> "Is it simply that webmail is good enough for most people?"
I'd say there's a healthy chunk of people who find it way better. They see webmail as having better security [1-3], portability [4], usability [5], and even speed [6].
I know a lot of client fans cherish their offline access, power features, and speed [6].
But I don't think it's fair to dismiss either side as "just satisficing," there are legitimate perks to value on both sides of the ledger. These perks may be just balanced enough that it's difficult to add "monetary cost" to one side of the scales without shifting preferences.
[3] Family tech support in the early 2000s. Viruses hopping into every damn address book. I have not lost the grudge, even though things are probably much better.
[4] You can use webmail on a random library / friend's / work computer without an install (not that you should)
[5] Webmail means never having to say IMAP (or POP)
[6] This last bit may seem like a contradiction, but each group can find speed improvements in different ways. Time into interface? Webmail. Interface responsiveness? Client. The former is a big win once per session, the latter is lots of little wins throughout a session. Faster machines can improve time into interface, webapp responsiveness is harder, but has made some progress (probably as hard to acknowledge as it is for me to see security improvements).
I wholeheartedly agree, but I'm still curious how come there are no better Webmail clients. Most are either old-fachioned (like Roundcube) or tied to a proprietary service (like Gmail), but I don't see much effort going into cool, Sparrow-like webmail clients, either open-source or commercial. Or have I missed something?
I'd say there's a healthy chunk of people who find it way better. They see webmail as having better security [1-3], portability [4], usability [5], and even speed [6].
I know a lot of client fans cherish their offline access, power features, and speed [6].
But I don't think it's fair to dismiss either side as "just satisficing," there are legitimate perks to value on both sides of the ledger. These perks may be just balanced enough that it's difficult to add "monetary cost" to one side of the scales without shifting preferences.
[1] http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/pr...
[2] http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/thunde...
[3] Family tech support in the early 2000s. Viruses hopping into every damn address book. I have not lost the grudge, even though things are probably much better.
[4] You can use webmail on a random library / friend's / work computer without an install (not that you should)
[5] Webmail means never having to say IMAP (or POP)
[6] This last bit may seem like a contradiction, but each group can find speed improvements in different ways. Time into interface? Webmail. Interface responsiveness? Client. The former is a big win once per session, the latter is lots of little wins throughout a session. Faster machines can improve time into interface, webapp responsiveness is harder, but has made some progress (probably as hard to acknowledge as it is for me to see security improvements).