I set it up and was conspicuously swiping in bed. My wife is all hey, what are you doing? I’m all nothing.. put the phone down on the dresser.
No, let me see your phone etc. I relent, she opens the app with sulphur smoldering in her nostrils lol, then she starts poking around, and we have been having a really great night since.
Well with women you just have to act like you don’t care, and stop showing an interest. So stop with the pull requests and start submitting some push requests..
(This is satie for those of you who needs to have it spelled out :-)
In a similar vein, we used "Kinder", which is like Tinder except it's for choosing baby names - it shows you names that both you and your partner swiped right on.
> StumbleUpon was a website, browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine.[1] Users were able to filter results by type of content and were able to discuss such webpages via virtual communities and to rate such webpages via like buttons. StumbleUpon was shut down in June 2018.
I loved StumbleUpon but I have this odd feeling that it was sort of the first augur in my life for what algorithmic feeds would do to my attention span. But it really was a cool thing, in those last days of the pre-social media web, to find all those neat little passion project sites.
I also fear that the centralization of the web to a handful of websites has made a revival impossible. If 80% of your stumbles are just reddit posts or imgur links, whats the point?
People seem to have forgotten StumbleUpon had a pretty decent configuration page where you had to manually select what topics you were interested in, and that submitting new pages wasn't as simple as just submitting the URL. On top of that, I'm pretty sure I remember a "block this domain" option if you clicked the arrow next to the thumbs down: https://i.sstatic.net/VLS4c.png
Its not the worst idea, but it seems less of a business and more of a feature for an existing social networking site, which already has the contents and the likes and just needs to add a few pieces for the dating bit.
Then people would form meaningful relationships and have no reason to keep returning to your app after the first few minutes of engagement. That is not going to keep the VCs happy.
All joking aside, if you were to make a charitable foundation or worker-owned co-op, how would you overcome the same challenge software itself has? — Letting the world know it exists.
Anyone can code up an application over a weekend. That isn't the problem. VC money is for use in letting everyone else know that you created it. Long, long gone is the age where you could throw something up on the App Store and see the masses flock to it. It takes serious resources to get the word out nowadays.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with building software just for yourself. Not everything has to be shouted on every rooftop. But this specific type of software doesn't work so well if you are the only one using it.
Word-of-mouth. Say to your users: "if you want this to be useful, ask your friends to use it, talk about it online…". (You'll get low conversion rates from this, but it's free, and it doesn't promulgate an attention economy the way that billboards and banner ads do.) Advertising is effort, but it's not that hard, really: most advertising firms are extremely inefficient at their jobs, but they get paid because the alternative is nobody advertises the thing.
It also helps if your service is still somewhat useful to individuals, in the absence of network effects. So, once the core service (organise meetups between users) is implemented, get to work on aggregating and categorising social events that already exist. (Use standard protocols, to leave the ladder around for others to climb, but keep track of your API consumers: some of them might be hostile anti-social entities like Facebook, whose existences need to be nipped in the bud.) Once you have something genuinely useful, pick a small-ish city, and guerilla advertise in it. If you've done things right, that should be enough.
Now, leave a skeleton crew on it, and move on to the Next Big Thing. You should be able to maintain three or four pieces of infrastructure in this way, some of which you might even be able to charge money for! (But resist the temptation to monetise and enshittify, or even just excessively-tweak, what you've built.)
If that worked, why would anyone give up their business to VCs ever? Having VCs is not a fun place to be. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in (unless you are the VC, I suppose).
There was a time where you could rely on word-of-mouth, but those days are behind us. Everyone and their brother is vying for word-of-mouth attention nowadays. The noise is too great. It takes vast resources to emit a usable signal.
1. Some businesses can't just be built from nothing-but-software-and-server. You need warehouses, logistics, and all sorts of other fixed costs that exist before you can start recouping your investment. Not everyone has the money to start such a business, despite otherwise having the ability.
2. People aren't entirely stupid. If something's a scam, con, or otherwise a detriment to human flourishing, they're not going to use it unless they have reason to doubt their assessment. Advertising is good at getting people to associate thing with sentiment, which can override their bullshit detectors.
Something that's genuinely-useful, and genuinely-better, can spread without any advertising spending, once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates. (For example, Plausible Analytics: I poked around their demo, concluded that it was strictly better than Google Analytics, and (after a couple of chats with one of the founders) started telling everyone with a website about it. I was clearly not the only one.)
I have no idea why anyone would give up their business to VCs if they don't need investment to kick it off, and aren't running a long con.
> You need warehouses, logistics, and all sorts of other fixed costs that exist before you can start recouping your investment.
That type of business is rarely appealing to VCs. VCs seek rapid growth and quick exits. Warehouses are the antithesis of that. Hard to scale and even harder to sell. It is an investible business for the right type of investor, but VCs and investors are not synonymous.
> once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates.
You are technically correct here, but we're clearly talking about the stage before you've already overcome the noise floor.
> Plausible Analytics
They claim to be self-funded — in other words, acting as their own VCs. Which is all well and good when you're already rich, but if you're already rich (and not looking to get richer) why not just hire a concierge/matchmaker? What do you need a poor man's app for?
You don't need to be rich to fund your own digital service business, if the only costs (while you're small) are a server and your own time. You merely need to be not poor. There are many people unable to do that, but people with the time to post on Hacker News probably have the time to start a business.
There are plenty of logistical barriers other than access to money, that prevent people from starting businesses. All these barriers can be overcome by being rich, but that's not the only way they can be overcome. Collectively, we can call these ways-to-overcome-barriers "privilege" (to crib from the language of academic feminism).
RE: Plausible, you should have checked their compliance and terms and conditions after checking demo and using it. There are some gotchas to be aware of (lack of DPO, being one red flag). Going umami, matomo would have been cheaper and safer.
Afaik, Plausible doesn't need a data protection officer. See Article 37 GDPR. (But I'll follow that up with them, in case it's an oversight.) I have read Plausible's documentation, and I haven't identified any problems with their practices.
Umami's homepage requires JavaScript to load, which is a red flag. And, as expected, there's something wrong: it's owned by a US company, which makes it a no-go.
Matomo is excellent and I second your recommendation.
But the original idea is to crowdsource preference data and only publish the liked ones. Like screen testing a movie with a focus group. Tiktok doesnt really do that do they? Can yiu access interaction data from tiktok?
So a feed of links, videos, pictures or text shared by people that others could somehow vote on emphasize popularity, showing the most voted content on some form of easily accessible landing page...
I know you think its just social media smartass, but the guy specifically mentioned getting the opinions of a private group, and exporting the data so as to post the best photos on a completely seperate platform.
Its not social media, its kinda similar, but not public, and its main goal is to export the approval data to be used elsewhere. No ones supposed to keep scrolling on it
I know that the youtuber james scholz (jvscholz) mentioned recently that he is working on developing such a project. It even had a landing page. I can't find the link again however and would have to click through all his youtube videos.
But most chats like discord / signal / telegram / fb messenger(?) can already react to images you send. Just send them in your group chat, then upload the ones with the most reaction.
Its almost there. The difference is the tinder like UX of swiping to input approval data, and being able to programmatically export the approval data so other apps can use it without you having to do it manually
Its not impossible that those chat platforms can make plugins to do this. But theyd definitely have to build it
Does my wife also get this so she can be on the other side? Nevermind... I don't need the sad reality of her trying to swipe left and telling me she thinks the app is broken.
This is such a fun idea - taking something like Tinder and turning it into a tiny act of daily love is oddly wholesome. I’d actually love to see some silly stats tracked, like 'Total swipes right' or 'Days streak'. Nice little personal UX twist.
This reminds me of an old Gallagher (the Sledge-o-Matic guy) joke, where he was throwing out product ideas: "Playboy for married guys... Every month, same girl!"
HN: All of the negativity and toxicity of a Reddit discussion, without having to get disturbed by something as unproductive as smiling or a laughing!
In all seriousness, the average HN comment thread feel a lot less pleasant than the average Reddit thread. Granted, Reddit has way worse places, but comparing HN to all of Reddit is illogical - HN compares more to a single (large/active) subreddit.
> In all seriousness, the average HN comment thread feel a lot less pleasant than the average Reddit thread.
I disagree strongly actually. HN'ers to me make sense, in many ways. Redditors are a crap shoot. I go in with the HN mindset on Reddit and it's 50% reasonable and 50% "what the hell am I reading?"
HN is 95% reasonable.
I understand that to some it's an acquired taste but it was home to me from the moment I discovered it.
I don't mind the Reddit-esque comments here. It's on brand for the topic. I get that when someone has a more serious disposition in life, that this topic would feel a bit grating.
> HN compares more to a single (large/active) subreddit.
HN is indeed one of the few places in the web that I think maintains a more community-like platform and it's a home for me too. However I think how reasonable is the general ethos depends on the topic. It goes without saying that tech is it's strong suit, so the 95% figure (which I read as "the vast majority") is reasonable. For other topics like social problems, civil liberties and personal responsibilities is way less reasonable than that, I'd say half-half...
I have fun with a friend of mine sharing ridiculous comments on such topics and there is no shortage of those.
I have to give props to the moderation though. More often than not, these comments are flagged and die really quick.
The part of Reddit I go to is roughly equal parts memes, serious discussions and derailed threads.
Here I feel like I just lost the first part, so 50/50 between serious discussions and derailed threads.
Either is moderated to be without anything eye-gouging (again, comparing HN to specific subreddits that would carry similar content, and not reddit as a whole).
Sure, some individuals might prefer things this way, but it's definitely not objectively better as the general attitude towards reddit and against any humor seems to suggest.
Can't try because Android phone best phone, but I already have a request.
Can we get messages? It isn't that uncommon where I live to have several instant messaging apps, and having a separate channel for chats with my partner is actually great. Easier to manage alerts and notifications, doesn't mix with the other channels, etcetera.
No, you can share a pic with with your partner by swiping up but I don’t really plan on adding anything new - the plan is actually to open source it and anyone can add anything they want
Monetization is easy. Threaten to show them somebody else's pictures: pay up or we'll show you photos of your sexy neighbor (could be AI-generated). And tell your partner.
This is commonly believed, but is not actually true. Not generating revenue via the infringing activity might contribute to an argument of Fair Use, but it's not a magic wand that disappears copyright claims.
Copyright infringement is totally different from trademark infringement. Please re-read the thread.
They're not using Tinder's marks nor providing a confusingly similar brand.
Unless they copied art from Tinder, they are light years away from infringing on anyone's copyright, so I'd be even more happy to respond to those claims.
A tender is the cart that contains the coal in steam locomotives, so it's a burden you can't get rid of. Not sure if my wife would appreciate that (if I had one)
I love this, I wonder if you could make it so your partner could create the album and vice versa? And then you could swipe left on each other with pictures you chose for the other.
Amazing! I love a good cheesy app that lets me show my appreciation. Let me know when it's on Android.
I threw together my own thing called Heart for the Android app store a while ago which sends a notification of a little heart to whomever you've paired with. :)
There are other comments joking about how this app will never secure funding unless it implements an AI feature… well, problem solved! Just have the app periodically flash AI-generated photos of women similar to the wife.
2013 to learn some android I wrote a program which allows my wife to track every call, every sms, payments, and later whatsapp notifications, number of steps, vitals, current location, location history and current vehicle.
It is a hugely unsecure and foolish thing to do, but hilarious when she shows the report pages to her friends.
Hmm I granted access to my photos then selected an album but it says "No photos found" after. It also says "PhotoManager has 0 photos" and "DisplayedPhotos has 0 photos". I chose a shared album, if it matters.
edit: okay yeah it doesn’t work with a shared album
People are understandably fascinated by it, and trying to learn to figure out what’s being created by AI and what’s not. The commenter is right about this example, you could certainly vibe code an app like this.
Does this use Apple's face-recognition tech to automatically populate pictures of your spouse, or do you have to add them manually? I was under the impression that third-party apps couldn't access the People albums in PhotoKit.
this is pretty nice, and sort of sweet, sure shows the meanness of my own Tinder but it's only pictures of Donald Trump and you can only swipe right practical joke I played on some ex-friends.
Your situation was very different than an app made as a joke, the joke being that Tinder would be used to cheat on your partner, while here a similar app does the opposite.
I assume this was a project for getting experience with SwiftUI, but it was a missed opportunity to get experience with KMP and being able to release Android and iOS at the same time.
I've never heard of Kotlin Multi Platform until now. I've already discounted half a dozen multiplatform solutions, could you perhaps "sell me" on KMP? I absolutely love other Jetbrains products.
