I agree - people are no longer willing to pay for the little bit of the client that connects to a server, downloads the email, and renders it, because all of that is widely available for free.
What they are willing to pay for is a value proposition that goes beyond the mere mechanics of email. Outlook succeeds because it integrates email with calendaring (so does GMail, with less success), does a fantastic job with sortation, filtering, and highlighting, and also is a champ when dealing with unmanageably large address books.
The market for an amazing email management service is absolutely existent. The market for a rubber-stamp me-too mail client is not.
I agree that if someone could improve email management they would indeed make more money. However, I still feel that sparrow was able to become so popular because it's iPhone interface was so much nicer to use than both Google's and Apple's free alternatives.
> sparrow was able to become so popular because it's iPhone interface was so much nicer to use than both Google's and Apple's free alternatives.
Sparrow became popular way before the iPhone version. Anyway, how is making an app more convenient supposed not to be an improvement worth at least a couple of bucks?
BTW, "All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less."
What they are willing to pay for is a value proposition that goes beyond the mere mechanics of email. Outlook succeeds because it integrates email with calendaring (so does GMail, with less success), does a fantastic job with sortation, filtering, and highlighting, and also is a champ when dealing with unmanageably large address books.
The market for an amazing email management service is absolutely existent. The market for a rubber-stamp me-too mail client is not.