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Still can't get over how they threw away Inbox[1]. That should have been the new default for everybody, not thrown away. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbox

by xd1936 5y ago

Still can't get over how they threw away Inbox[1]. That should have been the new default for everybody, not thrown away. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbox_by_Gmail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbox_by_Gmail

imchillyb 5y ago
Inbox was a data-gathering nightmare for our 3-Letter spy orgs. 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.
- xmprt 5y ago
  Inbox was pretty much just a new frontend to Gmail. Why would it impede in any data-gathering if that was Google's goal?
xmprt 5y ago
The decision to get rid of Inbox smells like a lot of office politics. Someone probably create Inbox as a fun new 20% project and then it took off with a massive customer base that was eating into Gmail's metrics and so they decided to kill it.
- Hurdy 5y ago
  Literally the opposite is true. Inbox had a huge team (bigger than Gmail) and while it was loved a lot by some, it never gained much traction among the regular Gmail users, and it'd have been impossible to migrate the enormous Gmail customer base over.
  - agnivade 5y ago
    >it never gained much traction among the regular Gmail users, Do you have any metrics to support that? I haven't met a single person who disliked Inbox.
hbn 5y ago
Inbox was the best email experience I've ever used. 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.
n8cpdx 5y ago
I think for people who take email seriously (e.g. have work or volunteering commitments) and don’t just use it as a receipt holder, the Inbox concept is horrifying. 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.
thomasedwards 5y ago
It was so good! Once they got rid of it I started moving away from Gmail because it was clear they just didn’t know what they were doing.
teknolog 5y ago
I know! Inbox was by far the best productivity software I've ever used. I was an eng manager during the time it was available, which meant I basically lived in email. I feel like I was 2x as productive because of that one tool. It was too beautiful for this world.

by xd1936 5y ago

imchillyb 5y ago

Inbox was a data-gathering nightmare for our 3-Letter spy orgs. 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.

xmprt 5y ago
Inbox was pretty much just a new frontend to Gmail. Why would it impede in any data-gathering if that was Google's goal?

xmprt 5y ago

The decision to get rid of Inbox smells like a lot of office politics. Someone probably create Inbox as a fun new 20% project and then it took off with a massive customer base that was eating into Gmail's metrics and so they decided to kill it.

Hurdy 5y ago
Literally the opposite is true. Inbox had a huge team (bigger than Gmail) and while it was loved a lot by some, it never gained much traction among the regular Gmail users, and it'd have been impossible to migrate the enormous Gmail customer base over.
- agnivade 5y ago
  >it never gained much traction among the regular Gmail users, Do you have any metrics to support that? I haven't met a single person who disliked Inbox.

hbn 5y ago

Inbox was the best email experience I've ever used. 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.

n8cpdx 5y ago

I think for people who take email seriously (e.g. have work or volunteering commitments) and don’t just use it as a receipt holder, the Inbox concept is horrifying. 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.

thomasedwards 5y ago

It was so good! Once they got rid of it I started moving away from Gmail because it was clear they just didn’t know what they were doing.

teknolog 5y ago

I know! Inbox was by far the best productivity software I've ever used. I was an eng manager during the time it was available, which meant I basically lived in email. I feel like I was 2x as productive because of that one tool. It was too beautiful for this world.