a last ditch effort attempt to stem the flow of spam, I'm obfuscating all my email links (google for "obfuscating email" for some good tips) on my web pages.  What a waste of time...