Ash HN: Is it worth investing in paid email services hey/superhuman? | Hacker News Reader

Ash HN: Is it worth investing in paid email services hey/superhuman?

13 pointsharshamv2222 comments

With a lot of hype around paid email services like hey.com and superhuman - Is it worth all the money or is it just a hype?

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I think it’s mostly hype.

I was excited for Hey. I’m disappointed. The interface is colorful but disjointed. Way too much whitespace for my taste. I was hoping for a truly new take on email UI, like an IM-style interface. Hey feels like they took the traditional email UI and split it into different screens with lots of whitespace.

I don’t like the screening feature. In Fastmail, I have a separate folder for people not in my contacts. Anyone I respond to is automatically added to my contacts, so I don’t have to manually approve them. This functionality is available in any email client. The screening feature seems like more work, with pressure to look at them.

No custom domain is a dealbreaker. I’ve used the same email for almost 10 years. I’m honestly amazed so many techies are fine with the shared domain. Paying $999 for a two letter user on a shared domain? Nuts.

The newsletter feed view is nice. But I actually prefer my newsletter folder where I click each email, because I know which ones are unread. The feed view gives me a feeling that I don’t know what I missed.

After playing with it, I sold my invite for $175 within minutes on Twitter. FOMO is very powerful.

I’m a paid Fastmail user for these reasons:

* With my own domain, my e-mail address is my own property, which is good because I intend to keep it for another 70 years.

* With proper support for the good old boring standards (IMAP, WebDAV etc.) I can use my mail from almost wherever. I’m not at the mercy of Apple approving an app or not. I’m not depending on others for keeping my mail safe; I can back it up myself.

* As I’m paying for it, there’s way less incentive for Fastmail to invade my privacy than for example Google.

* As I’m paying for it, there’s way more incentive for Fastmail to improve my experience than for example Google.

Hey charges $349/yr for three-letter user names; $999/yr for two letters. Four letters and up: $99yr.

I watched a video walkthrough. I noticed four things:

1. The cost for potential benefit seems disproportionately high.

2. I can duplicate most of Hey's features just configuring my own email.

3. The gimmicky UI seemed way too much for me.

4. Despite attempting to sign up 72 hours after the invites went out, every possible permutation of my first name, last name, and initials was already taken. I tried them all.

I've been using ProtonMail for a year or so now, and love it. I realize Hey is aiming at a 'premium' market of users who don't blink at prices, and I'm not in that market.

More simply, I haven't lived in email for years, and keep moving away from email, not towards it.

Not sure about the hyped email providers (hey etc.), but I switched to Fastmail earlier this year.

Beyond the control part (own domain, not sharing data with Google etc.), I love how snappy it is. Gmail bloat didn't bother me this much until I started using Fastmail (still Gsuite for work).

I've paid for a couple years already, just to lock myself down. I'm happy so far ~3 months in.

I've been really put off with the number of messages I've seen in the last couple of weeks of the form "Just used X for 2 hours and I'm switching now! Life is so much better!" and "My new email address is bob@X.com. Amazing!" (wait until they find out you can buy a custom domain). Are these for real?

Surely it requires you to have received and sent some number of emails over several days first? I don't see how you can evaluate a new workflow that quick unless the workflow is obviously transformational.

I don't have a lot of issues with gmail to be honest. I use archive and snooze to keep at inbox zero most days, get minimal spam, and only get a handful of emails each week I need to reply to. Maybe I don't get enough emails but I do what I can to avoid getting emails too.

It depends on your use case and usage patterns.

I like Basecamp’s opinionated approach and what they’ve done with Hey.com

As much as I’d like to use it as my primary email tool I depend on G Suite and Gmail for my business because of the integration and automation those tools afford me.

Superhuman paying customer here. For starters, they are not equivalent products because Hey.com is client + server. Superhuman is an app that sits on top of an existing Gmail account.

I have no problem paying for Superhuman. I use it exclusively for my business email and the way I see it, if improving my email management lands me one single customer it more than pays for itself.

As far as paying in general, I enjoy the feeling that this product won't die off in the same way so many clients have before. Hopefully they are able to build a sustainable business and support a reliable product. Superhuman also has outstanding customer support.

This is the right way of thinking about it. If it saves time / money / expand capabilties enough (and you can afford it) then make the investment.

Unless it’s making you money, it’s an expense not an investment. Unless you own the domain, your address is not portable.

Everything else in the equation varies case by case.

I pay for my email services and receive a VPN service for doing so as well being able to create up to 5 email accounts. Paid email has its benefits for example, the actual email I use is not at all similar to the login email therefore there’s improved security in some paid emails.

I think it’s worth paying to have email on a domain you control. I’m not sure any of the hype email services like hey or superhuman get you that much you won’t get with any other email provider.

I'm 16 years into using gmail, so the thought of converting to a new email address feels harder than trying to change my social security number right now.

Anyone done this successfully?

I am just slowly switching to my hey email.

The only problem is that I chose a rather funny hey email addrsss so I still have to use my gmail for job applications. Maybe when hey support custom domains, I will exclusively use it.

Does Hey have a way of migrating from gmail? Or do you have to finagle it yourself?

You can’t import old emails

I'm liking Hey so far, but this is frankly a huge bummer

I've been using Gmail for 14 years but I switched to Fastmail earlier this year. My suggestion would be to start using your new email whenever signing up for anything, and any time you get an email to your Gmail account, go and update that account with the new email. It's a slow process but its working for me. I also ended up going through my password manager and just manually updating my email on certain sites. Eventually the emails you get to your Gmail will slow down.

At this point most of my email in Gmail is just promotions which I don't really care to carry over.

I switched after a decade on Gmail, and it wasn't nearly as painful as I anticipated. This question comes up enough that I wrote somewhat of a guide here: https://justus.ws/tech/how-to-switch-away-from-gmail/

The hyped services that you mention, probably not.

However, investing into an Office 365, FastMail or even G-Suite subscription and a domain is absolutely worth it.

Yes paid emails have high quality and it converts well. Unlike free.

I am going to pay for hey. I like the concept and it is one less thing on Google

hey mate, I got 3-4 really good names, what about you? If you interested, I can show you.

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