Skiffmail Shutting Down
On 10th Feb ‘24, /r/Skiffmail announcement on Reddit stated that Skiff is merging with Notion and will officially close down after a 6-month transition period, allowing users time to move their custom domains elsewhere.
During this 6-month period, Skiff services will remain operational, giving users the freedom to duplicate, migrate, or export their data at their convenience. Additionally, users have the option to set up a forwarding address to direct incoming mail to another service provider.
I’ve been a Skiff Mail user for the past eight months. In 2023, they introduced quick aliases, which proved handy for creating throwaway addresses and avoiding spam. Skiff also offered custom domains for free, although I already have mine set up on Cloudflare, utilizing ProtonMail as my primary email service.
I was using my primary skiff address only for three services and I promptly switched them right after their announcement on reddit. Despite this, I opted to enable email forwarding to capture any emails from waitlists I may have previously joined.
Having that said, the news wasn’t bone chilling for me. But for many users who had adapted to Skiff suite definitely was a kick staight into teeth. I mean forcing users to migrate away from their addresses is definitely rude.
My Thoughts
Previously we saw CTemplar shut down followed by Skiff. While I wasn’t a CTemplar subscriber, the Skiff incident taught me a valuable lesson — not to fall for privacy or security snake oil marketing tactics.
I believe that standalone email services face challenges in surviving the market. However, being a comprehensive suite like Skiff may not be the ideal solution in all cases.
Taking Michael Bazzel’s perspective on paying for privacy products, services that offer free products may change their business model, shut down due to financial constraints, or resort to selling user data for revenue.
Paid services inherently instill more trust as they rely on user subscriptions for revenue. While this isn’t an absolute rule, it generally holds true. Some companies like Google’s YouTube follow this model of both charging users and leveraging data for profit.
Looking ahead, I plan to continue my email based on custom domain allowing me to easily redirect emails to different mailboxes at my discretion which will also suffice me for the disposable needs. But the Protonmail stays.
Related Readings
This is Day 15 of #100DaysToOffload
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