Basecamp’s radical new email platform

[jeffpan]

Hey, the newly announced email service, has a unique product on its slate of offerings: a rare, exclusive two- or three-letter email address, like ok@hey.com or fun@hey.com for example (or perhaps just your initials). But it’s going to cost you.

As noticed on Twitter and confirmed by David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Hey parent company Basecamp, Hey considers these shortened addresses “premium” and worth the extra money. For a two-letter address, it will be $999 a year. For a three-letter one, the cost drops to $375 a year. Everyone else who signs up for Hey, which is still in an invite-only phase until a broader launch next month, can simply pick a four-letter or longer email address and pay the standard $99 a year.

[TenFour]

The saga continues. Apple has now approved Hey after some modifications by Basecamp. https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/ap...e-policy-spat/

[malcontent]

'Hey email app open to all after Apple 'definitively' approves it'

https://www.engadget.com/apple-basec...154225649.html

[ankupan]

I think they should think for prices on premium user names.

Charges should be one time and later on renewal regular prices.

Same like domain, you buy at premium whatever prices, but renewal is $ 10 only.

Who is going to pay for USD 999 for email just for 365 days?

Originally Posted by jeffpan

Hey, the newly announced email service, has a unique product on its slate of offerings: a rare, exclusive two- or three-letter email address, like ok@hey.com or fun@hey.com for example (or perhaps just your initials). But it’s going to cost you.

As noticed on Twitter and confirmed by David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Hey parent company Basecamp, Hey considers these shortened addresses “premium” and worth the extra money. For a two-letter address, it will be $999 a year. For a three-letter one, the cost drops to $375 a year. Everyone else who signs up for Hey, which is still in an invite-only phase until a broader launch next month, can simply pick a four-letter or longer email address and pay the standard $99 a year.

[curvefan]

I agree with some of the other posters in this thread concerning pricing for this new service.

Wow! I think they are way over priced.

I doubt the average email user will pay these prices.

I got the name I wanted but it's not worth what they're asking for a years access to it.

Maybe I'm just cheap

I also didn't notice anything that special about it that merited such a high price tag.

Maybe just having the hey.com on the end of your address?

I'm definitely missing something here.......

[jpzNFyPRL]

I really think they built an Email Triage System moreso than a great replacement for a typical gmail or fastmail user.

What they created is so simplistic that it's most likely to appeal to someone who's least likely to want to pay for email. (typical personal gmail account user)

Think of how many emails you have to have flooding in each day to really truly need "set aside" & "reply later" combined with the "focus mode for replies" as keystone features.

[ioneja]

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by curvefan

Wow! I think they are way over priced.

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.

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.

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.

[pjroutledge]

I think Kev Quirk's 'Email is not broken' opinion is worth a read.

[TenFour]

I think Kev Quirk's 'Email is not broken' opinion is worth a read.

Worth a read, but I disagree with most of it. He lists three things wrong with email: spam, privacy, and workflow management. First, spam is basically nonexistent if you use Gmail as I have since about 2006. If something does slip through, report it and you're done with it. Second, privacy IMHO is not a problem with free email services like Gmail or Outlook.com--he is really complaining about being served targeted ads. That is very, very different than privacy. Workflow isn't really broken in email--it is what you make of it. I have a workflow I like in Gmail, and a very different workflow in Outlook I use for my job. They work for me, but maybe not for you. What I think something like Hey breaks is they force you to use their workflow, not yours. If the Hey workflow is to your liking, great! But for many people I think it might not be. As I have stated previously, I have found that any automatic filtering of messages is not 100% reliable meaning I waste more time each day searching for things than I would if I used my own eyes and brain to filter the messages.

[ioneja]

Well I've got my shiny new HEY.COM test account set up and running and I already don't like it. I may still give it more of a try later, but three things already bug the heck out of me, so I might have already crashed and burned:

1) I don't like the HEY.COM domain name. Some things grow on me, some things don't. And the domain HEY.COM is NOT growing on me. It's just too gimmicky, too cute, too branded, not professional enough IMO. Maybe I'll get used to it, probably not. It's not a dealbreaker, though, especially since they will be implementing custom domains soon. But still... it just feels so... ugh.

2) I really hate the "IMBOX" -- not the concept, but the spelling. It is just so... again, gimmicky, cute, and branded, too "clever" of a name for its own good. Like the designers/developers were so in love with their own ideas they had all cheered when someone in the office yelled out, "hey, this is SOOO great, it's SOOO much better than an INBOX... we have to call it an IMMMMBOX!" (And yes, I realize the IM means Important, etc., etc., etc.) And then everyone jumped on board and patted each other on the back. They should have focus-grouped that word and it would have been dead in 5 minutes. It should just be called the INBOX with an "N" and just leave it at that. IMBOX with an "M" is painful to look at as a word. I want to spell check it, fix it. It's just silly. But maybe I could get over it one day. Probably not. YMMV.

3) Now for the interface. This is the big one. What the heck?!?!? Right out of the gate, it's got a fixed maximum width and I have a 4k monitor. Just terrible. Yes, it is responsive web design and nicely designed if you compress the browser window to a narrow window (more appropriate for mobile devices and tablets), but come on, this is 2020, and people have really wide screen high-res monitors on their computers. People STILL use computers! Plus I really, really don't like the extra clicking... click to see the message... then click back... click to see a message... then click back. Lots of scrolling. Terrible. This could be the dealbreaker.

Now there are some positives... to be fair. I do like the "Notes to Self", "Clips", and "Read together" features so far -- pretty good in fact. I also think the "Reply Later" and focus modes are promising... But again, the interface is too simplistic for me... I need a way to see more than one thing at once more easily, horizontally please, and reference more items... like it's just forcing me to look at things in defined buckets of their choosing rather than letting me customize the view to how I need to work and multitask, and it requires excessive scrolling and clicking IMO. Ahh!

Well. I'll quit writing for now. I think my brief adventure with HEY is likely going to come to a premature end. Not sure I can overcome this. Don't think I can possibly get beyond the interface choices they have made, at least on the browser/web/computer version. Maybe they'll give me more power and flexibility in an update. Yes, I get why they are doing it... it's very much this whole concept of clean design to declutter the email experience, reduce sensory overload, and allow you to think more clearly and focus on the task at hand. And I think many people will love that. But I really don't. I need more info in front of me if I want it... at least give me the option. I don't like being corralled into their concept of UI bliss... it's just too limiting. And then you add on the other annoyances of the interface, and I think it may kill it for me at this point.

YMMV and I do like Basecamp as a company, but this really doesn't do it for me. I might come back and play with it some more in a few days, but I'm already frustrated and don't think it will work for me. Maybe I'll come back in a year or two. And man, that IMBOX with an "M". Good grief. Come on Basecamp. You didn't create something THAT special that it deserves an entirely new word to describe it (and it's not even a clever word anyway).

Oh well, I guess that's that for me for now. And to think I was so excited this morning.

[jeffpan]

@ioneja I think the time you spent on testing is not as long as writing this review.

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by jeffpan

@ioneja I think the time you spent on testing is not as long as writing this review.

haha, nah, I tested it for longer. But it was close.

Writing a post like that is helpful even for selfish reasons... I've found long posts here I wrote years ago with responses from forum members that all helped me out with stuff I had totally forgotten about. While my time with HEY is likely over (although I might take one more morbidly curious look at it before my trial is over), I will end up wanting to look at it again in a year or two, and I'll have these notes to remind me what to look for to see if they've improved it.

I am a little bummed though. I thought maybe someone had cracked the puzzle of reinventing email and I was genuinely excited. Oh well. Maybe by v2 or v3.

[truemagic]

Originally Posted by ioneja

Well I've got my shiny new HEY.COM test account set up and running and I already don't like it. I may still give it more of a try later, but three things already bug the heck out of me, so I might have already crashed and burned:

1) I don't like the HEY.COM domain name. Some things grow on me, some things don't. And the domain HEY.COM is NOT growing on me. It's just too gimmicky, too cute, too branded, not professional enough IMO. Maybe I'll get used to it, probably not. It's not a dealbreaker, though, especially since they will be implementing custom domains soon. But still... it just feels so... ugh.

2) I really hate the "IMBOX" -- not the concept, but the spelling. It is just so... again, gimmicky, cute, and branded, too "clever" of a name for its own good. Like the designers/developers were so in love with their own ideas they had all cheered when someone in the office yelled out, "hey, this is SOOO great, it's SOOO much better than an INBOX... we have to call it an IMMMMBOX!" (And yes, I realize the IM means Important, etc., etc., etc.) And then everyone jumped on board and patted each other on the back. They should have focus-grouped that word and it would have been dead in 5 minutes. It should just be called the INBOX with an "N" and just leave it at that. IMBOX with an "M" is painful to look at as a word. I want to spell check it, fix it. It's just silly. But maybe I could get over it one day. Probably not. YMMV.

3) Now for the interface. This is the big one. What the heck?!?!? Right out of the gate, it's got a fixed maximum width and I have a 4k monitor. Just terrible. Yes, it is responsive web design and nicely designed if you compress the browser window to a narrow window (more appropriate for mobile devices and tablets), but come on, this is 2020, and people have really wide screen high-res monitors on their computers. People STILL use computers! Plus I really, really don't like the extra clicking... click to see the message... then click back... click to see a message... then click back. Lots of scrolling. Terrible. This could be the dealbreaker.

Now there are some positives... to be fair. I do like the "Notes to Self", "Clips", and "Read together" features so far -- pretty good in fact. I also think the "Reply Later" and focus modes are promising... But again, the interface is too simplistic for me... I need a way to see more than one thing at once more easily, horizontally please, and reference more items... like it's just forcing me to look at things in defined buckets of their choosing rather than letting me customize the view to how I need to work and multitask, and it requires excessive scrolling and clicking IMO. Ahh!

Well. I'll quit writing for now. I think my brief adventure with HEY is likely going to come to a premature end. Not sure I can overcome this. Don't think I can possibly get beyond the interface choices they have made, at least on the browser/web/computer version. Maybe they'll give me more power and flexibility in an update. Yes, I get why they are doing it... it's very much this whole concept of clean design to declutter the email experience, reduce sensory overload, and allow you to think more clearly and focus on the task at hand. And I think many people will love that. But I really don't. I need more info in front of me if I want it... at least give me the option. I don't like being corralled into their concept of UI bliss... it's just too limiting. And then you add on the other annoyances of the interface, and I think it may kill it for me at this point.

YMMV and I do like Basecamp as a company, but this really doesn't do it for me. I might come back and play with it some more in a few days, but I'm already frustrated and don't think it will work for me. Maybe I'll come back in a year or two. And man, that IMBOX with an "M". Good grief. Come on Basecamp. You didn't create something THAT special that it deserves an entirely new word to describe it (and it's not even a clever word anyway).

Oh well, I guess that's that for me for now. And to think I was so excited this morning.

I agreed with you for the most parts, but I kinda like the hey.com domain as it's short and easy to remember. Only if the interface can be more matured and looks better in (like you said), big monitors.

I'll come back after a year (or two) and maybe hey, I will give it another shot and even pay for it this time

[ankupan]

Their interface is a little confusing.

1. Imbox shows Subject line first and sender in the second line. (So when you are using other email services throughout a day, you are always confused, what is the sender and what is a subject line).

2. When you open an email, Sender comes in first-line and Now the subject is second. (just opposite to what they did in the first page of Imbox.

Choose any way, but keep the same view throughout the services.

Either they are confused or confusing us.

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by truemagic

I'll come back after a year (or two) and maybe hey, I will give it another shot and even pay for it this time

Pay for 1 year now and you’ll have a lifetime @hey.com email address.