These systems should really just fetch all remote content in advance, rather than waiting until it's read. That would make it impossible for a sender to know if a message was read or not.
I remember reading their articles about the Windows Phone and some early Android devices, and realizing that the 'review' was just some guy complaining about how it's not like an iPhone, as if approaching a user interface or solving a problem in a different manner than Apple was inherently a bad thing for all use cases, in all places. That sort of promoted fanboy-ism permeates, well, almost all of their articles, be it a tech piece or a purported report on politics.
I've tried inbox zero etc. but they all fail in the long run for me (I'm one of those folks with the red badge of shame with literally 40,000 unread emails on my phone), so I'm eager to give Hey a try which gives you a workflow of how to do email: screen, reply-later, focus mode bulk reply.
Right off the bat it put a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm helping you test your product. Changing your email is a really big commitment, I can't imagine this is the way to convince people to try it.
Proof from Jason: https://mobile.twitter.com/jasonfried/status/126602572713423...
Hey.com features on top of Gmail though, that would be amazing.
Instead you aggressively set rules to filter and check your email manually when you are good and ready.
If you really need to, only allow VIPs email to show up in badge count. iOS supports this.
On the other, if you find a way to get people to pay you $30 a month for an otherwise free or cheap service, then bravo. Even if I think it’s silly, it’s a progressive tax on something way less evil than, say, bottling public water and then selling it back to the public.
Being more effective with email and communicating is a life changing discipline and skill.
The 30/mo should be seen as the hundreds or thousands it can make or safe some people who have to be effective with their time and communication. Again, maybe not for everyone.
Assume your time is worth $50/hour and you can deduct superhuman as a business expense. Let’s say you do email every day in a month, so 30 days.
If I did my math right, Superhuman just has to save 36 min per month to break even. That is 1.2 min per day.
If Superhuman is even marginally better than the best competition, then it meets that bar, and is profitable for someone who earns money with their work time. That’s the target market.
I use it. I find the desktop app great, mobile apps so so. They have major ram issues on ios. But I love the desktop app.
There is a wide world out there where $30 is not cheap at all.
I wish Americans consider stuff like that before commenting but I gave up years ago.
If you're an employee, it's irrelevant.
If you're self employed, the mental overhead and switching costs are high.
And if you are the person for which those things are true, do you believe the marketing?
Wouldn't 5 minutes memorizing keyboard shortcuts be a better use of time, at $0/monthly cost?
I would argue that the area in which people fail to consider the value of time is actually the time cost of implementing new processes, software or otherwise.
There are hundreds of thousands of free courses and tutorials that could each save someone a little here and a little there, why doesn't everyone spend all day learning?
It's an interesting question, really.
I lean towards pick the 2-3 core activities and optimize for time and output with those tools. For everything else, optimize for low mental overhead.
New way for monetizing a product many failed trying.