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Mimestream, a native Gmail app for macOS

mimestream.com

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Re: Mimestream, a native Gmail app for macOS

#21

Post by dserodio »

awill wrote: post #3

Not thrilled with yet another subscription. I get it though, as they have to maintain their app with Google's moving Gmail API. I understand paying for this if you're a paying Google Workspace customer. But if you're a free gmail user, it doesn't make sense. If you're going to pay for email, pay for the actual email before paying for a client.

But most Google Workspace customers are companies, not individuals. It'd be hard to convince the company to pay for Mimestream, so its customers are people. And there are too many "personal productivity" tools competing for my money, Mimestream is very low on the priorities list.

Re: Mimestream, a native Gmail app for macOS

#22

Post by tedmiston »

wilg wrote: post #20
tedmiston wrote: post #5

I have been a longtime Mimestream beta user over the past few years. I have even emailed Neil re bugs. It's a nice client, better than Mail.app or the Gmail web interface, but the features it adds over Gmail are mainly cosmetic or nice-to-haves... it's mainly a pretty native app UI. I have to admit that I didn't see a recurring subsription pricing model coming at all . I'm not opposed to the model in general, but I j…

People are so funny about software pricing. There’s somebody on the other end who has to make a living to maintain and improve the software. And doing one-time pricing means you have to pursue user growth instead of sustainability. You also might be forced to charge for major version upgrades, fragmenting the user base and adding lots of complexity and overhead. What’s the maintenance expectation on a one-time purcha…

As a software developer myself, like many of us here, I can assure you that I'm very familiar with the concerns mentioned; in fact, I've already provided examples in this thread of companies which directly consider them into their pricing model in order to provide versioned licenses.

It's kind of surprising to have to say this though... 10 years ago and beyond this was the norm, if not the only way. Software companies figured it out a long time ago. A one-man company or a side project is a different thing with more constraints, but that's not what this is anymore.

There's also the philosophical angle of creating software that cannot be bought or owned. That strikes a nerve with a lot of people (especially on HN).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

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