1. I enter username/password and click "sign in". 2. Agorithms run on the server. 3. If the algorithms think "suspicious" I'm redirected to an "enter your emailed code" page and automatically send me an email.
In any case, the top of this thread was specifically referring to this type of transactional email.
Taking a quick look at my email history, I have a whole pile of transactional mail (from Canadian entities) with no unsubscribe links: a bank email notifying reception of a complaint, a bank email about my paycheque saying "You received this mandatory email alert to update you on transaction details", various order confirmation emails for things I purchased online, etc.
You can also set up arbitrarily complex filtering rules using Sieve, if the built-in rules UI is not sophisticated enough.
EDIT: HN apparently filters out that code point. Good on you.
Don't really use G-mail (I personally use proton) so I am not sure but can't special exceptions be made for E-bay if that's the case?
Some email providers and postfix also allow the creation of dynamic aliases of the form user+alias@example.com.
One thing I noticed is that most mailing lists now have a header that identifies them with a specific ID. When I click "Make rule from this email" in Fastmail the primary option is to sort it by that header, not by the sender or receiver. That way only the marketing emails get redirected and not transactional ones from the same sender.
List-Id: A Structured Field and Namespace for the Identification of Mailing Lists
At least for most people in my circle, family is using a social media platform or iMessages. And work is using Teams or Slack or whatever.
Work email is basically useless at this point. I'm completely drowning in various Teams chats created specifically for each "thread" of conversation, with just enough people to make it unique. Or inversely, created with too many people and all conversation is just lost to infinite scroll and walls of text.
I'd pine for a return to email. But no one uses it anymore. Only companies trying to get my attention and a few important forwards for tax receipts. I think email is dead.
I can search email in two seconds.