June 8, 2021
Email spy pixels are dead now that Apple will follow HEY
There's no advocacy as effective as competition. I could have yelled and screamed about email spy pixels till I was blue in the face, but it was building a serious set of defenses into HEY that turned the argument into action. And now the entire email tracking industry is about to be turned upside down, as Apple has announced they'll f...
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June 3, 2021
We're hiring!
In the past few weeks, we've filled a bunch of vacancies at Basecamp with wonderful new coworkers. People we mainly found through our personal networks and other informal channels. But now it's time for the first big open call. We always do these with a bit of trepidation, because it's a lot of work. We usually get hundreds of applicat...
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June 3, 2021
Building Basecamp 4
Since launching Basecamp in 2004, we've rewritten the entire system not once but twice. First with Basecamp 2 in 2012, then with Basecamp 3 in 2015. Yet unlike other infamous rewrites, we didn't do it due to technical debt. We did it because we wanted Basecamp to be a radically different product every time. The big ideas that animated ...
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May 28, 2021
You'll pay for it either way
“If you need a machine and don't buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don't have it – Henry Ford” I was thinking of this quote all week, as I worked on a new internal operating tool for supporting Basecamp. We must have wasted thousands of hours over the years on routine support questions for Basecamp tha...
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May 25, 2021
Targeted ads are staggeringly unpopular so we should ban them
People really don't like getting tracked around the internet by targeted ads. I mean really, really don't like it. A staggering 96% of users in the US are declining the privilege of being followed around their apps and websites for the grand prize of "more relevant ads" when given the choice in iOS 14.5. The American public can barely ...
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May 24, 2021
Who owns your iPhone?
You can spend up to $1,399 on an iPhone 12 Pro Max in the US, but even though the button to commit to this extravagant purchase says "buy", the transaction isn't really a sale in the traditional sense. Because even if you pay lavishly for this magnificent pocket computer, it's never truly yours. The Right To Repair You'd think that aft...
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May 21, 2021
Not just what you read but how
The concept of a media diet has gotten a lot of attention, and it's surely an important one. If you fill your mind with drivel, it'll soak your thoughts in kind. But how you choose to fill your mind matters too. Even if the sources are ace. For many years, I consumed media in a continuous, never-ending stream from morning till night. I...
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May 20, 2021
Speeding up HEY's The Feed
Modern emails are essentially HTML pages. Particularly newsletters, which are full of images, styles, and tables. Showing these HTML emails inside a web-based email client is not a trivial problem. Unlike a normal HTML page that has the whole browser to itself, these HTML emails have to be shown inside the navigational chrome of the em...
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May 20, 2021
After the storm
It's been three weeks since Jason and I announced the set of workplace policychanges that led to a public firestorm and a really difficult, stressful time for everyone at Basecamp. Since then, we've been regrouping, hiring new colleagues, and continued operating our services without a hitch. We have a great team in place, and everyone ...
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April 28, 2021
Let it all out
Casey's reporting for The Verge brought some of the dirty laundry that helped motivate our change of directionregarding societal politics at Basecamp onto the public record. It erased part of that fine line we try to toe between sharing as much of the inner workings at the company as possible while respecting the confidentiality of emp...
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