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Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

blogs.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#321

Post by lobster_johnson »

hunvreus wrote: post #234
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.

I'm genuinely curious as to what it is that Gmail (for example) doesn't provide yet that is so essential to dealing with emails. I gave a try to Mailbox but didn't see what the added value was, other than a couple UX gimmicks (some of which are now part of many email clients). Was there a killer feature that I missed?

Multiple accounts. I have multiple work accounts (several companies) and a personal one. Having each open in tabs/window would be too much. I use Apple's mail apps on Mac and iOS, with a single unified inbox.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#322

Post by s73v3r »

untog wrote: post #84
mbesto wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet that same Silicon Valley rewarded Mailbox with $100MM in an acquisition...

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.

"That's exactly my point. Silicon Valley rewards "go big or go bust", it doesn't reward "small, sustainable business"."

Because if that's your goal, you clearly aren't passionate about what you're doing. You might as well go work for a 9-5 company doing CRUD apps. /s

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#323

Post by jessedhillon »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #317
jessedhillon wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

That "formula" really isn't particularly difficult to work around. First off, if you're open sourcing your codebase because you're getting out of a particular market, you have to ask whether revealing techniques and strategies to competitors in that market is really an issue. After all, if those techniques and strategies had given you a competitive advantage, you probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Second: I…

The assumption here being that the integration of the now disused product into the parent product (Mailbox into Dropbox) has no potential to reveal the internal workings of the parent product e.g. APIs or data structures. Or that those techniques would only be applicable to competitors in that market. Both are convenient for your argument, but there's no reason to think that they're correct. Moreover, there's no reason for a risk adverse company to accept those assumptions.

My point was to challenge open source cheerleaders to actually give a reason beyond their own gain for why a company should do this. Instead, we have blithe dismissals and narrowly constructed hypotheticals built on optimistic assumptions.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#324

Post by s73v3r »

vu0tran wrote: post #242
jonursenbach wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your end goal with this? Surely it must be getting acquired by one of the big email providers.

Yup. Acquired for $101M then subsequently shut down in 1-2 years (just kidding of course). I don't know if it's in my best interest to answer this publicly, but screw it. The honest answer is I'm not entirely too sure, but an acquisition is always on the table for any startup IMO. I think whenever you ask a founder, "If someone offered you $100M, would you take it?", it's a pretty loaded question. There's really thre…

"So to your question, what's the end goal? Well, if we're right about our beliefs, hopefully we can become the next billion dollar company. If not, then it's the other two options: get acquired or die."

What's wrong with just having a nice business that just makes some money?

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#325

Post by raphman »

_dps wrote: post #269
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)…

> It is deceptively hard [...] The set of abstractions required to do it right are unobvious and nontrivial ... I would be very interested to hear more about this aspect, if you would be willing to share. I'm always curious about things that sound like they should be simple but end up being surprisingly complicated if you want do do a good job :)

Seconded!

If you haven't already seen it: http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/great-unsolved-problems-in-com...

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#326

Post by s73v3r »

jarek wrote: post #282
lewisl9029 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

If that was an option, he wouldn't be in YC, half-accidentally or otherwise. Nothing against YC here, but long-term steady-state isn't what they're looking for. Remember that next time you start using a VC-funded tool.

Again, how was that not an option? Why did he have to get into YC? What's wrong with telling them that the type of unsustainable growth isn't right for their business now that they've had a chance to look at things?

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#327

Post by radiorental »

x0x0 wrote: post #261
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.

Not to mention, if you're old like me, you remember paying (I think?) $100 and then eventually $49 for eudora / upgrades for eudora. In approx 1990 dollars. We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app, and expect perpetual upgrades for that price! So simultaneously expectations have skyrocketed and prices have plummeted. Part of the problem is, unlike say Pinboard, an email client d…

I'm sorry, I apologise in advance, but this irks me.

"We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app"

Where do users/customers get these expectations? Call it market forces, race to the bottom, whatever... do a little root cause and not blame joe public please.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#328

Post by Animats »

"In 2013, we acquired Mailbox ... In 2014, we launched Carousel ... Mailbox will be shut down on February 26th, 2016, and Carousel will be shut down on March 31st, 2016."

Someone should track the lifespan of cloud products. It's not long; the median is probably less than five years. Dependence on a cloud product is risky. They can go away so fast.

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#329

Post by x0x0 »

radiorental wrote: post #327
x0x0 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention, if you're old like me, you remember paying (I think?) $100 and then eventually $49 for eudora / upgrades for eudora. In approx 1990 dollars. We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app, and expect perpetual upgrades for that price! So simultaneously expectations have skyrocketed and prices have plummeted. Part of the problem is, unlike say Pinboard, an email client d…

I'm sorry, I apologise in advance, but this irks me. "We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app" Where do users/customers get these expectations? Call it market forces, race to the bottom, whatever... do a little root cause and not blame joe public please.

That's a long running debate and for our purposes unimportant.

It's still a prominent, maybe even the most prominent, item on my personal list of "reasons I shouldn't build an email app."

Re: Dropbox closing Carousel and Mailbox

#330

Post by mdeeks »

jarin wrote: post #27
cm2012 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's such a pain to process hundreds of emails in Outlook, and there's no snoozing like there is with Mailbox or Inbox.

Outlook does have snooze/scheduling.

Just curious, how is processing hundreds of emails in Mailbox or Inbox better than Outlook? Seems like trying to do that on a mobile device would be hard no matter what app.

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