[pjc50]

So this seems to be getting slated as a submarine, but the underlying insight is good: users don't like change. They want an app "exactly like X, but ..." So you start with a familiar interface and let people choose when they're ready to make it less familiar.

Rather like how game tutorials work with locked-down interfaces and gradual introduction of more mechanics.

[pmontra]

> People expect an email client to work a certain way. Our unique features made us too different. They made the interface unfamiliar

Agreed. It applies to many fields, also to programming languages. Elixir and Phoenix were designed ostensibly to look like Ruby and RoR and onboarded many developers from those environments. Still some parts of Elixir are too Erlang -ish. Example: the cryptic handle_* methods of GenServer. They could have had the courage of using a class like notation, make them crystal clear for the vast majority of developers and grow much more.

[j45]

Users want to be able to onboard at their level of familiarity and competency and move forward.

It's kind of like how users grew up with Facebook, it began simple and became complex over time. Except allowing users to onboard at any point in that timeline.