Consider: Email 2.0(consider.co)
consider.co
Consider: Email 2.0
https://www.consider.co/
62 comments
Why is everyone here so afraid of emojis?
As long as one does not go with gmail. Which is, sadly, what most people think IS email :(
It's a client (several), it allows other clients, and it does the SMTP, POP3 and IMAP thing. It filters spam and sorts things into enumerated named folders, and you can download everything and store everything as mbox files with attachments in a big-old folder, and still be able to locally elastic-search it all, or leave it on Google's servers and search through their web UI. Isn't that email-ey enough? If not, what's it missing?
I'm quite happy with Gmail... It doesn't have any of the negatives listed above.
Sure, it was not acquired by some super-evil corp but it was created and owned by one instead. That seems even worse (especially when considering that google was not evil in its early days, or at it was not widely known).
It is also willing to lock you out of your account and keep begging for your phone number (even if you haven't entered it previously) in order to unlock it.
It is also willing to lock you out of your account and keep begging for your phone number (even if you haven't entered it previously) in order to unlock it.
Their name reeks of hubris. I hope someone challenges their right to brand themselves as Email 2.0.
Some of the features here are honestly anti-features.
Pinned messages — the last thing I want is someone else choosing how to manage my inbox and what ends up where.
"Presence" aka more user tracking, now also in your inbox. Who in their right mind would want this, never mind paying for it?
There's also no mention of how all the rest of the concepts interface with users who don't buy into the system. Are there partial updates, are people without a subscription just cut out of comments etc?
There are many companies touting email 2.0 but I deeply doubt this is it.
Pinned messages — the last thing I want is someone else choosing how to manage my inbox and what ends up where.
"Presence" aka more user tracking, now also in your inbox. Who in their right mind would want this, never mind paying for it?
There's also no mention of how all the rest of the concepts interface with users who don't buy into the system. Are there partial updates, are people without a subscription just cut out of comments etc?
There are many companies touting email 2.0 but I deeply doubt this is it.
Email 2.0:
* Centrally controlled by a single company.
* Closed protocols (so it seems - didn't see evidence to the contrary).
* Encourages you to "Upgrade your conversations" with emojis.
I'm definitely willing to pay! ... for this not to be anywhere near me.
* Centrally controlled by a single company.
* Closed protocols (so it seems - didn't see evidence to the contrary).
* Encourages you to "Upgrade your conversations" with emojis.
I'm definitely willing to pay! ... for this not to be anywhere near me.
> Closed protocols (so it seems - didn't see evidence to the contrary).
The email itself is presumably just an email. If the company goes out of business you still have all the emails, and at the worst you're just missing how many people Liked them or whatever.
The email itself is presumably just an email. If the company goes out of business you still have all the emails, and at the worst you're just missing how many people Liked them or whatever.
It's an interesting concept, I think for an email disrupter though, you'd do better w/ maybe open core software. So people can build upon and really make it the next gen of email, not a closed wall.
Yet everyone is so eager to abandon IRC for Slack and that type of garbage. What is really the difference here?
That email is mainly used for communicating with people at different companies while Slack is mainly used for communication within the company. And IRC has a lot of usability issues which have not yet been solved.
Personally I strongly dislike Slack and hope that Matrix will kill it, but I understand why people adopted Slack and most of those reasons does not apply here.
Personally I strongly dislike Slack and hope that Matrix will kill it, but I understand why people adopted Slack and most of those reasons does not apply here.
> And IRC has a lot of usability issues which have not yet been solved.
Such as?
I know of
- Lack of multi-line messages. AFAIK that's addresses in some new IRC RFC but it's not widely
- Server-stored messages. Bouncer can deal with that, though, it's kind of a hack.
Otherwise I love usability of IRC clients! My IRC client binary is 1.1 MB big!!!
Such as?
I know of
- Lack of multi-line messages. AFAIK that's addresses in some new IRC RFC but it's not widely
- Server-stored messages. Bouncer can deal with that, though, it's kind of a hack.
Otherwise I love usability of IRC clients! My IRC client binary is 1.1 MB big!!!
Because slack is a better experience and IRC failed to make it work. Just because something is an open standard doesn't mean its the best product. There's probably still room for an open source, confederated IM client with proper workspaces, history management, and ubiquitous clients.
> There's probably still room for an open source, confederated IM client with proper workspaces, history management, and ubiquitous clients.
Matrix?
Matrix?
No. Only the people who see no problem in The things OP mentioned are eager to switch to slack.
There's still no quick and easy way to set up an IRC server for a company.
There are plenty of ways to easily set up email.
There are plenty of ways to easily set up email.
Email servers are some of the most annoying pieces of software to set up and maintain. IRC servers aren't anything like that at all.
Actually I feel it's more the other way around.
This seems like a cool idea, but from reading the info on the page I don't quite understand exactly what it is. Is it a mail client? I think it is? If it is an email client, does it have mobile apps? Or do I keep using my gmail app as is?
Sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but those were my first set of questions after reading the site.
Sorry if I'm missing the obvious, but those were my first set of questions after reading the site.
I agree. I tried Consider a little while ago and I still don't know what it is. If it's still just a client then it's pretty unlikely to be "Email 2.0".
This looks similar to Topicbox (https://www.topicbox.com/) that Fastmail is building.
Overall I think the current paradigm of mail clients is not the correct one: a MUA today is still a glorified view of individual emails, as if it was "just" a maildir viewer. I would rather have a HN- or Reddit-like view, where focus is put on the conversation rather than on the people. This will be more useful than focusing on folders (What's the use of a "Sent" folder ?)
Overall I think the current paradigm of mail clients is not the correct one: a MUA today is still a glorified view of individual emails, as if it was "just" a maildir viewer. I would rather have a HN- or Reddit-like view, where focus is put on the conversation rather than on the people. This will be more useful than focusing on folders (What's the use of a "Sent" folder ?)
What makes email so versatile with little rent-seeking is that it is a decentralized protocol. Companies that want to provide services involving email cannot do so by owning all your contacts or data (like YouTube, Twitter, etc.) — they must offer competitive services. And all because you can exit easily.
More things need to have this ease of exiting with all of the data (cryptographically guaranteed): banks and financial services, social networks, content distribution systems, etc.
More things need to have this ease of exiting with all of the data (cryptographically guaranteed): banks and financial services, social networks, content distribution systems, etc.
Every single one of these tools only connect to Gmail. It's kind of a bummer.
Gmail has 2.0 Billion users right now. Anything that's successful is going to build an Outlook integration. The reason they aren't launching with Outlook integrations is because it's hard to launch as an enterprise product without any validation for the core value prop; otherwise you'd be spending years building permission management features without knowing whether the actual core product is even useful in the first place.
I'd imagine the OP wasn't expressing frustration about not having Outlook integration along with Gmail integration. But instead that it doesn't work with the email protocol, thus working with any standards compliant servers.
> But instead that it doesn't work with the email protocol, thus working with any standards compliant servers.
That isn't really a thing though. The email protocols cover the format of the message and how it's transmitted, there isn't any standard for how servers are implemented that would allow one to develop email software that automatically works with any server. Otherwise Nylas wouldn't be a thing.
That isn't really a thing though. The email protocols cover the format of the message and how it's transmitted, there isn't any standard for how servers are implemented that would allow one to develop email software that automatically works with any server. Otherwise Nylas wouldn't be a thing.
That is simply not true. For Client-Server communication there is IMAP (for management of your mailbox) and SMTP (for sending emails) which is also used for Server-Server communication.
The fact that clients such as Thunderbird (or mutt) exist and work with basically all email hosts is a testament to this fact.
The fact that clients such as Thunderbird (or mutt) exist and work with basically all email hosts is a testament to this fact.
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IMAP exists.
Is there any technical detail on how these features are implemented?
I would like to support improved email but at least some of this has to be implemented at the protocol level, otherwise it’s just another walled garden that will wither and die out in a few years.
I would like to support improved email but at least some of this has to be implemented at the protocol level, otherwise it’s just another walled garden that will wither and die out in a few years.
> otherwise it’s just another walled garden that will wither and die out in a few years
Or worse it's another walled garden that doesn't die out in a few years. Not because what it offers in trade for locking you in is worth it, but because the inertia it creates makes sticking with it seem more appealing than migrating to something that could be even worse.
Or worse it's another walled garden that doesn't die out in a few years. Not because what it offers in trade for locking you in is worth it, but because the inertia it creates makes sticking with it seem more appealing than migrating to something that could be even worse.
Basecamp are also working on a new Web based Email. We went from little to no competition in the space to having two launches within same time frame?
I guess this is a sign that people are generally not happy with Gmail?
I guess this is a sign that people are generally not happy with Gmail?
This situation isn’t new, we’ve been watching this competition grow from an adjacent field for the past year or so. While not directly comparable (nor competing with) this, the way we solve the email problem don’t require you to use Gmail, nor giving away your privacy, since we do on-premises. (https://aether.app)
Basecamp's entry: https://hey.com/
And Hey is almost diametrically opposite to Consider.
Hard pass.
They say they're trying to save emails because emails are a unique form of communication that Slack doesn't address. But it doesn't feel like they're actually thinking about email as a platform, they're just blindly stapling features to it. It's not clear how those features interact with existing email features (do inline conversations work with HTML/CSS styling).
And the features don't seem to have much to do with the parts of email they praised. They spend a paragraph talking about how they love email because it doesn't have notifications, because it has subject lines, and because it's an open platform everyone can use. And then they spend a long time talking about how they're going to add a bunch of chat and forum/wiki crap, on a closed platform that not everybody can use. What does any of that crap have to do with asynchronous, thoughtful communication?
If (and that's a really big if) there's an email 2.0, it's probably going to be people settling on Matrix or building something new on top of ActivityPub. I mean, what are the real problems with email? Spam, over-complicated protocols, bad encryption flows, the difficulty of self-hosting (largely because of spam), bad message-signing flows and verification of contents, wildly outdated clients which make it difficult to use modern CSS.
But congrats, I can add emoji reactions now. Which is apparently an acceptable tradeoff for giving up the ability to communicate with anyone on Gmail.
I don't want to be too negative, but I'm kind of irritated that this made the front page at all, and I suspect the reason is likely purely because it mentions email in the title. My uncharitable analysis is that there's nothing worthwhile to see here. It's just another VC spending a bunch of other people's money to desperately try and solve a problem that doesn't exist by throwing engineers at a web app.
They say they're trying to save emails because emails are a unique form of communication that Slack doesn't address. But it doesn't feel like they're actually thinking about email as a platform, they're just blindly stapling features to it. It's not clear how those features interact with existing email features (do inline conversations work with HTML/CSS styling).
And the features don't seem to have much to do with the parts of email they praised. They spend a paragraph talking about how they love email because it doesn't have notifications, because it has subject lines, and because it's an open platform everyone can use. And then they spend a long time talking about how they're going to add a bunch of chat and forum/wiki crap, on a closed platform that not everybody can use. What does any of that crap have to do with asynchronous, thoughtful communication?
If (and that's a really big if) there's an email 2.0, it's probably going to be people settling on Matrix or building something new on top of ActivityPub. I mean, what are the real problems with email? Spam, over-complicated protocols, bad encryption flows, the difficulty of self-hosting (largely because of spam), bad message-signing flows and verification of contents, wildly outdated clients which make it difficult to use modern CSS.
But congrats, I can add emoji reactions now. Which is apparently an acceptable tradeoff for giving up the ability to communicate with anyone on Gmail.
I don't want to be too negative, but I'm kind of irritated that this made the front page at all, and I suspect the reason is likely purely because it mentions email in the title. My uncharitable analysis is that there's nothing worthwhile to see here. It's just another VC spending a bunch of other people's money to desperately try and solve a problem that doesn't exist by throwing engineers at a web app.
I know I'm not the target audience but I'm at the point where if the most salient element on a startup's website is a button that says "Get Started" or "Request Access" I hit the back button.
This fluffy nonsense is really starting to feel lame.
This fluffy nonsense is really starting to feel lame.
What should it say instead?
I wish I knew. Sales and marketing are way outside my skill set. Fundamentally I just want to be convinced the product is "better" before I agree to jump through the hoops of giving up yet more of my personal information to a company that's going to spam me until it dies. Make me want your product so much I have to seek out the "Get Started" button.
I know that's not how VC metrics work. They want maximum engagement in minimum time. But IMO these kind of "engagements" are hollow and customer-hostile.
I know that's not how VC metrics work. They want maximum engagement in minimum time. But IMO these kind of "engagements" are hollow and customer-hostile.
Sites that don't have prominent calls to action are basically dead in terms of usage and engagement. If you made such a site, you'd just be screwing yourself over because no one is using your product.
i liked the font on the landing page. turns out it's a free open source font from an award winning designer! https://www.dafontfree.io/averta-font/
Not open source and also not exactly free (2 of the 48 styles are freely available). Still, pretty reasonably priced as far as fonts go: https://www.fontfabric.com/fonts/averta/
Email 2.0 will probably never come, because too many people are already using emails.
Due to this, fixing email has to be done on the client side.
What are the problems of emails (as a user):
* not encrypted by default
* spam
What I think would make a good email client to combat spam is a plugin for browsers: generate a random per-domain email every time you sign up for something. This makes unsubscribing very easy, and this allows you to see when a service your registered with shared your email with someone else.
Do you need anything else? I'm thinking of at least two other use cases:
* work. But you probably already have a separate work email.
* friends. But your friends are already probably on facebook, or whatsapp, or ... I have zero friends using email to reach out to me these days.
Due to this, fixing email has to be done on the client side.
What are the problems of emails (as a user):
* not encrypted by default
* spam
What I think would make a good email client to combat spam is a plugin for browsers: generate a random per-domain email every time you sign up for something. This makes unsubscribing very easy, and this allows you to see when a service your registered with shared your email with someone else.
Do you need anything else? I'm thinking of at least two other use cases:
* work. But you probably already have a separate work email.
* friends. But your friends are already probably on facebook, or whatsapp, or ... I have zero friends using email to reach out to me these days.
Perhaps just me but Google wave had some potential to be 'email 2.0'
Actually, I’d definitely prefer this as a shared knowledge retention and shared actioning platform compared to Slack. Slack requires your team to adopt it 100%, commit to using it as the main communication medium so everything has a written record, and be in IM-mode all the time, and at a pretty steep price. Most of its downsides go away if you pursue the same goals but build it on top of the email paradigm instead. I hope Consider will get some adoption and then some tail wind to influence this type of a change.
I don't see email 2.0 being a paid service. Competition to something like Slack or Microsoft Teams, sure.
> I don't see email 2.0 being a paid service. Competition to something like Slack or Microsoft Teams, sure.
Email 1.0 is already a paid service, by definition. The fact that some companies offer “free” email accounts in exchange for ads doesn’t change anything to the fact that servers need to be paid for.
Email 1.0 is already a paid service, by definition. The fact that some companies offer “free” email accounts in exchange for ads doesn’t change anything to the fact that servers need to be paid for.
Hey everyone, here’s our new service, but sorry, you can’t actually sign up and use it. We aren’t actually even sure we have a product yet, just a landing page for it. Subscribe for updates though...
/s
/s
Looks remarkably similar to what Front have been doing for several years. https://frontapp.com
I think Front is more for external communication and Consider is more for internal communication. These are different usecases
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People will want to use it? It will be fun?
Honestly, doesn't sound like email.
Honestly, doesn't sound like email.
Centralized walled garden, bound to fail, or worse, acquired by some super-evil corp at any moment ("our wonderful journey"), packed with emojis, real-time information on who is looking at what worse than the Stasi and loss of control of your timeline is what EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY PEDDLES. These things are part of the problem, not part of the solution. For fuck's sake, leave email alone.