Google is discontinuing Inbox

This may be a case of following the data with disregard to the dynamics.

1. In the beginning there was G Mail and there where two camps(roughly):

  a. Those who made heavy use of e-mail, and where "adapted" to the user interface.

  b. Those who had problems with the UI(replying to all their emails, etc...)

Of those two camps: those in camp `a` where unlikely to switch. That would have interfered with their workflow.

Those in camp `b`, not all switched because people resist change. Change takes energy.

2. Then there was `Inbox`

Now, there is a subset of camp `b` which has adapted its workflow to use Inbox. The most satisfied ones are here complaining :).

They don't want to go back to G mail, but will be forced to.

The questions I would ask, if I were responsible for shutting down Inbox, are:

* How many people were leaving inbox for G mail? * Why?

> users didn't adapt product on large enough scale

Because users know it wont be a product that gets any updates and will be shutdown in 2 years.

This is really unfortunate. Inbox's primary differentiator was never in any one individual feature like Snooze or Smart Reply. No, the real value of Inbox was that its design was built around a fundamentally different philosophy on what email is and how it should be managed.

Gmail takes a traditional approach to email management. Messages come in, you read them, maybe organize them with labels, then archive them, delete them, or just leave them in your inbox forever. It doesn't really make any assumptions about your workflow, it just gives you a bunch of fairly standard email client features and leaves it up to you how you use them.

Inbox on the other hand is very opinionated. It was designed around the idea that your inbox is a to-do list, and everything from the UI to features like pinning, snooze, and reminders is built around that assumption. Emails come in and get sorted into categories, then you go through that list triage them, marking emails that require no action as done, pinning the ones you want to deal with soon, and snoozing the ones you want to come back to later. You can even attach reminders to emails so you don't forget what task they represent. When you're done you hit the sweep button and everything that isn't pinned or snoozed gets wiped clean.

As a result of this workflow, emails you've already dealt with are hidden away in the "done" folder, leaving only emails in your inbox which represent reminders or tasks you have yet to complete. You can even add custom reminders to Inbox which aren't tied to any specific email. Basically it turns your inbox into a to-do list.

I'm saddened to see Inbox go. Gmail doesn't really capture this workflow with quite the same level of elegance Inbox does; it just wasn't designed to work that way. I suspect that long after Inbox is gone I'll still find myself using the workflow it taught me; treating my inbox like a to-do list even when the client I use is no longer built around that workflow.

This really bums me out. I’ve been using inbox all-in since the start and have loved it since day one. Switching back to gmail is going to be a real challenge as I prefer the way it organizes my email.

Bundles don't skip the inbox; that's the point. Stuff in your inbox is stuff you haven't had a chance to deal with yet; prematurely moving emails out of your inbox that you haven't had a chance to look at would break that workflow.