Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion • Hacker News Board

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#131

Post by 6510 » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #112

rossdavidh wrote: post #77

"Three months into the pandemic, the argument about the moral and economic superiority of the modern office is over. Remote work works." So, I have worked (mostly) remotely for years, and I don't think I agree with this. It works for some people, in some situations. There are absolutely times when you need to be in the office with other people, and even if my client is in another town I have to drive over there to ta…

Is there a difference between the statements "Remote work works" and "It works for some people, in some situations." It's not like Basecamp said "Remote work works for everyone all the time in every situation ever." They just said it does work, as a counterpoint to the traditional IT company belief that tech is something that's hard to do remotely because of those "watercooler moments". To be honest, they don't even…

On the short term it works. We will have to see about the long run.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#132

Post by jlevers » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

dhagz wrote: post #9

godzillabrennus wrote: post #5

I’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 exci…

I've always been interested in running my own mailserver, but whenever I've tried, it's been surprisingly difficult (getting my IP accidentally blacklisted and stuff like that). What was your experience setting up your own server like?

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#133

Post by nojito » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

Prescreeners are a terrible idea.

I’ve been bitten by prescreening email resulting in missing tons of email because they were being funneled elsewhere.

Most of the features are borderline useless and will result in an inadequate email experience.

Good luck to Hey, I’m sure they can funnel their Basecamp users to adopt it though.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#134

Post by nojito » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

agd wrote: post #13

This is quite an innovative approach to email, and they describe the features here: https://hey.com/features/ - screening by default - removes email tracking pixels - streamlined reply/read flows - improved attachment handling - doesn't interrupt you by default There's also a video tour of the product from the CEO here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=296&v=UCeYTysLyG... For me as a gmail user I'm keen to…

Blocking tracking pixels/external images is standard in outlook and many other email clients/providers.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#135

Post by koonsolo » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

holstvoogd wrote: post #117

antigirl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and I click the Unsubscribe link if I don’t want to receive anymore emails

Yeah, that works great when they make a new list each month.. I’ve had to threaten GPDR complaints to get off lists I hadn’t even subscribed too haha

At that point you just mark them as spam, no?

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#136

Post by smacktoward » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #37

Hey.com actually has too many features for my personal taste. Not that I think the Unix philosophy is applicable everywhere, but this goes in the opposite direction entirely. The cumulative learning curve for all these features seems steep.

We've had forty years for people to build features like this on top of IMAP, and nobody has done so. This would seem to be a decent indication that the Unix philosophy is not going to produce much innovation in this market.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#137

Post by drchopchop » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #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.

So do we go back to a world of completely plain-text emails? No buttons? Links buried in a wall of ASCII?

We use SendGrid to fire important, user-anticipated emails (i.e. "the Zoom class you paid for is starting at 8:30 AM, here's the private link").

Blocking all images is insane, and would set back email UX to the BBS ages. Blocking all SendGrid-served images would simply mean people host images on their own domain (or disguise the DNS), and could write their own open/click tracking systems, which would negate the point of blocking SG pixels in the first place.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#138

Post by nabeards » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #5

I’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 love IMAP, I just wish I could disable IDLE in macOS Mail Mojave or later. I prefer no interruptions, but can’t turn them off now.

Maybe HEY will kick some of these ideas back to the forefront.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#139

Post by kwanbix » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #77

"Three months into the pandemic, the argument about the moral and economic superiority of the modern office is over. Remote work works." So, I have worked (mostly) remotely for years, and I don't think I agree with this. It works for some people, in some situations. There are absolutely times when you need to be in the office with other people, and even if my client is in another town I have to drive over there to ta…

I believe if anything this pandemic has shown, is that remote work is much worse than in office work.

Boring Video meetings. Lack of interactions. It takes two or three times to do the same things remotely in my line of work (Product Manager).

It is good to have the flexibility of working remotely, but I will never choose it as my way of working.

Re: Basecamp’s founders are trying to start an email rebellion

#140

Post by city41 » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

antigirl wrote: post #89

secondbreakfast wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been on the receiving end of a sales person's drip campaign?

Yes and I click the Unsubscribe link if I don’t want to receive anymore emails

You have to dig for the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, navigate the unsubscribe website interface which is always wildly different and sometimes absolutely confusing (possibly on purpose). Then finally you have to hope they honor the request.

I think the screener sounds great. I hate that pretty much all online retailers equate a purchase with "we can send you marketing emails". Having a consistent, up front interface to kill these emails that will always work is very nice.