[chengiz]

Why are you comparing homepages when the discussion is about email?

This is completely wrong. Most of it is just history. Gmail doesnt value-add anything to people who are content with folders for their email. In fact the labels, conversations etc confuses them. Yahoo mail in other words has less clutter, not more. (And I'm not talking of the look of the page here, but the actual email functionality).

[waylandsmithers]

I think the assumption was that the users go to the homepage where they can access their email plus tons of news/traffic/weather/sports/etc.

That being said, the factors that lead to which service a person chooses for email are probably much more complex than just this.