[gsharma]

HTML emails were there before, but I agree that fast UI and threads was a step up from Yahoo or Hotmail. Labels instead of folders, username+wildcard@ email addresses, filters (at least the UX was better than traditional rules). They also enabled POP and IMAP. IIRC, IMAP used to be a premium feature for email providers at that time.

I’m not sure about revolution, but e-mail can certainly be evolved.

20 years ago, not as many emails were sent, especially transactional emails. User behavior has evolved since then.

For example, storing email receipt of a random Amazon order from 2 years ago doesn’t make much sense these days.

Hey has addressed some of these changes, but there is a lot of room for improvement.