What is really the issue here is how ineffective this communication becomes. The problem is not simply not knowing if you were read because your recipient declined a Gmail read receipt. Just like Google Workspace (formerly GSuite) users (and Outlook’s users in the 1990s) see: “Read receipt requested,” says the annoying pop-up. Imagine exchanging messages through mobile and being bothered everytime your contact sends you something. That is why it is not used in today’s popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn use this method. This is an extremely limited way of understanding communication through emails. As a result: most recipients are invited to reject read receipt requests, especially considering the forceful way in which such requests are technically implemented.The email sending and receiving experience is transformed into an unnatural form of communication, in which you don’t know if your recipient didn’t open the email or declined the read receipt instead.This implies the recipient might not be interested in knowing their message was read.The sender assumes knowing if an email was opened or not is optional.They’re inspired by Outlook’s 1990s approach to read confirmation, in which: Gmail read receipts are an old-fashioned system of letting you know if your email has been read, but they aren’t foolproof.
