&gt; there isn&#x27;t enough money to be made to satisfy VC investors. Mailbox and the like could have lived quite comfortably as paid-for apps with comfortable<p>I&#x27;m not sure that&#x27;s true (see: Sparrow). I just don&#x27;t think there is enough demand for people to want to pay for an email client. I imagine for a huge majority of people, default mail client&#x27;s work fine enough for personal use.