My history with email clients being acquired is not encouraging. The history is they are effectively abandoned and/or shut down on the order of weeks and months not years. See Dropbox/Mailbox.
Sparrow
Grammarly acquires Superhuman
91–100 of 144 posts
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#92The founder of Superhuman has really got this playbook down. I remember his previous startup (Rapportive?) was another email-improving thing that got acquired by LinkedIn fairly quickly and got shut down. Not a bad gig.
This was not very quick.
I first heard about it last week, so it felt quick to me.
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#93Grammarly has an existential crisis. It can be replaced it with free versions of the top models and they are much better (and I can control the UI anyway I want). In fact, many of these “web 2.0” business models are a few more updates away from getting replaced.
This is such a programmers take. Bottled water is in a crisis, it can be easily replaced with tap water and a reusable container! Yet it’s a $47 billion dollar market in the US.
Grammarly’s value is not in having a replaceable product, it’s in the network, distribution, customer acquisition channels and integrations with tools. Like bottled water, it’s about being in the customers face at the right place and the right time.
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Grammarly can cut down their costs if they use those models themselves. The current LLM advancements aren't disruptive but incremental. What's the hurdle you see they can't rely on their existing distribution and expand from there?
Why would using a more-expensive technology cut their costs?
It's the dot-com strategy. They'll lose money on every sale but make it up in volume.
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#95[deleted]
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arm Diamond Aircraft Volvo Cirrus All retained their culture and brand and the products keep improving incrementally. Parent companies keep a low profile wrt product.
Volvo owners I know would disagree vehemently
barely off topic, but your comment reminds me of SAAB (which i had and loved) being acquired by GM (which phased it out, after making it bland).
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#97I've been looking to replace Superhuman recently. None of their AI or Team features matter to me. I just wanted what they originally set out to build -- a super fast, keyboard driven, desktop email client. There are daily paper cut bugs and search issues that have persisted for many years, and I'm not going to stick around through this transition which will surely make the product worse. What do folks like for deskto…
Same here, I recently got frustrated with every email client, tried everything. Few days ago I finally decided to vibe code my own email client with Claude Code and I got a basic version running in a single day. Can’t wait to build it exactly the way I want, with programmable rules/filters and AI drafts for specific types of emails I get, conversion to plain text or dark mode for readability, contextual information in sidebars pulled from APIs (such as email history and customer support / CRM info), and one click actions in other apps.
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#98Grammarly has an existential crisis. It can be replaced it with free versions of the top models and they are much better (and I can control the UI anyway I want). In fact, many of these “web 2.0” business models are a few more updates away from getting replaced.
This is such a programmers take. Bottled water is in a crisis, it can be easily replaced with tap water and a reusable container! Yet it’s a $47 billion dollar market in the US. Grammarly’s value is not in having a replaceable product, it’s in the network, distribution, customer acquisition channels and integrations with tools. Like bottled water, it’s about being in the customers face at the right place and the righ…
You’re on the money and that’s exactly why I think Grammarly will struggle. OpenAI/Gemini/Claude will get embedded further. Gemini is already on gmail. Getting OpenAI and Claude incorporated is trivial. Guess what? Once Apple figures out what they’re doing with AI (which I hope is to buy Anthropic) they will take whatever is out there and incorporate them into iOS/MacOS just as they’ve done for so many third-party app ideas in the past.
Re: Grammarly acquires Superhuman
#99Superhuman user and former Grammarly user here.
I'm a big fan of Superhuman as an email client and happily pay the premium price for it. I really hope they don't change what makes it great.
I used to love Grammarly until they essentially ruined their product - much like Dropbox did. They took an app that worked perfectly and deprecated it, replacing it with an invasive keyboard replacement that was supposed to work everywhere but performed poorly across most programs and included functionality I wasn’t interested in that is kept nagging me to use. When I complained about the issues, instead of addressing my concerns, they sent form letter responses about their commitment to privacy rather than fixing their intrusive software.
This reminds me exactly of Dropbox's transformation from simple, reliable file storage into bloated software that cluttered my computer with pop-ups and background processes. When users complained, their team never seemed to understand why we were frustrated. Then they started acquiring other services I eventually cancelled as they tried to integrate them into their core service. I eventually moved to iCloud and never looked back.
I hope Superhuman keeps their current excellent email client that I gladly pay for, rather than replacing it with some "next generation" product that nobody asked for and that would likely be inferior to what we have now. I genuinely love Superhuman as it is.