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The thought of making email more like a todo list is terrifying to me. I try to move valuable information and tasks out of email and into trusted systems that are designed specifically for those purposes as fast as possible. Testing out this guys hypothesis couldn't hurt, but I want nothing to do with it.

I think the reason why reinventing email always fails is that it is generally skin deep.

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"move valuable information and tasks out of email and into trusted systems..."

If email is not a todo list, then how/why do tasks even get in there in the first place such that you need to move them out of there?

Because email is a general purpose messaging system. That can be anything from "hi, how are you?" to "can you pick up some eggs on the way home?"

Yes, my point is that there must be _some_ people that use email for communicating todos, else your inbox would not have todos in it. Maybe it's not HN readers, but the fact that HN readers actively move todos "out of email" mean that someone put them there in the first place. It's those people to which this product would be targeted.

An email that says "can you pick up some eggs on the way home?" is someone putting "pick up eggs" on your todo list via email. To me, it seems clear that for at least a few people email is a todo system. It's probably so for more people than we imagine.

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