I don't think Google cares whether its users are "passionate" or not. They've reached market saturation, so further spread of their products through word-of-mouth (via passionate users and such) isn't a goal at this time.<p>With regard to their Internet service products, their goal seem to be to monetize the user base effectively, while avoiding wasting funds on unnecessary developer time. To that end, many of their products seem to exist as short-term bets or "experiments", ostensibly to give users something great/interesting, but internally justified by the extra data or "research" those products will generate. See Google Voice (angle: voicemails help train Google Assistant), Inbox (angle: research on some email ideas for potential incorporation into GMail), etc.<p>Google's cultural fixation on decision-making based on data and statistics will bite them eventually. It may help them squeeze the market, but it won't help them <i>care</i> about other people.
Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers.<p>It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers.<p>Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API.<p>The trust must be restored.<p>Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, that their (potential) customers for service Y (such as Google Compute Engine) become concerned that service Y will be shut down too.<p>To put a positive suggestion forward, Google could consider giving all services a "sunset guarantee".<p>A "sunset guarantee" is a commitment that the service will be shut down only with a minimum notice period of say for example 5 years.
There is always so much vitriol on HN about these kinds of announcements.<p>I've never understood why. Google presumably has lots of data and feedback from people using Inbox, and determined that it wasn't useful enough or widespread enough to justify ongoing investment. Why is this surprising or shocking? This happens all the time in commercial and open source software.<p>The internet is great, but unfortunately has the ability to agglomerate individual moments of otherwise transient irritation into a pyroclastic flow of outrage.
I don't even try to understand Google anymore. They released "Hangouts Chat" not to be confused with Google Hangouts, which is not to be confused with their Allo, Duo, Voice, or Messenger apps. On the upside, they shut down Google Spaces and replaced Gmail Chat with Google Hangouts (not Hangouts Chat, that's different) and now they've canned Inbox and are keeping the Gmail app.<p>Huh?
The new look Gmail has performed very poorly for me. Hanging for extended periods while changing views, and during search. I'm not sure why a UI refresh would have such an effect but I've been avoiding switching because of this
I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?
Those (like me) who like using Google products know the bargain. Until a product reaches critical mass, it could get canceled.<p>Wave died. G Suite has succeeded. Chrome succeeded. Reader died. Google+ is in a coma. Hangouts and Google Photos which came out of the ashes looks like they will stay, though what they are doing with their chat tools is a real mystery. In hardware, Chromecast succeeded, Nexus faded away as did a bunch of other stuff. Among the ones i am a little worried about : Google Keep - which i am using more and more. I hope it does not die. Also, Google wifi which i am using now - hope it stays. I tried Inbox and liked it, but I did not invest a lot in it.<p>The ones you can be certain won't go away are the ones with a billion+ users : Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, Search, Youtube, Google Drive (almost 1B) and Google Photos (500M+) should be fine as well.<p>But Google does not owe me anything. And I don't owe them. I don't have to use any of their products if I don't want to.
This is puzzling, as Google pushed Inbox pretty hard. I was under the impression that the Gmail interface would be decommissioned, and Inbox would be the future.
The death of reader wasn't as bad as this for me. Soon after reader died, alternatives popped up left and right, and some of them are better than reader ever was.<p>What alternative is there to gmail/inbox? Unlike an RSS reader, I think it's much more difficult to make an email service that's close to being as good as gmail/inbox while having the same level of features, especially across platforms.
> A radically analytical approach is powerful, but it can blind you to the factors that cannot be measured. Factors such as user passion.<p>This is not true. You can still align KPIs to stuff like that... The problem is looking at 'vanity metrics' or one-size-fits-all metrics like pure user growth, without proper segmentation of high-value and high-engagement users.<p>Or worse marketing/positioning failing to pull its weight and blaming the product. Or giving it a half-hearted attempt, limited resource/talent-wise, and then comparing the results 1-to-1 with other successful products which were heavily prioritized.<p>There's plenty of opportunity to miss the boat. Aligning metrics with business goals is a dynamic process, not one-size-fits-all, which is lost on many business in the big data world.
The part that gets me the most about killing Inbox and forcing users to go back to Gmail is the accumulation of Pinned emails.<p>I was happy to oblige to using pins when I transitioned from Gmail -> Inbox. Stars were replaced with pins but there is no direct mapping. But now that Inbox is dead, the years of pinned emails are effectively useless when they should've been starred in Gmail. It's a frustrating experience for users especially when this is not the first time for Google.<p>This is why as an Android Developer, I'm in the majority community opinion believing that Dart/Flutter/Fuschia shouldn't be trusted. These products/dev tools are going to be in perpetual beta and not worth taking the risk of going to prod with.
I'll miss reminders the most because I use my mail client as my ToDo lost as well. I switched to Gmail preemptively and I'm back to writing emails to myself again...
I think people are overlooking the big picture here. Inbox had a lot of machine learning features that Gmail lacked, like Smart Reply. I think this was just because they really couldn't afford to run Smart Reply on all the incoming email. Now they can, so Gmail has gained Smart Reply and they no longer need to partition that out for cost reasons.<p>While Gmail still lacks some of the other email intelligence features that I will miss, like the Trips bundle, I have a feeling they will emerge in Gmail shortly.
The upside is that, now some smart cookie can make a web app that 'reinvents the inbox' and sell it to Google for millions. Time is of the essence!
Just a side note but if you dig around, you'll realize that a lot of Googlers left the Inbox team around 2016.<p>There isn't much competition to email. It's likely that other products were prioritized (like ARCore) due to competition from Apple, etc.
I've only used Inbox since the very first day it was released, and I loved it; it's a simple mix of concepts that resulted in an experience that has made mail much more pleasant (and less of a hassle) to me. I don't think anyone that has intensively used Inbox in the last years may think even remotely that the new Gmail is a similar experience, because it definitely still has a completely different look and feel.<p>I think I'll switch back to Thunderbird on desktop for the time being, given that the hassle (and delays) of having several POP3 accounts configured on the Gmail website isn't really worth the effort without Inbox.
I don't see an endgame that wouldn't have resulted in outrage.<p>I doubt Google would be committed to keeping both Gmail and Inbox around forever.<p>Either Gmail would be merged into Inbox, or Inbox features would be merged into Gmail. Both of those choices would outrage a large group of users. Frankly it seems that getting rid of Inbox involves pissing off far fewer people than getting rid of Gmail.
I use and like inbox, mostly because I took straight away to using the snooze function - the best thing I've found in an email client, full stop. While this can apparently be done in Gmail now, I'd like to look for an alternative at this point - paid - to move from Google.<p>Any suggestions for an email client that has decent android support, and offers a snooze function?
Google Inbox did one evil thing. To delete an item in iOS's Inbox, you swipe left to right, whereas pretty much every other app in iOS you swipe right to left. This has thrown me into such confusion now in all apps that I'm happy to see Inbox go away.
I see in these comments a lot of bitterness, where I think there should be opportunity: if you think Google made a mistake in killing Inbox and it was a feature beloved by many users.. why don't you spin up your version of it? They have already done the hard part for you: the idea.<p>When google killed greader, Feedly, The old Reader and other products rose up to the challenge. They felt there was market, and they launched (or just changed and marketed better) their product.<p>What is stopping you from doing the same now?
I don't agree with the conclusion that passionate users are going to take their passion elsewhere. This feels like more of an idle threat by a scorned user.
Eventually I failed to see much difference if Inbox and GMail app. I just deleted Inbox because it seemed redundant. Gmail isn’t that good either with their auto categories. I always have to go thru multiple folders to find mail that I was expecting and arrived, never rally know which folder they’ve put it. Is like your mom came into your room and cleaned it but she misplaced stuff and you’d have to find it.
If they'd just implement the reminders and grouping features in Gmail I'd be fine with this. I don't particularly care about how the UI looks. I use snoozed reminders so much and being able to unclutter my inbox with groups makes a huge difference. Doesn't seem like it would be hard to optionally include them in Gmail. Without them moving back to Gmail feels like a step backwards.
I'm up for a good Google hate as much as anyone (man alive, I could give a good rant on how they seem to be trying to screw up in the chat space), but is there any evidence that Inbox users are more passionate than the top N Gmail users when sorting on the passion index, where N = the number of Inbox users (and a likely small fraction of total Gmail users)? I highly doubt it.
I am convinced that in the roadmap of Gmail, the greatness of Inbox is planned to be integrated. This is my opinion only, and time will tell how wrong or right I am.<p>There are 2 Types of Gmail users, gmail.com and G Suite.<p>I think Google prefer maintaining two types of backends, rather than two types of front-ends.
I'd settle for them actually releasing new visual themes for Gmail. They've had the same cartoony themes for near 8 years now I think. Maybe longer. I liked them initially, but that was it. They don't even allow anyone to submit their own or anything like that....
Meanwhile in a different topic, people are criticizing Google for the confusion of having way too many chat services.<p>I think in the end, Google doesn't want more than one email service. If Inbox showed enough growth to someday replace Gmail, it might have had a chance.
im not sure whats going on in google when it comes to email, but i really hope when this new look is enabled again in 2 weeks i can still go back to classical...
I never bothered with Inbox because I figured Google would cancel it some day. I understands user's disappointment, but it can't be a surprise. This is what Google does.<p>It's amazing to me that a company with close to 90 000 employees and that attracts top talent can't find a way to support their services longer than a few years. How much does a handfull of indian engineers and space in their own datacenter cost?
I use Inbox for all my mail. I'm fine with Inbox being EOL'ed because the migration is effortless and only relatively minor features remain in limbo.<p>My least favorite thing about Inbox was the low-density UI. I want side-bars. I want to be able to have a high-density list view. Inbox never integrated my hangouts transcripts. I'm fine with going back to a much-evolved GMail.
they will kill anything that 99% of their users dont care for. it would be insane not to.<p>it is strange for us people because we know 1000s who care for those products/features
This is overblown, people's livelihoods don't rely on Inbox. Most features are in Gmail now anyways.<p>And no whataboutism please, this deprecarion event is about Inbox, not some other product.