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Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

blogs.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#181

Post by three14 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #110
schneidmaster wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you don't think it's worth your time to do that much, why would you expect anyone else to? I don't expect anyone else to build me a FOSS email client. I do expect that by 2015 somebody would have figured out a way for me to give them money for a good email experience. :)

I did expect that by 2015 somebody would have figured out a way to make a decent kettle that lasts a lifetime, or a similarly decent fridge, or washing machine, or even a watch. Sadly, I was disappointed. If you own something, you're not buying it - so the seller doesn't get the money. Software figured this out quickly - that's why everything that has not moved to cloud yet is being sold in form of licenses - a tempo…

There's a difference - software also has unplanned obsolescence. For instance, I've been working on a non-profit website that has a fair amount of QuickTime video from way back when that was a good choice. If you don't do something about it, it won't play anymore on modern browsers. It's hard to align the interests of software developers with the interests of customers using a one-time purchase, but with work that continues indefinitely. Appliances are different since I don't need their features to change long after the sale. In this case, if they can charge me more at the time of the sale for an appliance that lasts longer, we can align interests.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#182

Post by smacktoward »

webjprgm wrote: post #168
bdotdub wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there isn't enough money to be made to satisfy VC investors. Mailbox and the like could have lived quite comfortably as paid-for apps with comfortable I'm not sure that's true (see: Sparrow). I just don't think there is enough demand for people to want to pay for an email client. I imagine for a huge majority of people, default mail client's work fine enough for personal use.

Yup. I still don't see why everyone complains about current mail clients. Mail.app on OS X / iOS, Outlook on Windows, works for me. To make me switch, you would have to show me why the new thing was so much better. Like how Google search results were always better than Yahoo! (IMHO, no objective measurements used) so I switched. You would also have to explain it in a sentence I could immediately understand, whereas a…

There's a big distance between "works for me" and "delights me."

I use Thunderbird on Linux and Windows. It "works for me," in the sense that it's stable and predictable and doesn't lose my data. But it also has lots of niggly little problems that annoy me, like UI decisions that made more sense ten years ago than they do today and limited tools to support people like me who have a ton of mail.

So while I use and recommend Thunderbird, I also would love to see something come along that is so much better that it makes me fall in love with it, instead of just shrugging my shoulders and resigning myself to this being as good as things get.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#183

Post by exw »

austenallred wrote: post #133
unfamiliar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We gave a lot of thought to open-sourcing the underlying system, and none of that thought will be elaborated on here."

I'll elaborate on their behalf: "That would be hard and expensive and we have money to make."

Even if they wanted to open source their system, it is likely is that they migrated their codebase to the Dropbox platform, and it would be difficult for them extricate their code. Most larger tech company (e.g., Google, Facebook, MSFT) have this problem when they want to open source products...

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#184

Post by Estragon »

softawre wrote: post #132
ckluis wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d pay to have delete actually delete email completely (not just from my inbox, but from all as well).

What?

I think he means he'd like to be able to irretrievably destroy all records of an email.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#185

Post by CptMouse »

tedmiston wrote: post #154
schneidmaster wrote: post #3

Ugh. Yet another intriguing email startup being acquihired and killed off by a more-established tech company (see also: Sparrow). It's 2015 and I still bounce around email clients every couple months because all of the major options have substantial flaws.

Am I the only one still using Sparrow to this day? Sure the build is 2+ years old, but the usability is just incredible. I haven't found anything better on desktop since.

Airmail is quite good, and AFAIK you can turn off some of its many features. http://airmailapp.com/ (hint: You can use it for free if you use the beta version)

I was a huge fan of Sparrow (like you, I used it long after the updates stopped), then Airmail and Mailbox, but now I simply use the Gmail web app. I follow the zero inbox method strictly, so I only need to read/archive/reply/search emails, and it does a decent job at it (except for search where it's best in class), while being simple and non-confusing.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#186

Post by zyxley »

grinich wrote: post #89
sethd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, after Sparrow was killed off I switched to Airmail for OS X (currently using Airmail 2). It's not without flaws and I'm always keeping an eye on the options. On iOS I'm pretty happy with Microsoft Outlook (can't believe I just said that), I haven't found anything better yet. I do use multiple accounts extensively so that limits my choices to just those clients that support multiple accounts well (unified inbox,…

If you're a desktop email aficionado, I'd love to hear your feedback on N1. It's kind of similar to Mailbox desktop, but works cross-platform and is open source. https://nylas.com/n1 (Also feel free to write me directly. mg@nylas.com)

Does it have a "snooze email" feature, though? The page suggests it doesn't, and that's (IMO) the important part of Mailbox, not just the general interface of it.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#187

Post by microtonal »

SneakerXZ wrote: post #140

It is no surprise, when one-product companies do other products they don't last for long. Only reason why I still use Dropbox is their client for Mac and and simple web interface and some other small features. I don't understand why nobody else is able to do it...

I don't understand why nobody else is able to do it...

Because they don't care, need to, or want to? Google and Microsoft are competing with Dropbox on economics of scale and perhaps as a loss-leader. A lot of people are willing to forgo peer to peer LAN sync or block-level syncing when the cost is much lower. Additionally, both Google Drive and OneDrive have an integrated office suite, which adds value for a lot of people.

Moreover, if you can get away with a weak client, it's an advantage. Someone who has all their data synced to disk can easily switch. Someone who has their data primarily in someone's cloud cannot as easily.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#188

Post by cwyers »

zimpenfish wrote: post #20
cm2012 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you not like about Outlook or Gmail (I think the market leaders)?

They don't work with other people's IMAP/POP3 servers? (Well, the Gmail iOS app certainly doesn't; I haven't tried the Outlook client but the description in the app store suggests a very limited set of providers.)

Outlook supports IMAP, not POP3. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-up-email-on-iPh...

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#190

Post by untog »

mbesto wrote: post #157
untog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my point. Silicon Valley rewards "go big or go bust", it doesn't reward "small, sustainable business". I don't for a second blame the founders of Mailbox for doing what they did. When the market creates a strong set of incentives like this you can't really expect anyone to do anything other than take the $100m. But this is the side-effect.

But this totally negates your point about "there isn't enough money in an email app". Clearly Dropbox thought there was at least a $100MM opportunity...either talent to produce $100MM+ in value, customers to convert into $100MM+ value, or staving off competition that would result in $100MM in potential loss.

It's pretty clear that Dropbox valued Mailbox for its potential to be something other than the standalone email app it was. And you might be right - there might well be enough talent on the Mailbox team to produce $100M+ in value - but not making a standalone email app.

If we're being ultimately generous with Dropbox then what they are doing is exactly correct - taking a team that can create a $100M+ product and reassigning them somewhere that they can fulfill that potential. But that's of scant consolation to all the people that want to continue using the email app.

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