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MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

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Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#161

Post by Throwaway618 »

Throwaway618 wrote: post #127
pc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't sound like a good idea? Then shut up. Your comment is needlessly mean-spirited. The top-voted comment on the recent Show HN thread would seem to apply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7984826

It's a fair and honest criticism that has produced interesting conversation. You're being mean-spirited as well, but you think you're exempt. Shove off.

Heh, HN doesn't report individual comment scores accurately; my account is at -9 now but this comment stays at -4.

It's funny to imagine anything like Reddit's (?|?) controversy here.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#162

Post by jarin »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #121
rosser wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because self-hosting a mail service is totally something my mom can do... (As the sibling comment notes, I'm talking from the perspective of the end user, not that of a technologist. We need to remember who we're ultimately building these things for...)

You consider both third party hosting and self hosting to unacceptable?

I guess the only other option is second-party hosting.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#164

Post by hueving »

wldcordeiro wrote: post #128
Dylan16807 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more subtle than that. The 'shut up' detracts from the comment. Being a jerk is bad. But being confrontational is in this case a benefit. The first line is "Your claim that your product will not be discontinued is worthless." This is confrontational in a good way, and this line is not being a jerk. It's pointing out a serious flaw without attacking anyone.

It could be phrased differently still without insinuating that what they say is worthless. Something like, "How will you back up your claim of the product not being discontinued?" or "What will prevent your product from being discontinued?" Gets the same point across without coming off rude (it may just be me but saying "your claim ... is worthless" seems rude.) The OP of the comment definitely has a good point but i…

But that's precisely what he/she needed to insinuate. That claim is worthless to the users it's targeted towards.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#165

Post by x1798DE »

unfunco wrote: post #29
rosser wrote: post #16

Right, so now all of my email can go through some third party's systems. That's exactly what we need in a post-Snowden world.

It's on GitHub, you can self-host it if you wanted to. It's not a service yet .

Self-hosting your e-mail is really not much better, from a security point of view, than letting gmail have your e-mail. Google has some of the best security people in the world, if your mail is safe anywhere, it's safe with Google. The problem, of course, is that Google is definitely going to try to read your mail, use and retain your private data indefinitely.

The problem is that if you host your own e-mail server, you dramatically increase the chances of some unpatched flaw or tiny messed up configuration file causing the Russian mafia to get access to everything on your e-mail server. You probably don't even particularly decrease the risk of the NSA getting your e-mails.

This is a problem that could be fixed by new models for e-mail that utilize encryption so that you inherently don't need to trust third parties in order to make use of their services. Avoiding third parties entirely is very likely impractical and unwise.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#166

Post by jtmoulia »

ammmir wrote: post #78

it's great to see friendlier APIs for working with email! is Inbox intended more for building email clients, compared to something like Switchboard ( http://switchboard.spatch.co/ ) which is more for processing inbound email? any plans for a WebSocket API? seems like it would be easier to receive pushed emails on an existing socket, than registering a webhook and then sending a push notification out-of-band to the cl…

Your comparison between Switchboard and Inbox is solid. Switchboard is being used for tasks like sending "new email" push notifications to mobile clients, or uploading attachments to dropbox. I haven't used Inbox yet, but I'm excited to try it out.

It's great that Inbox is also built on top of IMAP. The new Gmail API is great, but an application which takes advantage of it is locked into using only Gmail. By building from the standard, Switchboard and Inbox are cross-provider.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#167

Post by jiggy2011 »

rosser wrote: post #158
jiggy2011 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You consider both third party hosting and self hosting to unacceptable?

No, I consider anything where step N involves "go to Github..." a non-starter for anyone who's not already a technologist. Self-hosted is great — in the world Snowden has demonstrated we live in, it's probably the best solution — but it needs to be turn-key, "plug it in and enter a username/password and you're done" level of effort, or it will never become widely used.

It's open source, so someone could easily build a simple installer.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#168

Post by grinich »

pjc50 wrote: post #92
grinich wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael from Inbox here. I actually looked pretty closely at JMAP when it was announce. It's really just a JavaScript wrapper around IMAP conventions. Plus, there's no way to actually use it-- it's just a document spec. The thing people don't realize about IMAP being a "standard" is that there are tons of extensions, weird bugs, provider-specific edge-cases, no comprehensive tests, no reference implementation, etc. I…

This I strongly agree with: what we want now is a RESTful JSON API for email retrieval and querying. IMAP was hairy 20 years ago and is stuck with its design choices forever. But I can't see such a thing taking off unless it's Free.

Free as in freedom. It's AGPL.

https://www.github.com/inboxapp/inbox

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#169

Post by argonaut »

potatolicious wrote: post #117
logicallee wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who cares what they want? If they put in the money as a minority shareholder, their options are to follow the CEO or try to change his/her mind. Note: they're very good at the latter.

Or exercise their Board powers and fire the CEO when push comes to shove. Nobody spends millions of dollars on something to make themselves powerless in it.

That's what the parent poster is getting at. In SV, most founding teams retain control after a seed financing, and many continue to retain control after a Series A.

Re: MIT And Dropbox Alums Launch Inbox, a Next-Generation Email Platform

#170

Post by wahsd »

Can someone please educate me as to what the differentiation is between past email protocols, messaging protocols, and these types of APIs? I'm starting to get this sense that we are just moving towards a singular communications protocol and the name, e.g., email or chat, is simply a matter of UI design and layout and maybe even unnecessary simulation of behaviors and actions.
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