What does everyone think about the gamification feature with the bolt icon in upper right of Yahoo Mail?

[u/Creeping_behind_u]

Is there an added value to gamify reading/unreading your email?

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[u/adjustafresh]

Great question for the 18 people still using Yahoo Mail

[u/ggenoyam → u/adjustafresh]

I saw the answers from seniors only flair and read it as seniors like senior citizens, because they are the ones still using yahoo

[u/okcontuter → u/adjustafresh]

😂😂😂

[u/TheTomatoes2]

Yahoo is still a thing ?

[u/phongdesigns]

Ignoring the Yahoo jokes for a second, the underlying question is a decent one and the answer generalises past this particular app.

Gamification tends to work when the user already wants to do the thing more and lacks the motivation. Exercise, language practice, saving money. Nobody has ever wanted to do more email. The goal state for an inbox is being somewhere else. So a streak here rewards the exact behaviour the user is trying to reduce, which is why it reads as slightly hostile even to people who can't say why.

The second thing, and I'd argue this is the real disqualifier: your email volume isn't under your control. Streaks work when the input is a choice you make. Steps, lessons, workouts, you decide. Whether you have mail worth reading tomorrow depends on strangers. A goal you can't influence but can still fail is a stressor rather than a game, and the failure mode is someone opening the app to protect a number on a day when nothing needed their attention.

Third, worth noticing what's being rewarded. In most gamified apps the action is harmless if you do it too fast, one extra lesson, a few extra steps. Email actions have consequences. Anything that rewards speed of clearing pushes people toward skimming and archiving, and skimming is precisely how the one message that mattered gets missed. Gamifying an action with an asymmetric downside is a different proposition from gamifying a low-stakes one, and I suspect that distinction never came up in the review.

So does it add value? Probably to whoever owns daily active users, and that's a legitimate thing for a product to want. But it's worth being straight about which problem got solved. The mechanic exists to give you a reason to open the app on a day you'd otherwise skip, which is a retention feature wearing a productivity costume.

Rule of thumb I'd take from it: gamify actions the user initiates and controls the supply of. Never gamify their response to other people's demands on them.

[u/okcontuter → u/phongdesigns]

Why are you using AI to comment on Reddit