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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

A few thoughts:

1. This is a really neat idea. I love the creativity.

2. But for $5 you're not giving me a whole lot more than what I can get for myself on Reddit, HN, Social Media. What do I get exactly that I can't get by just asking on social media?

3. Call me wrong, I'm not actually sure how I feel on this. But it kind of slightly maybe smells like profiteering. Do you really need $5 per person? Does the price really need to go up if I don't act fast? (I'm anxious enough, thank you) Maybe make it free and ask for server donations?

4. The two bios on the front page feel so fakey fake fake that it turns me right off the service. Maybe that's just me.

5. I really _do not_ want to discourage you. I really hope this feedback is constructive enough.

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It's just a cash grab. Created yesterday, stock photos, a '50% off' deal at $5 since inception with no demo of how it works. A lot of people will pay $5 and just not think more of it, but that can turn out pretty nice in these times.

I do like the idea, but I feel that a Discord chat with separate rooms where multiple people can hang out and find eachother again would be cheaper and more useful.

Edit: Actually, if someone feels like setting one up, just ping or reply here. I'd love to join and talk to all sorts of devs from all over who are remoting. My best coworker just had his last day today so doubly interesting personally.

I'm interested!

Just created a brand new empty one, i'm setting it up, join whenever whoever

https://discord.gg/CVgKmaZ

Seems to be taking off, and saving HN users $500. See you there monday.

I think they're trying to duplicate the startups in this HN post from 2 weeks ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22426063

At least the other sites have scheduling systems and calendars. This is literally paying someone 5$ to have a guy send you someone else's email address.

For $5 you get the knowledge that the other users have also paid $5. I imagine that cuts out a whole lot of troll accounts and people waving their dicks around.

Unlike Chat Roulette, there's a financial consequence for getting banned and you would need to pay for a new account.

Uh yeah, especially on the 4. Tineye shows they're stock photos, which seems incredibly shady because you know the quotes are totally fabricated as well. This seems very opportunistic, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but opportunism + shadiness is a bad look.

They're generic usage scenarios and clearly intended as such. I can see how someone might find this off-putting or unappealing but calling it 'shady' is a bit overwrought. There's no intent to deceive here.

>They're generic usage scenarios and clearly intended as such.

Based on what? I assumed they were real users because there was no indication otherwise. This is why we have words like "actor portrayal" displayed at the bottom of our screens when a person makes a claim about using a product and it's actually just a person reading a script.

Based on, I dunno, browsing the web? Seeing an occasional TV ad on an airport TV? I don't think it's quality stuff or anything but if you found these confusing, I suppose we move in entirely different media environments.

Edit: And, of course, it's also a typical way we often talk about generic scenarios outside of advertising. Alice and Bob are not real people trying to establish secure communications. There is no specific Johnny who can't read, etc.

The quotes next to them make it strongly seem like they're real people endorsing the product. Coupled with this "Show HN" post, one would think they're genuine people. If this were some corporate blog, I would disagree.

I don't see quotes, just descriptions. They're quite obviously stock photos. This sort of thing is common on all sorts of product pages, tv advertising, etc. It's not my favourite practice and I do think it gives off a kind of low-rent vibe. But it's not intentional deception and is well in-line with typical phoned-in marketing.

$5 should discourage the lowest of low effort trolls and for that it's probably worth it.

Re: $5

Money makes for an interesting barrier. For example, SomethingAwful charged $10 to sign-up and it basically weeded out all the trash and spam.

You could have a tier system. E.g. $5 for general meetings and $100 tier to talk to whatever person will pay $100 for this.

Not even sure how I feel about a free tier, but even a $0.01 fee paid in crypto would instantly transform the type of people you might encounter on the service.

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