[x0x0]

Not to mention, if you're old like me, you remember paying (I think?) $100 and then eventually $49 for eudora / upgrades for eudora. In approx 1990 dollars. We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app, and expect perpetual upgrades for that price! So simultaneously expectations have skyrocketed and prices have plummeted.

Part of the problem is, unlike say Pinboard, an email client doesn't feel like 1-3 devs worth of work. The protocols are horrendous, you have to understand the quirks of lots of servers, etc. Plus all the UI and backend and search work. I'm not sure it's approachable as a small indie company.

There's also, of course, bad behavior by large companies such as mozilla: Thunderbird made it very difficult to build an indie email client because you have to compete on merits and against free, but they eventually got bored and just quit making it. Not to mention competing with free/ad-supported. And the semi-annual YC/vc supported email client company.

Not to mention what is coming close to active sabotage of productivity apps by the ios and mac app stores (lack of trials, lack of upgrades, etc).

[hussong]

I remember paying for The Bat! and loving it.

[viraptor]

Pegasus mail was pretty good, even if a bit enterprisy. I just searched and wow... it's still being developed! The website even still lists the msdos version. http://www.pmail.com/

[radiorental]

I'm sorry, I apologise in advance, but this irks me.

"We now live in a world where people pitch tantrums about paying $10 for an app"

Where do users/customers get these expectations? Call it market forces, race to the bottom, whatever... do a little root cause and not blame joe public please.

[x0x0]

That's a long running debate and for our purposes unimportant.

It's still a prominent, maybe even the most prominent, item on my personal list of "reasons I shouldn't build an email app."

[radiorental]

point taken.