Dave is so full of it when he says " Email is getting more and more useless. Soon it will be time for the next thing after email."
(And he's wrong about opening mail when he can see the extention... Several trojans diguise themselves as .TXT files.)
Email is the "killer app" of the Internet. Just guessing, but I would imagine that it is the reason 90% of people use the Internet. It is more private and personal than setting up a webpage and if what you want to keep in touch with your family on the Internet, there is no better way.
I guess he thinks that email is useless because of the spam and viruses. There are ways to fight Spam (Black Hole Lists, for example), and viruses are not endemic to email -- they are more the problem of Outlook. Now, it would be unfortunate if Outlook's problems caused people to stop using email, but I don't see that happening either.