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Comment by Magodo | Hacker News Reader

> And the fact is: the CEO did not. It's deception, plain and simple. Not big, evil, Theranos-level deception, but deception still.

If you think the blog post is bad, just watch the video on windsor's website: https://www.windsor.io/#video

The CEO plainly says he has time to work on other important things. Jesus, even creating the video in the first place, requires you to say Hey First Name

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That is so cringe. It's shit like this that will really make the masses hate tech companies. Years and years of education, tons and tons of computational resources, engineer months, years, cloud storage, MASSIVE SCALE, billion-dollar valuations (!?) and it's a crummy Ovaltine commercial with a clumsily edited in "Hey Ralphie!"

Actually, it kind of reminds me of those silly commercials you hear on the radio for some real estate seminar... "The Bay Area is a perfect place for our system," or something like that. The cadence is off just enough to notice and kick it over into uncanny valley territory.

That video is one of the scariest things I've witnessed in less than 60 seconds. The future of communication will be opt-in, I suppose.

I don't find it that scary. It's a gimmick. It will maybe work once or twice, but how many of these "hey firstname" videos do you think people will watch before catching on?

Sure, it's going to improve a lot, but since the first iteration of automated, personalized video messaging is so low-effort, I actually think people will just be inoculated against the whole idea. As in, don't watch the videos at all.

Hey $HN_NICKNAME,

Your opinion is very important to me and I would like to take a moment to tell you personally how much I care about whatever you say.

I'd be available for a call between 1am and 11pm if you want to discuss one amazing opportunity.

Lisa - VP of Deceptive Marketing.

Attn: rebuilder

Hey rebuilder,

Sorry for spelling up your name incorrectly, we probably had a computer problem over here.

I have recorded a video just for you to apologize.

https://share.synthesia.io/e07bf638-1385-4c92-9970-940a0ebe7...

Lisa - VP of mass-emailing.

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