Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
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Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#2While I am excited at the possibility of ditching Gmail, one of the main things I am most excited about is that DHH has been hinting at a lot of new tech to come out of this including what he mentioned as the simplicity of Rails for the front end world.
I've tried taking a look through the sourcemaps for app.hey.com to get a feel for how that might be working and saw some interesting stuff in there around HTTP/2 frames and their Turbolinks approach but am going to have to wait until someone more competent is able to spell it out for me.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#3While I am looking forward to their upcoming new service, you can't call it "to start a rebellion" when your protocol/approach is closed: To use Hey! you need to use the web client or their own apps.
If other providers would follow that rebellion, we would have many many additional walled gardens.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#4$99/yr for email is steep, but I understand that most people don't want to bother setting this stuff up and have no qualms paying for it, especially at a price point that is only slightly above G Suite.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#5I’m disappointed in Hey so far.
It’s a closed system (no IMAP).
They are charging a premium price for it over Fastmail or Google Gsuite.
There is no calendar.
No ability to import old emails into it.
Seems like they could have just released a mail app sitting on top of Fastmail and had more/better features from day one.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#6While I am looking forward to their upcoming new service, you can't call it "to start a rebellion" when your protocol/approach is closed: To use Hey! you need to use the web client or their own apps. If other providers would follow that rebellion, we would have many many additional walled gardens.
It's almost like it isn't a rebellion and that this is just an advertisement.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#7I’m disappointed in Hey so far. It’s a closed system (no IMAP). They are charging a premium price for it over Fastmail or Google Gsuite. There is no calendar. No ability to import old emails into it. Seems like they could have just released a mail app sitting on top of Fastmail and had more/better features from day one.
I was starting to get intrigued reading the article, but inability to import old mail (and inability to export backups via IMAP) I'd a definite deal breaker for me.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#8>Most of the Basecamp team's recent rebelliousness, and seemingly the initial reason for building Hey, has to do with spy pixels.
How can you tell the difference between a "spy pixel" and an image? Whatever criteria you use can be worked around.
Email clients should not allow emails to initiate outgoing network connections... period ... and most of the good ones don't by default.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#9I’m disappointed in Hey so far. It’s a closed system (no IMAP). They are charging a premium price for it over Fastmail or Google Gsuite. There is no calendar. No ability to import old emails into it. Seems like they could have just released a mail app sitting on top of Fastmail and had more/better features from day one.
I don't get how they can complain about Google stifling innovation in an open system since 2004 and then close off their counter-offering by not offering IMAP.
I'm gonna stick with running my own mail server to get around Gmail. It's $5 a month, has a calendar, I can use any mail app I want to, I could import old emails if I cared to. I'm also sure I could get the "tracking pixel name-n-shame" feature they're so excited about if I took some time to write some in-depth filters.
Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion
#10The idea they're pushing about email is that it is a chore, filled with spam and todo-lists etc. But as a fastmail user, I don't really see how they're solving these issues.
HEY has less features for a higher price. Fastmail is fast, works great across devices, works with IMAP and I already have all my domains setup with it.
I thought they would've implemented some kind of new feature solve the problems they outline but without having tried the product it seems like it is just another more expensive email provider?
This is all fine though, I just got confused by the PR speak. I really look up to DHH otherwise and am really into the idea of remote working etc. I am just probably not one of the people they're marketing towards since I already pay for email.