I got a chance to work with email recently and thinking of starting an email service, but wondering do we need one now? if it is paid, what makes you pay for it?
Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#2Yes, we do. I would pay for it if it is not ridiculously expensive (mykolab) and has decent privacy AND encryption. Servers in america == bad.
That icelandic one from recently (forgot the name) I can not take too seriously, since they want to roll their own browser that will basically be a bad version of Tor browser and also some other stuff they want to build their selves.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#3The missing email feature I'm interested in is analytics - I couldn't find anything the last time I looked.
Who takes up most of my time, as measured by the number of words I've written to them? Who is worst at responding to me? Can you do anything with sentiment analysis?
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#4IF and only IF the spam filters are as good as Gmail.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#5If it can differentiate itself by being private and secure, sure. That means non-US hosting, zero knowledge storage, PFS on all SSL/TLS, properly defined security policies from a company side to reduce social engineering, secure architecture, etc.
Many people on HN probably either host their own email or considered it, but a good secure service is better to sell to people without that technical knowledge who don't want to be a Google/MS/Apple/Yahoo/etc product. I've pointed less technical people towards MyKolab before; they are a good model for how an email service should be done.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#6Yes, we do. I would pay for it if it is not ridiculously expensive (mykolab) and has decent privacy AND encryption. Servers in america == bad. That icelandic one from recently (forgot the name) I can not take too seriously, since they want to roll their own browser that will basically be a bad version of Tor browser and also some other stuff they want to build their selves.
I'm guessing you mean Mailpile[0], but those guys are only providing an email client (which you can run both from a thumb drive or on a server).
[0]: https://mailpile.is/
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#7The missing email feature I'm interested in is analytics - I couldn't find anything the last time I looked. Who takes up most of my time, as measured by the number of words I've written to them? Who is worst at responding to me? Can you do anything with sentiment analysis?
Yes, this is one of the features I am thinking.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#8Yes, we do. I would pay for it if it is not ridiculously expensive (mykolab) and has decent privacy AND encryption. Servers in america == bad. That icelandic one from recently (forgot the name) I can not take too seriously, since they want to roll their own browser that will basically be a bad version of Tor browser and also some other stuff they want to build their selves.
It sounds like you're talking about Mailpile, but if so, I think you've misunderstood it. If it's something else mail-related from Iceland, I'd like to know more.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#9I'd be open to a new open service, if and only if it really went above and beyond our current expectations of email providers today. I think gmail(what I currently use) is great and I'm satisfied with it but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't switch if something could out-do it in certain arenas. I think the obvious factors of security,privacy and UI/UX would be the things that would really have to shine for me to open my wallet. I'm not sure but I think that the market has some pretty decent offerings and people might not be on the lookout for a new email service but to make an example; I wasn't looking for a new text editor when I came across Sublime. Sometimes thing are so great that they are just worth trying. It would be a large undertaking on your part but who knows how it could turn out? Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need another email service?
#10yes we need another mailprovider, with all the killerfeatures of gmail:
lots of storage / archive
contacts / sync
kalender / sync
decent privacy/ encryption
servers in EU
i dont care about webmail/mailclient.