Well this all sucks, doesn’t it?

Ugh.

Anyway, my buddy Andy Nicolaides tweeted this today:

I’ve never known an email service to have people so undecided about using it (moral issue aside). That, to me, seems like such a red flag. Nothing that is right for people should be _this_ hard to commit to IMO.

What’s going on with Basecamp right now is a disaster, and many people are leaving the service (myself included), but on my way out the door I did want to comment on Andy’s reasonable note about the service. There are no shortage of “why I’m leaving Hey” blog posts out there, so I understand the feeling that people bounce off Hey harder than other web services. However, I’d suggest that it’s actually a testament to Hey that people have such strong feelings about it that they feel compelled to share.

How many of you reading this have changed task managers a dozen times over the years, even switching back to the same app over and over that you feel should be the right one, just to switch away from it again? Maybe task managers aren’t your thing, so insert note takers or podcast players or yes, even email apps.

We start using new apps and leave them later on without so much as a peep on social media or on whatever platform we have to talk about this stuff. We don’t say anything because it’s not that interesting; sometimes software just doesn’t work for someone and it’s just not a big deal. Hey is a very opinionated app, and it’s simply not going to click with everyone. I don’t think the large number of posts about people loving/leaving Hey is a knock against it, it’s a testament to how well it latches into people (even if they don’t always stick with it).

To be abundantly clear, I think this Basecamp situation is bad and gets worse the more we hear about it, and I don’t mean to imply my admiration of the Hey service means I admire the leadership actions at Basecamp. Rewind a year and I would have told you I was signing up in large part because of that same leadership team, but things have changed since then, to say the least.

Anyway, if you’d like to reach out to me, you can do so at [email protected] and I’ll be happy to chat!