hey a 99ayear email service is a step in the right direction but still has a long way to go tech fixfor 99 a year hey wants to help us restore some control the new service has a way to go and so does email come to think of itcreditglenn harveyjune 17 2020over the decadeplus that i have been writing about consumer technology the one subject i have avoided tackling is the misery of emailthats because email which has been around for as long as we can remember using the internet is a source of pain with no treatment plan its out of control anyone from exes to marketers can message us its annoying once we buy something online and share our email address the business bombards us with useless messages it also stokes rude behavior who hasnt ignored the avalanche of emails that arriveso when i heard that the makers of basecamp a popular online collaboration tool were trying to reinvent email with a new app and service i had to see what they came up with this week basecamp unveiled hey a 99ayear service that offers a cleaner interface for navigating emailits prime selling point is a screening tool that we can use to decide who emails us which theoretically helps us regain control of our inboxes that isnt too different from the ability to block senders in services like gmail but hey has people screen them by defaultthe reason people hate email is because they dont control it anymore said jason fried chief executive of basecamp by flipping this around and giving you control its actually a radical changeemail today is dominated by the tech behemoths google apple yahoo and microsoft several smaller companies have emerged recently claiming to offer superior products superhuman an invitationonly 30amonth service that rolled out last year promised the fastest email experience ever made it was immediately scrutinized for privacy violationspaid email services are usually designed for businesses hey is one of the rare ones that are consumer focused so i felt it was worth tryingbut after about a week of testing hey im sad to report that i didnt feel i had regained control of my inbox i suspect most of us will continue to feel that free services like gmail are good enough and when something is free and good enough its tough to beat hey has taken a thoughtful first step but it will have to do more to persuade people to pay 99 a yearwhats more i walked away convinced that email as a whole is so broken that many of us have taken most of our conversations elsewhere more on this laterheres what hey doessimilar to gmail in its early days hey is an invitationonly service to sign up for an account you send an email to iwantheycom and tell the company how you feel about email then you receive a signup codeyou can get to your hey inbox through a web browser or apps made for