[wtracy]

I personally strongly agree, but I want to point out that HN is not a remotely representative sample of email users.

Study marketing a bit, and you'll find loads of things that email power users loathe that still get an overall very positive response from the general public.

Know your userbase. Cater to them, not some random people on the internet with strong opinions.

[zingermc]

By "positive response", are you saying that human "from" names yield a higher click-through rate?

[wtracy]

That, and feedback that they genuinely enjoyed things that the rest of us hate.

Microsoft heard from hundreds of users who were heartbroken when Clippy was removed from Microsoft Word.

[learnstats2]

Yes, it does. It is widely thought to be true and certainly matches my experience at statistical significance.

[zingermc]

Keep in mind the adage "you get what you measure". If you optimize for CTR, you are not necessarily optimizing for user satisfaction/loyalty.

Case in point: Netflix's auto-play feature used to drive me bonkers, so much that I would try other streaming services first. How could they think this feature was a good idea? The only plausible explanation I've heard is that they were optimizing for user engagement. Users click around more to prevent the video from auto playing.

[learnstats2]

You are critiquing your own question, which I was answering directly.

What I said also applies to any other metric, including (for example) income generation.