Revolutionizing email
A brand-new email serviced launched last year called Hey. So, why in the world would someone launch a new email service in 2020? Especially when services like Gmail and Outlook are dominant? Even more surprising, this email service isn’t free. It cost $99 per year.
It turns out that email, invented in 1971, hasn’t really changed since then. Apart from unlimited storage, spam filters, and a better interface, email has remained virtually the same. Basecamp (the company that created Hey) saw that as an opportunity to finally do something new with email.
One of the most unchallenged assumptions about email (until now) has been that anyone with your email address can contact you. Unfortunately, that means that by now, your personal email address has been shared, sold, and spammed more times than you can count. Hey challenges this assumption via a fantastic feature called “The Screener.” By default, new emails don’t get sent to your Inbox; instead, they go to a separate section called “The Screener.” From here, you have the option to screen-out or screen-in each sender. If you let a sender in, you will get all future emails from them. If you screen them out, you’ll never hear from them again.
This simple feature completely changed my relationship with email. Now my inbox is a reflection of my priorities, not someone else’s.
There are many other great features in Hey, which you can find on their website.
The main lesson here is that we still do so many things every day that we just accept as the status quo. Yet, they are ripe for being rethought and revolutionized. The only question is, what’s next?
