I mean, pretty much everything in that article applies to HTTP too. SMTP basically always runs through TLS now. If you ever get anything over an unencrypted connection, it’s almost 100% likely to just be spam. So mostly that article is complaining about your email being unencrypted on your provider’s server. Well, your Facebook messages are stored unencrypted too. So are your Slack messages. And Discord. And Twitter DMs.

I wrote and run the email service Port87, so I’m pretty familiar with how this all works. Email through a third party is about as secure as any other messenger. It’s not like Outlook.com is any less trustworthy than Discord.

I don’t need to trust anyone to use Port87, because I wrote it, but my users have to trust me, just like Google’s users had to trust me when I worked there, and Facebook’s users had to trust me when I worked there. You trust thousands of people when you use these companies’ products.

If someone is looking for end to end encrypted communication, I agree, they are probably better suited by another protocol. SMTP is really good at what it’s designed to do.