[bt848]

I’m curious how they do competitive analysis. They want to be faster than gmail but how do they measure? I tried to take a high-speed video of gmail navigating from thread list to thread but it was not conclusive. Gmail collects a ton of client-side timing data and I wonder if anyone has ever just intercepted that.

[freediver]

It is unlikely the performance can be your long term selling point, when you do not own the full stack. They still have to interact with gmail through an API, while gmail app itself can process everything server-side. I think there is a place for $50/month email, but you need to own the entire stack, not just build a fancy email client.

[tbrock]

Email is beautifully asynchronous so the time spent interacting with the underlying API is not important unless it’s horrifically sabotaged for third party clients.

[bt848]

You are absolutely correct, which is why the bulk of Gmail’s client code is dedicated to hiding latency.