[annadane]

Seen this type of comment thread before countless times on the Google support forum. They'll placate the complainers by saying they're listening to feedback and then only pay heed to the positive comments and not change a thing. De rigeur for businesses. The general type of dishonesty is quite amazing. Yes, people are maybe excessively resistant to change, but when everyone is telling you something sucks, your customers, who do you listen to, them or your marketing department, oh wait, don't answer that.

[Freak_NL]

The folks at Google aren't idiots. They now that there is a vocal minority of complainers, most of whom will accept the new UI after a week or two. For a customer base the size of GMail, placating every complaint is just not in the interest of their business.

That is one of the downsides of dominant marker players. Microsoft had the same leverage with Windows 10 (this round of complaints feels similar, although the focus is different).

People who don't like it should use IMAP/SMTP (until GMail shuts that down), or vote with their wallet and go somewhere else. The world could do with more competition for email.

[abainbridge]

Agreed, but what do Google get out of making the new version?

The biggest negative business impact for them is that the new version makes talented developers less likely to want to work there. When Gmail first came out, it was breath of fresh air. It showed how to do email right. I remember wishing that I worked a company that could create such brilliant software.

[codedokode]

By the way, to use IMAP/SMTP you will need to switch "enable unsecure apps" in Google Account preferences. Google considers all auth methods except OAuth2 to be insecure (and OAuth2 doesn't work in my slightly outdated version of Thunderbird). But I think the opposite: with OAuth2 the token is stored on your device, with password auth the password is not stored anywhere.

[pas]

That stored token is the same as a long lived session cookie, providing the same level of security.

[izacus]

"Everyone"? What do you base everyone on? The same set of complainers on HN in comments?

[nailer]

It's de rigeur for bad businesses. Especially considering many gsuite users are paying customers.

[nailer]

Replying to self: judging from the voting here people on HN have a poor view of business. I'll point out Stripe or most smaller tech companies as an example of listening to customer feedback and doing something about it.