Edit: I just reread your comment and noticed this part.
> but with less friction than needing username, password, email confirmation.
And then I understood the confusion.
There is no signup at all with r3ply. It is similar to magic links, except instead of confirming you own an email by clicking a link, you just send the comment directly from that email.
Hope that is more clear.
So that is the trade off: (a) your method is simpler vs. (b) a magic link allows web-based interactivity.
I just thought now though: your method could reply with a magic link for later use.
An initial comment can be via email. Additional capabilities via a magic link received in response to the first email.
I love this idea, and I think it’s quite powerful in how frictionless it makes the initial process.
There’s a cognitive load to creating an account, even with a magic link interaction. Any requirement to “sign up” bring with all the baggage of experienced passed. This manages to break out of that space for me, which makes it a very interesting proposition.
That's pretty close to what I do now. After you submit a comment via email, you receive an 'auto-r3ply' telling you it worked, along with a link to a preview.
I just haven't implemented the edit/delete functionality, but it's coming.
> I love this idea [...] There’s a cognitive load to creating an account [...] This manages to break out of that space for me, which makes it a very interesting proposition.
Thank you!!!