
Why No One Has Tamed Email - nikunjk
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/19/why-no-one-has-tamed-email/
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vonklaus
I don't really buy into this. Largely, email is a product that works pretty
well out of the box. Filling in 2 forms can pull in gmail to a Mac or iOS
device. Spam filters knock out spam pretty easily, which would likely need to
be configured by the user anyway. Haven't really had a serious pain point with
e-mail. I like technology so I would be willing to try this out, but to really
get high adoption they would have to provide like a 10x improvement over
traditional email, and clients. I frankly don't think this is possible. Also,
email is largely free, so if you are not offering a crypto product, I can't
see a business case for this. People already have completely simple and free
email.

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Someone1234
Because Microsoft's Exchange is to email as IE 6 was to HTTP/s. It is by far
the most popular[0] mail server in the world and more to the point it is used
by a lot of influential organisations (government, accademia, et al).

However Exchange hasn't done anything innovative in at least ten years and if
Exchange doesn't move forward then nothing else does either, as everything
else is aiming to be compatible with Exchange and little else.

If Google (Gmail) and Microsoft (Outlook.com, Exchange, Office 365, et al)
came out tomorrow with a way to progress email into the future it WOULD
happen. It wouldn't happen overnight (unless backwards compatibility was
assured) but it would eventually happen.

If you could get Google, Microsoft, and the OSS crowd onboard (Postfix,
Sendmail, et al) then it would be even more successful and we might be onto
something new within five years give or take (as most of the webmail would
migrate, Exchange, and so on).

But Microsoft and Google are businesses, and why would they invest capital
into new-email when it won't generate revenue? Exchange/Office 356 is going to
sell with or without this as is GApps.

[0] [http://www.stillhq.com/research/smtp/survey/poster-
lisa2007....](http://www.stillhq.com/research/smtp/survey/poster-
lisa2007.html)

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krapp
Most of the "problems" listed here are UI and client (and people) issues which
the author (who runs an email startup) places at the feet of his competition,
and they have nothing to do with email itself.

The reason no one has tamed email is that email works just fine - and an
argument that everyone should just switch to a particular startup or app is
just absurd.

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ellisonf9
Interestingly enough, I was watching a PG's interview at the Airbnb office. PG
mentioned that a really good way to find good startup ideas is to see what
hackers are talking about. Has anyone else noticed how any post email related
seems to get a fair amount of attention on HN?

~~~
gtremper
It's on PG's list of ambitious startup ideas.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html)

