3 ms·

That is a great technical argument, however, the reason this has attracted so much attention is because this product is about email. Email plays such an importa

That is a great technical argument, however, the reason this has attracted so much attention is because this product is about email. Email plays such an important role in our modern lives that any announcement hinting that Google is moving towards vendor lock-in for email access is going to attract scrutiny -- regardless of whether it is by innovative features, enhanced performance, or browser lockout.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> any announcement hinting that Google is moving towards vendor lock-in for email access is going to attract scrutiny I think that - like often is on the Internet - scrutiny can be attracted too soon. Google stated clearly that current Inbox is not a replacement for GMail. Such "vendor lock-in" can currently be completely explained with the fact that they're just playing around and testing if people like new UX.
res0nat0r 12y ago
Adding innovative features is now considered vendor lock-in? Interesting.
- pcwalton 12y ago
  The "innovative feature" in question here (that they're depending on in Chrome) is performance of sparse arrays with enormous indexes. That's not an "innovative feature" in my mind; in most languages that would be considered an abuse of the built-in array type.
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    This doesn't seem to have any relevance to "vendor lock-in" though.
    - pcwalton 12y ago
      Yes, it does. It was the reason cited for blocking non-Chrome browsers—i.e. locking in users to a specific vendor.
- normloman 12y ago
  Yes it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extingui...
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    What are they doing to extinguish competitors?
    - pcwalton 12y ago
      In this case, blocking them from their properties and requiring that they switch to Google's browser.

3 ms·

That is a great technical argument, however, the reason this has attracted so much attention is because this product is about email. Email plays such an importa

by ppereira 12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> any announcement hinting that Google is moving towards vendor lock-in for email access is going to attract scrutiny I think that - like often is on the Internet - scrutiny can be attracted too soon. Google stated clearly that current Inbox is not a replacement for GMail. Such "vendor lock-in" can currently be completely explained with the fact that they're just playing around and testing if people like new UX.
res0nat0r 12y ago
Adding innovative features is now considered vendor lock-in? Interesting.
- pcwalton 12y ago
  The "innovative feature" in question here (that they're depending on in Chrome) is performance of sparse arrays with enormous indexes. That's not an "innovative feature" in my mind; in most languages that would be considered an abuse of the built-in array type.
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    This doesn't seem to have any relevance to "vendor lock-in" though.
    - pcwalton 12y ago
      Yes, it does. It was the reason cited for blocking non-Chrome browsers—i.e. locking in users to a specific vendor.
- normloman 12y ago
  Yes it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extingui...
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    What are they doing to extinguish competitors?
    - pcwalton 12y ago
      In this case, blocking them from their properties and requiring that they switch to Google's browser.