I have to admit something: After writing about quitting the email service HEY from 37 Signals, I ended up going back and resubscribing (before my data was deleted). Sure, I tried other services. Proton was a total bust. I ran into bugs that rendered the platform unusable, unless I wanted to wait for hours to be able to access the emails the alerts were telling me I had in my inbox, or deal with the emails that, for some reason, couldn’t be deleted. Fastmail was better, but lacked polish. There were some unpainted spots, carpet that had a few stains, etc.
When HEY warned me that my data would soon be deleted, I dutifully entered my credit card information and resubscribed for another year. Reading debates about the service, I often come across discussions about the unique features, such as the screener. People have come up with some clever hacks to replicate the functionality of the screener in other email tools. My needs/wants are not so simple, though.
I crave apps that have a care for design. Some of the little touches on HEY that improve my experience are things like the sizing of the compose window on the iPad, not taking up the whole screen, instead being sized appropriately and centered. It makes composing a lot easier. Dynamic font sizing, so that the base text size adjusts with how large the window is, allows me to get the writing experience adjusted to my liking. These are things that speak to a level of scrutiny that can’t be replicated in other apps and services.
The founders of 37 Signals often write from a perspective of being experts in the right way to run a software business. They can be strident and all-too-confident about their strategies and processes. It’s sometimes off-putting. The results are there to see, though. They care about their software and making the user experience the best it can be. You can certainly replicate certain features they’ve developed, but you can’t easily graft on attention to detail.