Still lightly salted they killed off Inbox, but at least they rolled most of its useful features back into Gmail.
Something seems wrong. Some random PM didn't promise me this product. The CEO did. This relationship with a giant service provider (Google) feels more like the relationship I loathe with the average monopolizing telecom. I've been taken advantage of and my commitment in the end to this, as I learn, unclear experiment has generated enormous benefits for Google and today results in a frustrating realisation that I wasted my time trying for years to make it work.
One day, I really do hope there's a way I can take my email address and leave Google. Number portability deserves an analog in the email world.
It has one; register your own domain, then you can move it to any registrar and provider you like.
The analog going the other way would be if you took a Google desk phone number where people had to dial Google's offices into their phone system and then dial your extension, and you wanted to take your (Google office + extension) number elsewhere. That kind of service doesn't exist in the phone number portability world either.
Gmail has an option to forward all incoming mail to another address, so when you do eventually leave you won't miss any mail.