Gmail — the one feature that killed them all…
Let’s go back to 2004!
On June 2012 Google announced that its Gmail service has 425 million monthly active users. It wasn’t just another number. That number meant Gmail overtook Hotmail for the first time, becoming the largest email service in the world.
This number validates the gut feeling I had.
Looking around, it seems like everyone owns a Gmail account, at least one. Whether it’s a personal account or a business one.
But Gmail wasn’t the first one to come up with the free web based email service idea, nor the second.
Hotmail did it 8 years(!!!) earlier, in 1996, and was acquired by Microsoft a year later.
RocketMail by Four11 did it in 1997, and was acquired the same year by Yahoo and became Yahoo! Mail.
Coming 7–8 years later with yet another free email service was a guarantee for… nothing!
In fact, so many Googlers doubted this project has any kind of potential for success that it was really surprising they invested 2.5 years developing the beta version.
Paul Buchheit, who created Gmail, once wrote:
We starting working on Gmail in August (or September?) 2001. For a long time, almost everyone disliked it. Some people used it anyway because of the search, but they had endless complaints. Quite a few people thought that we should kill the project, or perhaps “reboot” it as an enterprise product with native client software, not this crazy Javascript stuff. Even when we got to the point of launching it on April 1, 2004 (two and a half years after starting work on it), many people inside of Google were predicting doom. The product was too weird, and nobody wants to change email services. I was told that we would never get a million users.
And they were right in a way… People don’t want to change their email services. I didn’t want to. I was using my Hotmail account for years, and was proud of the fact it was the first big free mail service. I was loyal. (In fact, so loyal, I still use it today… But yes, I did create a Gmail account in 2008. And Yes, I do use them both.)
So, what made Gmail be the largest free email service after showing up in 8 years delay?
Commonly answered:
- It’s a Google product
me: so is Google+… - The invitation only beta release
me: yep, it was a cool gimmick, but that’s not the reason why people will abandon their loved email service
- The search
me: well, it’s a nice feature… but how many email messages people had those days? You could easily sort by date/sender and find what you were looking for. - It was the first email service
me: seriously? What year were you born?
If none of the above is the answer, then what was it? What was this one key feature?
Take a close look at the image below. This is Gmail’s homepage from 2004.
Can you see it?
Storage. 1000 megabytes of it, for free!
On the days where Hotmail offered only 2MB and Yahoo only 4MB, 1GB free storage made them look incredibly irrelevant in the market. They were old news, old technology.
A good analogy for these days will be someone who’s trying to sell you a 100MB memory card for your camera, whereas the market is flooded with 64GB cards…
No need to delete messages anymore. You can keep all those messages with the images and the big files. Everything will be there for you, forever.
Isn’t it great? A brilliant move, Gmail!
Even if you knew you’re not going to use more than 200MB, knowing you have unlimited storage is exciting. Psychology… go figure…
In fact, on a certain level, the 1GB of Gmail could have been a big lie. Gmail can tell the users they have 1GB, but they don’t actually need to provide it. Seriously, how many people will use 1GB in less than a year? I guess none. But the impact of telling that to the entire world in terms of competition is irreversible.
And it didn’t take long for Hotmail and Yahoo to understand that and respond.
Hotmail quickly increased its storage capacity to 25MB, Yahoo to 100MB.
Not enough, though…
2nd round.
Hotmail increased to 250MB and Yahoo too. Not enough…
3rd round.
On April 2005, Yahoo increased to 1GB. Hotmail was behind, proving the same only a year after. And what Gmail did on April 2005? Increased to 2GB…
By that time, Gmail was already a strong player. And the rest is history.
Gmail provided more and more useful features over the years and the users stick with it.
All they needed was the one feature to kill them all.
Hats off to Paul Buchheit for not giving up on Gmail, and for whoever thought about this brilliant move of unlimited storage.
Product name: Gmail
Launch date: April 1, 2004
About: Gmail is a free email service provided by Google.
Link: https://www.gmail.com/intl/en/mail/help/about.html
