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The reason gmail was successful is that it didn’t revolutionize email. It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were alrea

The reason gmail was successful is that it didn’t revolutionize email. It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. I’ve seen so many of these revolutionary email clients over the years but they all fail. It’s just too hard to get people to radically change their workflow, and tbh the current one isn’t even that bad.

pupppet 3y ago
The 1gb storage space certainly didn’t hurt either, at a time when Hotmail was offering peanuts.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  From same period I saw mail for my 5 MB box being full... Offering 200 times this was enough...
arcbyte 3y ago
I'm curious what your workflow looks like? I come from the perspective that email is totally broken; both in my personal spam filled inbox and in my corporate information black hole email. So I'm genuinely curious
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  Get good at searching, filters, modifiers, keywords, etc. My I boxes are huge, but I generally find what I need quickly by typing a fee searching filters and keywords
- the_snooze 3y ago
  I have multiple email aliases that feed into the same box. I filter messages based on what alias they went through and who sent them. Nearly all messages get automatically marked as read; they're there, but I won't get notifed of them. For a few high priority senders who have my high priority alias, they get the star treatment: notification, star, reminder to reply, etc. Also, if you filter for the word "unsubscribe," you can cut through a good chunk of low-priority automatic messages.
  - eks391 3y ago
    I am familiar with vendors that provide a similar service, but none quite as you described. Which one do you use?
    - the_snooze 3y ago
      It's just Google. I have a Google Workspace subscription for my personal domain, but you can accomplish a similar thing using "plus-aliases" on standard free Gmail accounts: "foobar+lowpriority@gmail.com"
- bee_rider 3y ago
  It is a good replacement for letters, postcards really. It does that well, and that’s enough.
Tao3300 3y ago
It was delightfully sparse coming from heavyweight desktop clients. Though now that I'm at 98% capacity, I need to hook up a heavyweight client to do real cleaning...
HNDen21 3y ago
Also 1 GB of inbox storage, this was a lot more than others like Yahoo IIRC
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Wasn't Gmail "unlimited" in the early days?
  - toyg 3y ago
    iirc it went from 1gb to 4 to 8, then "unlimited" for a period, then again limited once they started charging for GApps.
  - brutal_chaos_ 3y ago
    Yes it was. It took years before I had a limit. I used to use gmail like google drive well before drive existed. There was even a tool called gmaildrive(0). (0): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMail_Drive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMail_Drive Edit to Add: Apparently the storage wasn't unlimited? At least from a cursory look at Wikipedia. Huh. Memory is a funny thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail
    - globular-toast 3y ago
      I'm surprised too, but the screenshot showing "You are are currently using ... of your 1000GB" brings back memories. Maybe it's because back then 1GB of email storage seemed essentially unlimited?
  - wredue 3y ago
    Gmail was unlimited space, and invite only in the early days. The main reason for success was that Google was still generally seen as a not evil company, while other mail providers were garbage/evil.
    - gsharma 3y ago
      Initially, people sold these beta invites on eBay! https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/gmail-accounts-go-up-for-bid/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/gmail-accoun...
pilaf 3y ago
> It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. UI-wise, yes, but GMail was also the first mainstream "AJAX" [1] app. Before it the expectation was that clicking on almost anything on the page would cause a full page refresh. GMail was in part revolutionary because of how snappy it felt for a webmail client. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)
- HNDen21 3y ago
  I remember using OWA (Outlook Web Access) before that.. but you are right this is the one that stands out..... soon after this Digg was created and the onslaught of all the web 2.0 sites like delicious, flickr etc etc
  - pilaf 3y ago
    After all XMLHttpRequest was a non-standard addition to the web API by Microsoft, specifically added for Outlook AFAIK. Firefox copied it though, so GMail could use it without sacrificing browser agnosticism.
nerdjon 3y ago
I mean, even as someone who has now removed google from my life as much as possible including no longer relying on gmail. I disagree, I think gmail was genuinely a step forward. I remember the yahoo of the time just being extremely clunky. A polished fast UI can be considered a revolution in its own right. Wasn't it also one of the first to do HTML emails or am I mis-remembering? The email threads were a really nice quality of life feature. Of course we have the amount of space it gave you and that weird ticking space thing that made everyone's space go up at a consistent pace. That being said, the way I see it. Email doesn't really need a revolution at this point in time. It does what it needs to do, it does it well (except for spam), and I feel like attempt to move past that (wasn't it google that showed off some sort of interactive emails?) are ultimately a bad thing. Personally I like that email has stagnated a bit, let it do its job without tacking on feature after feature.
- gsharma 3y ago
  HTML emails were there before, but I agree that fast UI and threads was a step up from Yahoo or Hotmail. Labels instead of folders, username+wildcard@ email addresses, filters (at least the UX was better than traditional rules). They also enabled POP and IMAP. IIRC, IMAP used to be a premium feature for email providers at that time. I’m not sure about revolution, but e-mail can certainly be evolved. 20 years ago, not as many emails were sent, especially transactional emails. User behavior has evolved since then. For example, storing email receipt of a random Amazon order from 2 years ago doesn’t make much sense these days. Hey has addressed some of these changes, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
timbit42 3y ago
I've been using Gmail since its start and I don't remember it ever having a good client.
Gualdrapo 3y ago
> I’ve seen so many of these revolutionary email clients over the years but they all fail. Even their own _Inbox_ app failed, although mostly because Google _Googled_ it.
tivert 3y ago
> The reason gmail was successful is that it didn’t revolutionize email. It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. I take it you never had a Hotmail account with 5mb mailbox limit (though by 2005 was a bit larger like maybe 10 or 20mb). The revolutionary thing about gmail is that it offered 10x-100x more space than its competitors, for free. Everything else about it was whatever.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
"It's just too hard to get people to radically change their workflow, and tbh the current one isn't even that bad." Gmail's update last month mandating use of Javascript radically changed workflow for me. The difference in speed and resource consumption for me against the faster HTML version is significant, not to mention an increasing cluttered interface. Over time, people get used to the slower speed. Very sad. More of our time and resources stolen by a so-called "tech" company. I thought I was free from this nonsense when I quit using Windows decades ago. I was wrong. Gmail serves Google first and Gmail users second. When it wants to make changes that benefit Google, it can make them, no matter how "radical". Why. Because it's too difficult for Gmail users to find an alternative mail provider.

pupppet 3y ago

The 1gb storage space certainly didn’t hurt either, at a time when Hotmail was offering peanuts.

Ekaros 3y ago
From same period I saw mail for my 5 MB box being full... Offering 200 times this was enough...

arcbyte 3y ago

I'm curious what your workflow looks like? I come from the perspective that email is totally broken; both in my personal spam filled inbox and in my corporate information black hole email. So I'm genuinely curious

iancmceachern 3y ago
Get good at searching, filters, modifiers, keywords, etc. My I boxes are huge, but I generally find what I need quickly by typing a fee searching filters and keywords
the_snooze 3y ago
I have multiple email aliases that feed into the same box. I filter messages based on what alias they went through and who sent them. Nearly all messages get automatically marked as read; they're there, but I won't get notifed of them. For a few high priority senders who have my high priority alias, they get the star treatment: notification, star, reminder to reply, etc. Also, if you filter for the word "unsubscribe," you can cut through a good chunk of low-priority automatic messages.
- eks391 3y ago
  I am familiar with vendors that provide a similar service, but none quite as you described. Which one do you use?
  - the_snooze 3y ago
    It's just Google. I have a Google Workspace subscription for my personal domain, but you can accomplish a similar thing using "plus-aliases" on standard free Gmail accounts: "foobar+lowpriority@gmail.com"
bee_rider 3y ago
It is a good replacement for letters, postcards really. It does that well, and that’s enough.

Tao3300 3y ago

It was delightfully sparse coming from heavyweight desktop clients. Though now that I'm at 98% capacity, I need to hook up a heavyweight client to do real cleaning...

HNDen21 3y ago

Also 1 GB of inbox storage, this was a lot more than others like Yahoo IIRC

globular-toast 3y ago
Wasn't Gmail "unlimited" in the early days?
- toyg 3y ago
  iirc it went from 1gb to 4 to 8, then "unlimited" for a period, then again limited once they started charging for GApps.
- brutal_chaos_ 3y ago
  Yes it was. It took years before I had a limit. I used to use gmail like google drive well before drive existed. There was even a tool called gmaildrive(0). (0): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMail_Drive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMail_Drive Edit to Add: Apparently the storage wasn't unlimited? At least from a cursory look at Wikipedia. Huh. Memory is a funny thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    I'm surprised too, but the screenshot showing "You are are currently using ... of your 1000GB" brings back memories. Maybe it's because back then 1GB of email storage seemed essentially unlimited?
- wredue 3y ago
  Gmail was unlimited space, and invite only in the early days. The main reason for success was that Google was still generally seen as a not evil company, while other mail providers were garbage/evil.
  - gsharma 3y ago
    Initially, people sold these beta invites on eBay! https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/gmail-accounts-go-up-for-bid/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/gmail-accoun...

pilaf 3y ago

> It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. UI-wise, yes, but GMail was also the first mainstream "AJAX" [1] app. Before it the expectation was that clicking on almost anything on the page would cause a full page refresh. GMail was in part revolutionary because of how snappy it felt for a webmail client. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)

HNDen21 3y ago
I remember using OWA (Outlook Web Access) before that.. but you are right this is the one that stands out..... soon after this Digg was created and the onslaught of all the web 2.0 sites like delicious, flickr etc etc
- pilaf 3y ago
  After all XMLHttpRequest was a non-standard addition to the web API by Microsoft, specifically added for Outlook AFAIK. Firefox copied it though, so GMail could use it without sacrificing browser agnosticism.

nerdjon 3y ago

I mean, even as someone who has now removed google from my life as much as possible including no longer relying on gmail. I disagree, I think gmail was genuinely a step forward. I remember the yahoo of the time just being extremely clunky. A polished fast UI can be considered a revolution in its own right. Wasn't it also one of the first to do HTML emails or am I mis-remembering? The email threads were a really nice quality of life feature. Of course we have the amount of space it gave you and that weird ticking space thing that made everyone's space go up at a consistent pace. That being said, the way I see it. Email doesn't really need a revolution at this point in time. It does what it needs to do, it does it well (except for spam), and I feel like attempt to move past that (wasn't it google that showed off some sort of interactive emails?) are ultimately a bad thing. Personally I like that email has stagnated a bit, let it do its job without tacking on feature after feature.

gsharma 3y ago
HTML emails were there before, but I agree that fast UI and threads was a step up from Yahoo or Hotmail. Labels instead of folders, username+wildcard@ email addresses, filters (at least the UX was better than traditional rules). They also enabled POP and IMAP. IIRC, IMAP used to be a premium feature for email providers at that time. I’m not sure about revolution, but e-mail can certainly be evolved. 20 years ago, not as many emails were sent, especially transactional emails. User behavior has evolved since then. For example, storing email receipt of a random Amazon order from 2 years ago doesn’t make much sense these days. Hey has addressed some of these changes, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

timbit42 3y ago

I've been using Gmail since its start and I don't remember it ever having a good client.

Gualdrapo 3y ago

> I’ve seen so many of these revolutionary email clients over the years but they all fail. Even their own _Inbox_ app failed, although mostly because Google _Googled_ it.

tivert 3y ago

> The reason gmail was successful is that it didn’t revolutionize email. It was just a very good client that worked well but roughly the same as people were already used to. I take it you never had a Hotmail account with 5mb mailbox limit (though by 2005 was a bit larger like maybe 10 or 20mb). The revolutionary thing about gmail is that it offered 10x-100x more space than its competitors, for free. Everything else about it was whatever.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

"It's just too hard to get people to radically change their workflow, and tbh the current one isn't even that bad." Gmail's update last month mandating use of Javascript radically changed workflow for me. The difference in speed and resource consumption for me against the faster HTML version is significant, not to mention an increasing cluttered interface. Over time, people get used to the slower speed. Very sad. More of our time and resources stolen by a so-called "tech" company. I thought I was free from this nonsense when I quit using Windows decades ago. I was wrong. Gmail serves Google first and Gmail users second. When it wants to make changes that benefit Google, it can make them, no matter how "radical". Why. Because it's too difficult for Gmail users to find an alternative mail provider.