Private messages on Steemit

Did you notice ?
Here, on Steemit, there is no private message possible.
This is surprising as Steemit is a kind of social network. Some says, it is going to replace Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.. So where are the private messages ?
Some will argue that Steemit is not a social network, but rather a blog platform. OK. But you get to know people here there are numbers of situations where it would be very convenient to be able to talk to someone privately.

For example, if you want to contact someone to collaborate or if you want to work with someone in some way (an artist, a developer, a musician..) ? If you want to ask him/her more info about a very old post he/she did ?
Or if you want to propose someone to buy something you know it owns in Steem (or SBD) ?
Will you post a comment on one of his/her article (possibly unrelated) ?
Will you make a new article in your Steemit account mentioning the person and hoping this person will somehow see it or see your mention possibly among a thousand ?
And what if you want to include private details, like a salary, an address, or anything else private ?

I think it would be a great addition to Steemit if had :

• a way to send a private message to someone
• notifications when we get a new private message
• an anti-abuse system to prevent people spamming everyone with PM

There was apparently a great website doing the job perfectly, but it is officially down for an unknown time.
@garethnelsonuk told me it might come back.
So for now we have not much.

Current workarounds

There are a few workarounds. But these are more do-it-yourself solutions than really convenient ones.

• Steemit wallet workaround : You can send messages to someone by sending this person 0.001 SBD (or more) and filling the "memo" part. Then the receiver will get notified right away (new transaction in the wallet). Cheap, but not private at all, the memo is public, stored forever in the blockchain, and viewable by everyone right away.

• Steemit wallet workaround encrypted : is the possibility to use the now well known and widely used asymmetrical cryptography mechanism :
  Encrypt a message with someone's public key. Then send 0.001 SBD (or more) and the encrypted message as the memo. The receiver will be able to decrypt it with its own private key.
  Not very convenient. The receiver has to do it manually and know how to do this concretely.
  Besides, is there an easy and fast way to get Steemit public keys ? I wonder if that's possible. And if there is a dialog taking place, how do you handle it ? Do you manually decrypt/encrypt your message ? Your wallet history will be polluted by lots of unrelated and encrypted notifications. Plus it is not fully private. The amount, time and sender/receiver will be publicly known.
  Note : There is a very simple way to send a crypted memo with the wallet, you just add a "#" before your memo. See my Edit at the bottom of this post.

• the Steemit chat : you have to keep the chat opened in a window to get notifications. Not everyone (no one ?) does that. Maybe your receiver will not open the chat for .. 3 months. You have not much proof that your message will be read.
  Furthermore, have you tried to use the chat in a mobile phone ? It is almost unusable.. It is not really thought for a small screen.

• The last possibility is to post a comment on a post. Woohoo! No need to state how private this is.

SPAM

Now with this comes the question of spam, unsolicited messages.
Currently, some people (well generally speaking bots) are using the wallet workaround to spam and ask you to follow, look at their account etc...
If anyone can send you a PM for free, everybody will get lots of spam.
So as suggested in several places, I think, the best for private messages would be to be either pay-per-private message. Or white list based (but this prevent genuine unknown people to contact you). Or both.
I like the idea of a paid private message. After all if you want to really speak with someone privately, all you need is one message that you know this person will read for sure.

So, will this be implemented later natively on Steemit ?
I hope so!

Edit : @good-karma just released a post explaining that you can send/receive encrypted messages with eSteem application! So it is basically implementing the "Steemit wallet workaround" and avoid to encrypt/decrypt manually each time.
All you have to do is add a "#" at the very beginning of your message and it will be encrypted. Apparently, you can also do it with the website Steemit (not only eSteem).