"c'mon, use our messaging products again"
They claimed that everything you like about Inbox has been integrated into Gmail, but it just isn't the same. All of your email categories/bundles were on the landing page. It was super intuitive to click into them and dig down into the hierarchy, and to go back/up a level on any screen you just scrolled to the top or bottom of a screen and overscroll (like a pull-to-refresh type move). I didn't have to pull out drawers or actively jump between categories. It was perfect.
Now with Gmail I have to click into my email categories one-by-one to see what's in each of them. It doesn't do the automatic bundling. And GOD the ads! Which there are not only way too many of, but they're constantly asking me if I find them useful or not. Of course I don't find them useful, I'm trying to check my email.
Most of the good features are already baked into GMail and Outlook already. The extreme white space Material Design look is already way out of date.
The key feature of having AI monkey with the inbox is a non-starter if you might face consequences for the AI getting it wrong. Even something as basic as Focused Inbox in Outlook causes problems and it’s only got two categories. The base gmail experience is super bad at its own implementation of categorized mailbox.
It was too beautiful for this world.
Inbox wasn't killed for lack of users.
Hangouts, Inbox, and most of Google's prior messaging platforms were terminated due to lack of centralized data-gathering of the most important data sets.
This is old news though.
Less random surprises, less regressions, less relearning, and when it needs to happen there's one clear hurdle to climb, if you want it.
A quick growth stage, typically when the subject is still new and being explored, and where a continuous or very regular upgrade is the best strategy. For example, smartphones or computers were evolving so much still not that long ago, that keeping one for more than 3 years was rare, and costing a lot in term of usability.
And then, there's a cooling down phase, when the evolution is much slower, and gains are few and far between. In this context, a consolidation strategy is better, and if one keeps the previous strategy, you can end up with changes that feel forced and are not actually evolution, but just something pushed because one has to push new things constantly.
[1] https://jmap.io/
(fastmail user, no other affiliation)
This is part of the reason why the "user's choice of IMAP client" line is so great.
You can also bookmark the modified URL, or (what I do) have it always open as an "unloaded"/suspended tab that you can click to load.
I've only used it since when needing to type a long form email or grab some critical information from an email while traveling and borrowing a friend or family member's computer. I haven't even done that in years thanks to smartphones.
When I transitioned away from the gmail app, I also transitioned away from using gmail as my primary account. (Though this took a rather long time to completely migrate).
I used the gmail app on my phone over IMAP for much longer, but stopped that when some update made it so that I couldn't send plaintext emails from my phone anymore. All emails were html --- and I detest html email.
There is one exception. When I want to search old emails, I'll open up gmail and search. I don't have a good search setup for my old emails.
I do use Basic HTML, though. The others barely add any features I care about and bloat the memory footprint by a large multiple. And their AJAXy loads take longer than full-page refreshes on Basic HTML gmail.
If I don't have terminal/SSH access, I'll use the "basic HTML" view.
https://techcrunch.com/2006/02/07/screen-shots-of-gmail-chat...
It seems google has gone full circle and is building things they've already built and killed once before. I don't particularly mind, I'm just not going to rely on any of this stuff because in a few years they will kill it and replace it by something else.
-Under no circumstances do I want your update unless it's to circumvent a genuine security threat or addresses a genuine pain point that real users complain about on HN, Reddit or, if it exists, your user forums
The design reflects team/org chart, just as you would expect in a big org.
An alternative may be also paying another email provider, and probably setting up your own domain name for it, for easier migration eventually.
You have to put in the hours but you know that you run that stuff!
Even after four major migrations (roughly one weekend every 3 years) and all the bullying from the big hosts to accept your mail I still wouldn’t change my mind!
It's either completely terrible or - more likely - people hate change.
This isn't.
(Side note- how is it that the leader in search, STILL does not support wildcard or partial word searching in gmail)
It is a plugin that emulates some of the now-removed Inbox functionality, and generally makes Gmail more pleasant to deal with.
Not only Google cares about locking you in their platform (they need your eyeballs) but they also intend to use your data against you (to influence your purchase decision and provide more pricing leverage to sellers).
