[Moru]

As a normal gmail user you won't notice this, all you see is that you get mail from your friends that you always mailed with. If you register on popular sites, their mail will also work. If however you are sitting on a new domain, sending mail to an old friend on gmail, it will very likely end up in the spam folder unless you are using a big provider that has reputation with google already.

I guess it's another case of survival bias. If it works you won't notice that it does not work in all cases.

[AJ007]

Even a lot of “popular” site stuff ends up in spam. I basically have to regularly check my spam box, which previously I would look at a few times a year when a password reset or something didn’t show up.

Anti-trust regulators should specifically look at situations where Google began directly competing with other companies and those other companies gmail messages are being put in spam while Google’s messages are not. Whether or not it is intentional, it is a problem if Google is whitelisting their own stuff but not competitors.

Ultimately what is going on here is Google is using more deep learning for spam detection. Your friend’s email ending up in spam may be a false positive. It may also be a test, to see if you notice it.

[natch]

If you never look in your spam folder you’ll never notice how utterly bad it is. Which is apparently the case for most people.

[Moru]

A lot of people don't even know there is a spam folder