Gmail Proves That Some People Hate Smart Suggestions (techcrunch.com)

Citing a number of complaints following Google's Gmail makeover, TechCrunch's Romain Dillet makes the case for why some users don't want smart suggestions in the email service: There's a reason why Gmail lets you disable all the smart features. Some users don't want smart categories, important emails first and smart reply suggestions. Arguably, the only smart feature everyone needs is the spam filter. A pure chronological feed of your email messages is incredibly valuable as well. That's why many Instagram users are still asking for a chronological feed. Sure, algorithmic feeds can lead to more engagement and improved productivity. Maybe Google conducted some tests and concluded that you end up answering more emails if you let Gmail do its thing. But you may want to judge the value of each email without an algorithmic ranking.

VCs could spot the next big thing without any bias. Journalists could pay attention to young and scrappy startups as much as the new electric scooter startup in San Francisco. Universities could give a grant to students with unconventional applications. The HR department of your company could look at all applications without following Google's order.

Comments

Facebook too

[mattventura]

I haven't used FB in years, but when I used it, I found it extremely annoying with how it would try to be smart about how to order my timeline, rather than just putting things in chronological order.

I think such a system would be especially bad with email, because there's a lot of emails I get that are important, but all the necessary details are in the subject. Thus, I never actually open them, which would lead such a system to incorrectly believe that such emails are not important to me.

Re:Facebook too

[jrumney]

These days Facebook's "smart" means show you half a dozen of your friends' posts, then and endless scroll of paid placement newsfeed. Google News has gone downhill as well. It used to let you choose topics to follow, including as many locations as you like. About 5 years ago, setting more than one location stopped working, and as of a couple of months ago, local news is so heavily biased by their "smart" algorithms that any attempt to try to customize your feed is pointless, as it gets wiped out within a couple of days. I've had it with these companies deciding they know better than me what I want to see. It's ripe for another round in the GeoCities/Yahoo->MySpace/Altavista->Facebook/Google->... cycle. .

Re:Facebook too

[Zontar The Mindless]

You're bragging about not using Web mail, but you're using POP3? ;-)

Are you also stuck with the imposed Important folder, or is that just an IMAP thing?

I'm thinking about getting rid of GMail in any event--ads showing up in my browser for things allegedly related to whatever I've just mentioned in an email is really starting to creep me out.

And the fact that I get ads for mail-order brides whenever I mention China or Thailand in an email is seriously annoying. (This isn't uncommon, seeing as I've relatives in the former, and friends in the latter.) I *think* my wife realises that I most definitely am NOT looking for a replacement, but it's still annoying as hell.

You keep using that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Smart". I don't think you understand what it means.

Smart people want dumb products

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb mail, dumb tvs and dumb software. There is a probably a billion dollars to be made from dumbware.

They are not smart suggestions

[Quakeulf]

If it ain't broke don't fix it. How hard is this to understand?

Gmail proves that people hate being spied on

[Tough Love]

Gmail proves that people hate being spied on. These same people do not hate Google until something draws their attention to the fact that they are being spied on. Face it folks, Microsoft is no longer the biggest threat to your digitial rights. Now, Google, Apple and Facebook are, and of those, Google is the worst threat even if not the most visible violator.

The real horror of "smart" timelines

[SuperKendall]

I haven't used FB in years, but when I used it, I found it extremely annoying with how it would try to be smart about how to order my timeline,

Oh it still does that.

The worst part about that for me is that what it considers smart now, changes from second to second It seems.

In in effect what would happen is I would see two interesting things on my timeline, click one to read it, go back and... timeline is totally different, no way to find the other thing I wanted to visit.

So frustrating.

Re:The real horror of "smart" timelines

[Desler]

Except that option doesn’t really work and usually limits you to a handful of posts before it claims it has nothing else to show you to force you back to the algorithmic timeline bullshit. .

predictable smart

[KiloByte]

I find that predictable behaviour is more convenient than smart. Case in point: the bash-completion package, it knows which arguments to a command are subcommands rather than filenames, and what filenames you don't care enough. It's right 95% of the time. But it's that 5% that's infuriating: a subcommand that was added only recently, a .tar.zst file not recognized as a tarball (zstd is awesome!), assuming that you want btrfs fi def only directories but not files (VM images anyone?), mysteriously skipping directories with a @ in name, etc.

Re:Great, but why not default

[Desler]

It also doesn’t get remembered and it’s been broken for a few months now. It doesn’t really show most recent despite what it claims.