I would wager that the vast majority of people consume email via Gmail, Outlook, or Mail (Apple). You might have the holdovers like my parents who still use Thunderbird (because in early 2000's that was ideal of POP3 accounts, and they're used to it, and that's just how it will remain). All of those clients display HTML by default, and all marketing / account-related / branded emails are HTML emails. Every single reason cited in your link for choosing plaintext are irrelevant for the overwhelming majority of internet users worldwide. We could definitely productively debate the ethics surrounding marketing initiatives and data privacy, but at the end of the day, to me, plaintext destroys most of the functionality that makes email so useful.
This is not a good Show HN comment. There's nothing these people can do with this feedback, and it's litigating a tired internet trope. It's 2024, people overwhelmingly use HTML email, and this is not a thread intended to investigate whether that's a good thing or not.
If that is true, it is only true because email providers are making a choice on behalf of consumers, namely, the user writes plain-text emails (at, e.g., gmail.com) then the provider converts it to HTML.
You can use HTML with plain text fallback. That's still the vast majority of marketing/form emails.
HTML works fine, and adds important features like formatting text and links. HTML without images is ideal, as images are often blocked (as you mention).
I prefer plaintext too, but for a marketing email (ie, "confirm your account") consumers will think it feels "off" or unpolished given what they are used to. It will likely lead to churn. Clients can opt to view plaintext if they prefer.
Edit: also it's a bit funny the page you link, useplaintext.email, uses lots of HTML formatting.
My sentiments are totally with this comment, however as others have pointed out you can deliver both via plaintext fallback
And in defense of html emails: for marketing missions there's nothing like a nice piece of visual design -- layout, color, possibly some type design, but not necessarily images since folks like me turn them off because of tracking -- to get attention and drive interest. Also, html can allow for column layout that could keep email content shorter than plain text version
Literally everyone that sends marketing emails uses HTML (from political campaigns to video games, to movies, to shopping). You'd be putting yourself at a serious competitive disadvantage if you started sending plaintext (not to mention that it would look spammy, if anything).
I work in this space with hundreds of clients and tens of thousands of email templates and literally zero use plaintext as the primary templating option for marketing emails. None of them.
