So 8bit I've finally checked the promos for both out. I've been curious because of your stated opinions for a while.

First though to address the question of the title: if you are able to offer two different methods which you have realized the general population tends to use to manage their email, then why would you only offer one? Appeal to as many people as possible. Give them options. From a competitive standpoint it's better they have two options out of however many from you as opposed to one. It's like Pepsi, diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max, etc. At no point was Pepsi like "Oh, well, we sell regular cola, that's enough." Pepsi saw there were multiple markets to appeal to and offered multiple offerings designed to appeal to each.

Inbox: I feel like I already do half of what inbox offers, just perhaps in a more manual way - but it certainly reflects at least somewhat how I use my email. I doubt I would use reminders though. Generally, I tend to not open emails I know need to be dealt with but I can't at the moment, or that contain things I need to get back to. Having a timer on an email wouldn't really help me. I get to things when I get to them. The only benefits I can see to Inbox is that, theoretically, it seems it would do a lot of the sorting and labeling I already do but automatically. Right now I put everything into folders, archive, trash, or all mail manually. However, the plus side (for me) is that this means I read/review each email as I do it. If they all automatically went into files/folders I might forget to check them. (Not a bad thing for spam, though, eh?)

With Mailbox it seems much of the same: the app would allow me to do what I already do faster, which is nice, but some of the features, like the reminder/timed reminder, I don't think I would readily use.

I am not nearly so important as klein and barely get any interesting or "must read" email on a daily basis. The most mail I get comes from Hubski. I read it, then trash it.