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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

I have a blog post that I've been meaning to write about why I moved from Fastmail to Gmail. I love Fastmail as a product, but I realised it wasn't what I wanted anymore from my email.

I think there's a tension between explicit and implicit organisation. If you want a really good email client, Fastmail is great, but while I did care about that at one point in my life, what I want now is really just the big box at the top of the email telling me about my package arriving today or showing my boarding pass. Fastmail is excellent for explicit organisation, but its implicit organisation isn't great. Gmail is the other way around. I don't like the Gmail UI or any of the organisation features, but I also don't really need to use them.

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I think the next paradigm shift in software is going to be LLM-inferred user intent. Serving just what you really want, when you want it. Currently all inside whatever interface the LLM provider offers, but soon whatever interface the LLM decides is appropriate. People won't use apps anymore. Your LLM will tell you which emails you need to address, and will automatically triage the rest (and action those which can be actioned autonomously). You won't navigate to Facebook. You'll ask your LLMs what your friends are up to. You won't navigate to TikTok. You'll ask the LLM for some funny videos (or whatever you're in the mood for). We won't need to structure data hierarchically anymore. Just dump it somewhere, an LLM vectorises it, and it's super easy to retrieve later in whichever domain one needs it.

The internet is about to undergo radical transformation.

I do hope not. That sounds utterly horrendous.

It's fascinating the different opinions people have about the AI future. For me, it feels like a breath of fresh air. Like I've been fighting my computers and gadgets and appliances my whole life to get them to do what I want. AI proposes a future where the entire layer of frustration disappears between what I want, and getting it. This is basically a utopia for me, but I have seen many with similar positions to you. I hope you do not take my comment as disrespect, because it's not. Everyone has a different version of utopia.

I suspect your opinion might overlap with the preference for a manual transmission, older engines which can be easily maintained, Linux, "dumb" phones, and other products which can be easily repaired by you. I share a certain fondness for all of these, but would gladly sacrifice them to slash the frustration they entail.

If you want to be tagged and tracked in that way then there is no better platform than Google services for sure.

This is basically what my take has been after chasing everything else for way too long. Though I've not moved back and Gmail honestly isn't something I can now move back to (and no tracking/etc are not the reason). I just wrote a too long comment and I realise now most of that you've said in your short comment.

Email for me is just a communication tool that the world still uses. Nothing else.

but, you're going to pay either way (assuming you have a custom domain).

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