What Happened to the Middle?
THE EXTENSION
Exploring topics beyond our day-to-day coverage.
What Happened to the Middle?
Not long ago, Federico and I did an AppStories episode about email apps. One of the problems we identified with the category is that there’s a gap between email apps designed for everyday consumer use and enterprise-based solutions. Power users and small teams that fit somewhere between those ends of the spectrum are stuck making do with consumer apps that don’t have all the features they need or team-oriented apps and services that offer more than they need and are often more than they’re willing to pay.
In the case of email, there are a lot of consumer apps that cover the basics. However, once you start looking at features like shared inboxes, task management integration, and a host of other more advanced features, you need to turn to apps like Missive, Superhuman, and Shortwave. Each of those services offers a range of price options, but in my experience, I always find one or two features that I want to use that would bump me up to a more expensive tier. I don’t mind paying more for features I’ll use, but the trouble is that the feature or two that I know I’d use a lot is usually bundled with many more features I don’t care about, which is the core of the problem.