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Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

ponymessenger.com

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Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#31

Post by Pxtl »

justusthane wrote: post #20
Pxtl wrote: post #18

That's a charming idea. I could see how email bridging might be a way to achieve network effect, but then email bridging might just turn it into another email client. I'm surprised you took the approach that pickup = delivery. I would assume you'd have a lag between them, with only cancellation allowed in that gap. Basically "you have N minutes to reconsider this thing you wrote, if you've changed your mind and want…

I'm not at all involved with this, but just based on reading the website and reading your comment I think you might have a slight misconception of how this works. There is no send button. You write drafts, and then at the pickup/deliver time, Pony picks up all the drafts from your outbox, and delivers any mail for you at the same time. Therefore, you can change your mind about what you've written at any point before…

Yes, but pickup/delivery time is daily/scheduled right?

So if you compose and submit a draft at 10 seconds before pickup/delivery time, you have no time to reconsider. That's what I'm getting at. I would assume a "no drafts submitted before X minutes before pickuup" rule to mandate a minimum reconsideration time.

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#32

Post by jedimastert »

vorpalhex wrote: post #6

Neat idea. Lovely interface. However, no mention of monetization strategy. Are you selling my personal data? Do you show me ads? Do you intend to sell subscriptions? Also, no E2E _and_ it's not open source/self-hostable. I need at least one of those. Either I don't need to trust you because things are E2E encrypted, or you establish trust by letting me see and verify code.

> Are you selling my personal data?

From the FAQ:

> How does Pony protect my privacy?

> We collect and store the minimum amount of data possible. We do not sell or share data with any third parties.

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#34

Post by andy0x2a »

This is a really cool idea.

I'm wondering what your approach to scalability is, as it seems like you're going to have large bursts of traffic every half hour ( with certain hours having much more traffic depending on demographics).

If this messenger takes off, how are you going to deal with say for example all of India having their messages deliver all at once in the evening?

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#35

Post by tut-urut-utut »

jedimastert wrote: post #30
steelbrain wrote: post #10

Thanks for working on this. It reminds me of a social app called Slowly ( https://slowly.app/en/ ) where you write "letters" to people and they are delivered based on the approximate physical distance between them. It's common for letters across countries to take >12 or sometimes even >24 hours. It's led people to a lot of meaningful relationships/friendships, they publish some as stories: https://slowly.app/en/story…

I remember this a few years ago...I should get back into it.

No, you won't go back into it!

If you remember it, and used it a few years ago, but then forgot about it until some random HN post mentioned it, it's not something with persistent utility (addiction) to you.

EDIT: I see I got understood in a way I didn't intend to.

Didn't want to say anything about parent, just pointing out that mentioned platform itself lack addictiveness to be considered a good (successful) social network.

Or is this one of the "feel good, we all should be using it" kind of stuff, where people force themselves to use it, because it's "right thing to do", but it feels more like a chore than joy, something like gym.

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#37

Post by pbourke »

andy0x2a wrote: post #34

This is a really cool idea. I'm wondering what your approach to scalability is, as it seems like you're going to have large bursts of traffic every half hour ( with certain hours having much more traffic depending on demographics). If this messenger takes off, how are you going to deal with say for example all of India having their messages deliver all at once in the evening?

With a bit of telemetry, you’d know in advance what your load is going to look like, allowing you to scale up or down resources (if you design the system that way)

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#38

Post by justusthane »

Pxtl wrote: post #31
justusthane wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not at all involved with this, but just based on reading the website and reading your comment I think you might have a slight misconception of how this works. There is no send button. You write drafts, and then at the pickup/deliver time, Pony picks up all the drafts from your outbox, and delivers any mail for you at the same time. Therefore, you can change your mind about what you've written at any point before…

Yes, but pickup/delivery time is daily/scheduled right? So if you compose and submit a draft at 10 seconds before pickup/delivery time, you have no time to reconsider. That's what I'm getting at. I would assume a "no drafts submitted before X minutes before pickuup" rule to mandate a minimum reconsideration time.

I understand what you're saying now, sorry. Personally I don't think that's necessary and think it just complicates a simple platform.

To me, it seems akin to writing a letter and putting it in your mailbox. You can go and retrieve the letter any time before the mail carrier picks it up, but after they've picked it up it's gone.

Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence

#40

Post by rkagerer »

justusthane wrote: post #20
Pxtl wrote: post #18

That's a charming idea. I could see how email bridging might be a way to achieve network effect, but then email bridging might just turn it into another email client. I'm surprised you took the approach that pickup = delivery. I would assume you'd have a lag between them, with only cancellation allowed in that gap. Basically "you have N minutes to reconsider this thing you wrote, if you've changed your mind and want…

I'm not at all involved with this, but just based on reading the website and reading your comment I think you might have a slight misconception of how this works. There is no send button. You write drafts, and then at the pickup/deliver time, Pony picks up all the drafts from your outbox, and delivers any mail for you at the same time. Therefore, you can change your mind about what you've written at any point before…

I think the commenter's point is this creates a "danger zone" for edits you make immediately prior to pickup. There's no time to change your mind and "Undo" them.

Adding a minimum lag (either by adaptively skewing the pickup time by a few minutes, or deferring any just-edited drafts to the next window) would mean you always have time to think about what you wrote.

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