Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#291

Post by whorleater » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

omaranto wrote: post #131

rifung wrote: post #98

Can anyone explain to me, someone who's more than happy with GMail, what these apps offer that aren't being offered by Google/Microsoft? It seems like Mailbox had a loyal following but I guess my email use is just not sophisticated enough to understand.

I didn't use Mailbox, but I think one of the key features is the snooze button, that makes an email disappear from your inbox and then reappear later. I think at the time Mailbox came out Google didn't offer that feature. The GMail webapp still doesn't have it but now Google Inbox does.

Outlook has it now too, which is surprising.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#292

Post by eevilspock » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

zyxley wrote: post #17

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #4

That is unfortunate. Mailbox was, and still is, (barring a few bugs) one of the better, Zero-inbox mail apps for IOS. Spark by Readdle has taken up slack there, and they look like they're building it in a way that will actually be monetizable.

> Spark Do you know if they're going to do a desktop version too? (Or, to be more pessimistic: "How long until that gets acquihired and killed off too?")

Desktop version slated for early 2016.

https://twitter.com/sparkmailapp/status/673945229221896192

They've shown screenshots of the Mac app in dev.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#293

Post by wodenokoto » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

fooly_wk wrote: post #283

For those disppointed with Mailbox's abandonment, I'd love to hear your feedback on Polymail ( https://polymail.io ). We're in private Alpha right now, but we have many similar features to Mailbox like Read Later + some better ones like Email Tracking & Send Later. Feel free to DM me on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/foolywk ) if you'd like to be added to our next Alpha release!

I'm not really sure how we are supposed to give feedback to a closed alpha test, but many people here are discussing the business viability of native email clients, so maybe you can talk about the market and what the business prospects are when entering this market.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#294

Post by jarek » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #228

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid anyone share abandoned code. Where I work we incinerate anything potentially useful when we're done with it. That way no dirty freeloaders can take advantage of it.

Let Pa be the probability that some piece of your open-sourced codebase reveals an important technique or strategy to your competitor, thus leveling a technological advantage you have, Let Ca be the cost of that lost advantage, Let Cb be the value of good will from the open source community In what case is Cb bigger than (Pa * Ca)?

When Pa == 0, so like, most of the time.

It's an email app. It talks IMAP^H^H^H^Hto Gmail. It runs on iOS. How many secret, commercially important techniques do you really suppose it contains?

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#295

Post by dmbaggett » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

free2rhyme214 wrote: post #287

dmbaggett wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I co-founded ITA Software and have been using some of the proceeds from the sale to Google to fund an email startup. ( http://inky.com ) The challenges outlined in this thread are all accurate. If you're thinking about putting effort (or money) behind an email startup, think again. I simply don't believe it's doable for a normal startup (i.e., one without a crazy rich guy plowing money into it until it's good enough)…

In 1996 there was a huge need for airfare search. Look at the success you've had. On the contrary email in 2015 isn't a huge need or a pain point for most people. Since you're entering a crowded market your product has to be 10X better. Currently it's probably not which is why most people perceive Inky as a marginal improvement. Still I'd love to see other projects you're working on Dave. Clearly you're talented and…

Are you a venture capitalist? Because if not, you should be!

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#296

Post by angryasian » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #164

TeMPOraL wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs themselves aren't the problem. Big bets are fine. The problem is acquihiring. It's: - good for founders - they get a big fat paycheck and a chance for a job in a big company - good for VCs - a payoff, even if small, is better than no payoff at all, so they want their 9 not-so-good startups to be bought - good for the buying company - they can literally just kill the competition by throwing money at them, + they g…

VCs are totally the problem here. It's not that VCs are bad people who want to screw over users, but their business model requires them to get payback on their bets, even if it's small. It can be hard to know up front if an idea is viable as a hockey-stick software company or if customer acquisition is much, much harder - often because you don't know who your target customer will be specifically until you've iterated…

Another thing that should be mentioned is that most VC's have a close relationship with bigger tech companies. Its a way to move money out of the public markets and back into private. There are multiple implications with this type of behavior.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#297

Post by eevilspock » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

DomBlack wrote: post #77

I've been looking to move to FastMail for a while, but Mailbox was holding me back (the whole zero-inbox with the remind me this weekend stuff). Does anybody know of a good zero-inbox client for FastMail?

Spark is great for this; it supports IMAP very well. You can customize the UI for archive, trash, snooze and pin swipes to your liking. And unlike Mailbox, does not rely on server side access to your email or email account.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#298

Post by wodenokoto » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

free2rhyme214 wrote: post #260

coldtea wrote: post #243

The message from this: outside of backup, Dropbox can't/won't sustain a small scale but profitable business for the long term (e.g. Basecamp style). So don't even consider adopting and trusting their new "Paper" collaboration offering.

Yeah. Dropbox Paper is like Box Notes. It's nifty but why switch from Google docs?

Because your documents are already in dropbox. I believe that is the main value proposition.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#299

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

lewisl9029 wrote: post #281

meesterdude wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's really three outcomes to a startup: They die, they get acquired, they IPO. There's a fourth: they serve the needs of their customers over the course of years and decades. which, as someone in the market for an email client I can fall in love with and use for the rest of my life; is exactly what I want.

It's interesting that this option wasn't even considered. Why does every startup need to aim to take over the world overnight? Is it not feasible to first take external funding to grow quickly in early stages, and then transition to a more organic growth model once you reach a point of profitability and sustainability (and maybe also slowly buy back shares in the company to eventually become fully autonomous)?

> Why does every startup need to aim to take over the world overnight?

Its preferable to work on a project for a few years instead of half/full decades.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#300

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Dec 07, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #257

snewman wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a contrarian view, but: I'm not convinced it's good for the buying company. Good engineers are hard to find, but this is an awfully expensive way to hire; you may not keep the good people for very long; and if you're the kind of company that has a really hard time hiring good people, you may not also be very good at getting engagement and productivity out of the people you acquihired. My view on acquihire…

Acquihires are more about hiring functioning teams composed of engineers and executives who are used to working with each other. That's a lot more expensive to build than just the salaries; and you can generally take that team and throw them at a problem with a reasonable expectation they'll accomplish something. Also, there's generally some amount of IP and customer data involved as well.

"you can generally take that team and throw them at a problem with a reasonable expectation they'll accomplish something"

For about 6 months to a year, after which time most of them have left, or have gone into "waiting for the golden handcuffs to come off" zombie-worker mode on a project they have no inherent interest in.

Totally anecdotal but the couple of acquihires I've seen from the inside have gone like this and it seems to be the natural state of them based on what I've heard second-hand from others.