Just found out about this service, and interested in people's thoughts here. I think it looks very promising for some workflows, and in some ways kind of brilliant for specific tasks. Could be very time-saving for me, which would make it totally worth the $99 price, especially when they add custom domains later this year. I'm planning on giving it a good test, maybe pay for a year. As usual, I appreciate the insights from folks in this forum.
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Originally Posted by jpzNFyPRL
I really think they built an Email Triage System moreso than a great replacement for a typical gmail or fastmail user.
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Agreed that it looks like it could be a (potentially great IMO) email triage system, but it's much more than that, and I think it appeals to people who have certain email workflows, and it combines some of the more interesting ideas of email workflow management from the last several years that can help people process, organize, and integrate their emails better. It's obviously not suited for everyone. But I can think of many, many people I know and work with who will resonate with this.
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Originally Posted by curvefan
Wow! I think they are way over priced.
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I think the price of $99 is reasonable for what they are offering. The "premium" rates of $349 for 3-character names and $999 for 2-character names are kind of crazy, I'm with you there, but I'm sure they will have lots of customers for those too. They are reflecting market economics with that, and some folks will not hesitate to pay that. I'm not one of them. $99 is reasonable for a 4+ character name, 100GB storage, all those productivity workflow features, etc... there's definitely a market for it for people who contemplate workflow ROI on their service providers. Especially when they launch custom domains and business features soon.
And compared to business accounts at Google, Microsoft, even Fastmail, $99 is reasonable. And other niche email services are in that range too, like KolabNow, ProtonMail, etc... even though they are obviously a different market.
And Superhuman, which isn't really even an email service in the traditional sense, gets away with charging $30 per month for some similar workflow-oriented features.
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Originally Posted by TenFour
HI is definitely better than AI, but still I find that any type of automated sorting misplaces things and wastes time. There are examples in the Medium story above.
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This is a version 1.0 after all. I think they'll get this refined in the future. But yes, I agree there is a possibility of miscategorization, so I'm planning on testing that out.
What is so attractive to me are the workflow improvements for my usage scenarios. Obviously, a lot of this can be emulated with clever use of labels, folders, rules, filters, etc., in other email services, BUT not integrated like this in a theoretically elegant workflow.
There are some nice ideas that jump out at me:
1) Obviously the thoughtful approach to workflow and triage is #1 for me... it's certainly not perfect, but in theory it beats how I currently organize and manage my email with all the filters, rules, etc.. I'll have to work with it in practice to see when/if it breaks down for me, and as TenFour mentioned the Medium story there are potential deficiencies. But I think those will get refined with user feedback over time, and it appears there is enough flexibility that you are not locked into the way they categorize things.
2) I love the thread merging feature and how it handles threads in general with allowing you to change subject field without outside thread participants being affected by your thread reorganization. That will save me a lot of headaches.
3) I like the way it handles newsletters, with the proviso it could cause some conflicts with the current algorithm that might lump personal email from the same sender into that sender's newsletter feed, depending on how you tag things. Will have to test that out in practice to see how many "mistakes" it makes as per the Medium article. But it's also not destructive... you aren't actually going to LOSE email if it gets miscategorized, although it could be annoying in some cases. From my reading, I think you just have to be on the lookout for senders who tend to send newsletters PLUS personal email from the same address.... then just don't use the "feed" feature for them. I hope they can refine this feature, but it's certainly not a dealbreaker for me.
4) I like the "Reply Later" workflow... very cleverly done IMO. That's exactly how I handle replies in theory, along with the "focus" mode, and this does it very nicely, will offer a smoother approach for me.
5) Like the "bundle" feature. That will clean up a lot of stuff in my inbox.
6) Happy to see the massive file sending feature... will have to find out about its actual filesize limits. But as someone who share tons of massive files with clients, this is a welcome feature... I don't know the specifics yet, but if it can cut down on annoying Dropbox and other third-party file service hassle, it gets a thumbs up from me.
7) LOVE the "clips" feature. If it works well, it will replace a sloppy way I currently do this.
8) LOVE the "notes to self" feature and the way it handles personal notes in threads in general. Compatible with my workflow with clients, sales, quotes, meetings, etc., and how often do I use email as my note-taking app when I don't have something handy? Hey.com actually appears to do a nice job at this.
9) Various other ideas, like "paper trail" and I like how comparatively easy it is to search through attachments. Pretty good interface for that.
Overall, I look at all those workflow features as time-savers. Assuming they work. I'm sure there will be some rough edges right now, but it's very attractive on paper.
My concerns are:
1) It is US based. Alas, there is not enough space in this thread to discuss that, but if your security model isn't compatible with US-based services, then this is obviously over and out for you. I'm not thrilled that it's US-based, but besides that, the security model seems reasonable enough.
2) I'm concerned it might force me into a workflow I don't like and I'll miss the precision of all my custom filters, rules, etc... But I'm willing to give it a good try to see how flexible it is...
Personally, I haven't been excited for an email service for a while and it's definitely something I'll be testing hard to see if it can be helpful for my workflow. As I test it out, I'll probably post an update in this thread.
If anyone has any other thoughts/experience with it, would love to know. This is my favorite forum to get unvarnished insight on these kinds of things.