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> The world is changing, and we need to adapt and understand it. fastmail: read my lips: I pay you because you offer a traditional email service if you add a

> The world is changing, and we need to adapt and understand it. fastmail: read my lips: I pay you because you offer a traditional email service if you add a single AI feature I will return to self hosting

toomuchtodo 1y ago
+1 as a fastmail family account customer.
- mbesto 1y ago
  Same here. Fastmail customer for slowly peeling myself away from gmail. Just keep giving me reliable email service and I'll pay you.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Is there such a thing as a family account? > Add a user to your billing plan to give someone their own Fastmail Inbox and login. Build your team, be it work or family, and share calendars, contacts and more. Give users extra addresses for free The way my UX works is I can add users but they always have to have their own paid plan. Makes sense for heavy email users but not so much for my partner or our kids. I was hoping there was a 5 accounts for the price of 3 thing like Spotify et al do.
  - spott 1y ago
    They have a “family” plan on their pricing page. “For up to six in a family. Private, secure email for everyone.”
withinboredom 1y ago
And all these services doubling or even trippeling their price to offer the same thing ... but with AI! I'd happily pay fastmail double the price, without the AI.
- gdulli 1y ago
  Heard, but let's not give them ideas.
- jimbo808 1y ago
  I genuinely tried to embrace them, but I have found these AI "enhancements" to be utterly useless. Very rare that they can answer the question I'm having about the product. I'm not sure what the norms are for how these assistants are trained or fine tuned for the specific products they're being offered in, but it seems that they're pretty bad. They don't seem to know anything about the product you're using them in.
  - neutronicus 1y ago
    We ship an AI assistant with our product. I am attempting to dogfood it, as I am pretty close to the target audience. I, a dev, get a bug report "X doesn't work". I have never heard of "X". Ask the AI assistant instead of Googling it or asking on Slack. Google's AI overview is basically always better (and delivered sooner) than our own proprietary AI assistant.
daveguy 1y ago
The entire article is about protecting against AI, and their internal policy on AI use. No new features mentioned.
- blibble 1y ago
  it doesn't hurt to dispel the illusion that "existing product plus AI equals more money"
  - daveguy 1y ago
    True, that is a good point. And rethinking the article, it could be considered relevant even though the article didn't mention new features. Hopefully "product + AI" doesn't get us as big of a crash as "product + Internet" did in 2000. Pointing it out probably helps.
28304283409234 1y ago
Same. Family account. Stay simple.
dlcarrier 1y ago
Self hosting? I can't even visit simple static web pages without Cloudflare blocking me because my web browser isn't sufficiently trackable. There's no way they're letting self-hosted email messages get through.
- drnick1 1y ago
  This is a myth. I self-host email and don't have deliverability issues. What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC.
  - DamonHD 1y ago
    Same here. Self hosting (STMP, DNS, etc) for ~30Y.
  - gjgtcbkj 1y ago
    Prove it.
    - drnick1 1y ago
      What is there to prove? You can register your own domain (avoid exotic TLDs), wait a few months to build trust, and use an email setup script like Luke Smith's to set up Postfix/Dovecot. Before you start sending email, use mail-tester.com to check that DKIM is correctly set up and that your IP is not blacklisted.
  - Cu3PO42 1y ago
    Is it? Last time I tried to self-host my email I did. I had DKIM, DMARC and SPF set up correctly as verified by multiple sites, but I couldnt't get reliable delivery to any Microsoft-hopsted mailboxes. Every other provider I tested was perfectly happy with my mail, unfortunately MS is too big a provider to ignore them. > What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC. Maybe it was my IP, but I cycled a few with my hosting provider and none of them made a difference. If I am unable to reliable obtain a 'trusted' IP, what good does it do? I switched to hosted email and all my delivery issues were gone.
Mizza 1y ago
Came here to say this. I use fastmail am quite happy with it because I just want a reliable inbox and nothing else. Just keep it running and don't touch anything else.
Gigachad 1y ago
Tbh I do wish Fastmail would add some kind of automatic email classification like Gmail added many years ago to filter the newsletters out of the important email.
tamimio 1y ago
Seriously, I just need a no BS email, if I see a single bubble with some assistance im bailing out immediately.
julianlam 1y ago
This is a surprisingly aggressive reaction after reading a blog post asserting that said company will NOT go in that direction.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

+1 as a fastmail family account customer.

mbesto 1y ago
Same here. Fastmail customer for slowly peeling myself away from gmail. Just keep giving me reliable email service and I'll pay you.
barbazoo 1y ago
Is there such a thing as a family account? > Add a user to your billing plan to give someone their own Fastmail Inbox and login. Build your team, be it work or family, and share calendars, contacts and more. Give users extra addresses for free The way my UX works is I can add users but they always have to have their own paid plan. Makes sense for heavy email users but not so much for my partner or our kids. I was hoping there was a 5 accounts for the price of 3 thing like Spotify et al do.
- spott 1y ago
  They have a “family” plan on their pricing page. “For up to six in a family. Private, secure email for everyone.”

withinboredom 1y ago

And all these services doubling or even trippeling their price to offer the same thing ... but with AI! I'd happily pay fastmail double the price, without the AI.

gdulli 1y ago
Heard, but let's not give them ideas.
jimbo808 1y ago
I genuinely tried to embrace them, but I have found these AI "enhancements" to be utterly useless. Very rare that they can answer the question I'm having about the product. I'm not sure what the norms are for how these assistants are trained or fine tuned for the specific products they're being offered in, but it seems that they're pretty bad. They don't seem to know anything about the product you're using them in.
- neutronicus 1y ago
  We ship an AI assistant with our product. I am attempting to dogfood it, as I am pretty close to the target audience. I, a dev, get a bug report "X doesn't work". I have never heard of "X". Ask the AI assistant instead of Googling it or asking on Slack. Google's AI overview is basically always better (and delivered sooner) than our own proprietary AI assistant.

daveguy 1y ago

The entire article is about protecting against AI, and their internal policy on AI use. No new features mentioned.

blibble 1y ago
it doesn't hurt to dispel the illusion that "existing product plus AI equals more money"
- daveguy 1y ago
  True, that is a good point. And rethinking the article, it could be considered relevant even though the article didn't mention new features. Hopefully "product + AI" doesn't get us as big of a crash as "product + Internet" did in 2000. Pointing it out probably helps.

28304283409234 1y ago

Same. Family account. Stay simple.

dlcarrier 1y ago

Self hosting? I can't even visit simple static web pages without Cloudflare blocking me because my web browser isn't sufficiently trackable. There's no way they're letting self-hosted email messages get through.

drnick1 1y ago
This is a myth. I self-host email and don't have deliverability issues. What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC.
- DamonHD 1y ago
  Same here. Self hosting (STMP, DNS, etc) for ~30Y.
- gjgtcbkj 1y ago
  Prove it.
  - drnick1 1y ago
    What is there to prove? You can register your own domain (avoid exotic TLDs), wait a few months to build trust, and use an email setup script like Luke Smith's to set up Postfix/Dovecot. Before you start sending email, use mail-tester.com to check that DKIM is correctly set up and that your IP is not blacklisted.
- Cu3PO42 1y ago
  Is it? Last time I tried to self-host my email I did. I had DKIM, DMARC and SPF set up correctly as verified by multiple sites, but I couldnt't get reliable delivery to any Microsoft-hopsted mailboxes. Every other provider I tested was perfectly happy with my mail, unfortunately MS is too big a provider to ignore them. > What matters is domain age, IP, and compliance with DKIM/DMARC. Maybe it was my IP, but I cycled a few with my hosting provider and none of them made a difference. If I am unable to reliable obtain a 'trusted' IP, what good does it do? I switched to hosted email and all my delivery issues were gone.

Mizza 1y ago

Came here to say this. I use fastmail am quite happy with it because I just want a reliable inbox and nothing else. Just keep it running and don't touch anything else.

Gigachad 1y ago

Tbh I do wish Fastmail would add some kind of automatic email classification like Gmail added many years ago to filter the newsletters out of the important email.

tamimio 1y ago

Seriously, I just need a no BS email, if I see a single bubble with some assistance im bailing out immediately.

julianlam 1y ago

This is a surprisingly aggressive reaction after reading a blog post asserting that said company will NOT go in that direction.