The set of people adversely affected is even smaller than that: it's people who would actually use the basic HTML in the future, which can be closely approximat

The set of people adversely affected is even smaller than that: it's people who would actually use the basic HTML in the future, which can be closely approximated by the people who use it now. Google knows the numbers for that, we don't. But it's striking how few "I use this UI in situation X" comments this story and its duplicates have. Most of the comments are by people who at best imagine it would be something they'd use, but actually don't. (And at worst the comments are by people who don't know what the basic HTML UI was, but are here to complain about other aspects of gmail.)