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...and, most menacing of all, they may send your email to other people! More seriously, these things all seem like essentially mandatory features for an email

...and, most menacing of all, they may send your email to other people! More seriously, these things all seem like essentially mandatory features for an email provider today. If you don't provide fast search of my inbox you probably aren't a serious option for me, and a spam filter is an absolute must-have. How can they do those well without all of the above?

FartyMcFarter 7y ago
I hear that browsers these days parse the HTML content in your private browsing sessions, even the incognito ones.
dmix 7y ago
True. Although spam/search features could be the only thing you want done with your email. There's no reason why someone couldn't create a GMail clone with both of those features on parity but with a business model that doesn't involve mining your email for receipts.
- shereadsthenews 7y ago
  Well, the reason is cost. Gmail works well because when you click on it you get a few milliseconds of resources on thousand of computers. The rest of the time those computers are doing something else. The economics aren't great for any organization that doesn't have those boxes laying around already. Also obviously Google has search technology laying around in their kitchen drawer. If you don't have that you are starting at a disadvantage.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  This depends on what you mean. There are features (that many people find useful, even!) that depend on "mining your email for receipts". For example, I get push notifications that I have bill payments due, and flights and events that I register for are automatically added to my calendar. A similar feature, "trip bundles", which would group flight/hotel/car rental information for a logical single trip was available in inbox, and was one of the many features that inbox users complained about losing when Inbox was merged back into gmail. And of course, Gmail's business model doesn't really rely on mining your email receipts. Gmail data isn't used to target ads. So unless by business model, you mean the features, Gmail basically meets your requirements ;)
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  > There's no reason why someone couldn't create a GMail clone with both of those features on parity but with a business model that doesn't involve mining your email for receipts. Implementing the first two features well requires lots of users. Users you won't get if your service is less useful in assistant features for purchases.

FartyMcFarter 7y ago

I hear that browsers these days parse the HTML content in your private browsing sessions, even the incognito ones.

dmix 7y ago

True. Although spam/search features could be the only thing you want done with your email. There's no reason why someone couldn't create a GMail clone with both of those features on parity but with a business model that doesn't involve mining your email for receipts.

shereadsthenews 7y ago
Well, the reason is cost. Gmail works well because when you click on it you get a few milliseconds of resources on thousand of computers. The rest of the time those computers are doing something else. The economics aren't great for any organization that doesn't have those boxes laying around already. Also obviously Google has search technology laying around in their kitchen drawer. If you don't have that you are starting at a disadvantage.
joshuamorton 7y ago
This depends on what you mean. There are features (that many people find useful, even!) that depend on "mining your email for receipts". For example, I get push notifications that I have bill payments due, and flights and events that I register for are automatically added to my calendar. A similar feature, "trip bundles", which would group flight/hotel/car rental information for a logical single trip was available in inbox, and was one of the many features that inbox users complained about losing when Inbox was merged back into gmail. And of course, Gmail's business model doesn't really rely on mining your email receipts. Gmail data isn't used to target ads. So unless by business model, you mean the features, Gmail basically meets your requirements ;)
lern_too_spel 7y ago
> There's no reason why someone couldn't create a GMail clone with both of those features on parity but with a business model that doesn't involve mining your email for receipts. Implementing the first two features well requires lots of users. Users you won't get if your service is less useful in assistant features for purchases.