"FidoNet experience" :)
Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
51–60 of 245 posts
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey thanks a lot. Network effects will definitely be the #1 challenge. I considered integrations—I first tried Pony as an email service, actually. I wanted it to be as accessible as possible. This led to a lot of problems, specifically you get this asymmetry and confusion of some people being on Pony and others being in instant real-time. All of our existing platforms come with norms and expectations, and using a non…
It's a novel idea, and you're correct to keep it out of integration. Assume, for a moment, that your idea takes off and becomes the next WhatsApp. People, you know, will find ways to return to their normal selves. They'll cram a ton of links and messages into their allotted time slots. What you're attempting to address is a fundamental flaw in human nature. Many people are aware of the issue and are taking precaution…
Even if the link/message-cramming takes place, it provides a useful impediment to the sender and a bulwark for the recipient.
A wall of text/messages from a relative is more-readily handled in a healthy fashion when it doesn't arrive piecemeal.
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How important is the precision of the pickup time?
To extend your analogy, imagine telling the postman "I'm just finishing off this letter, could you come back in 5 minutes?"
Except your postman is very observant, and noticed your frantic scribbling as he approached. In a display of empathy he gives you a few minutes to finish while he goes to grab a coffee.
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hadn't seen Slowly. That's awesome—thanks for sharing. I really like how it's tied to physical distance. I really want to add more delivery modes, with geographical distance being one possible factor. For me a big deal is not just the slow delivery, but the inability to instantly send as well. The presence of a send button has this effect of making me send things that aren't ready. I don't intend Pony to encourage…
The ability to edit really is a wonderful feature. I find that I perpetually tweak forum/social media/Slack posts a minute or two after posting, just to improve clarity. The idea of email (even if it carries with it some versioning history) that is editable is really nice. Is there a way to interface Pony with email directly, so that an app isn't required? I can imagine giving ISL@ponymail.com out to people with the…
I am constitutionally unable to proofread before sending, and conversely unable to _not_ proofread after sending. It's bizarre.
I wish GMail's "delay send" feature had a much longer maximum time...
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#55Neat 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.
Even if the author claimed communication was E2E encrypted, you'd still need to trust that they did it properly and weren't intentionally siphoning data.
I don't think most developers are malicious. I do think a lot of companies, small and large, cut corners and sometimes fail to safeguard data well. That's one of the reasons E2E is good even when I generally trust the developer - it limits the data leaks that can happen in the first place. Marketing can't accidentally siphon all user data to a third party via analytics sdk, etc etc.
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#56It's very smooth to use, or at least to onboard. Did not try to actually send a message yet, but will try soon. That brings me a bit to maybe my first issue: not really sure how to use it since nobody I know uses it yet. I'd be ok with some way of people to discover me, at least in this early stage where nobody is spamming :-). Also, if I get some people to try it, I'm pretty sure some will raise questions about the privacy of messages, who gets to read them etc. so you might want to look into that (yes, I know it applies to pretty much everything else also).
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in a very different place than I was a few years ago.
I know this is the innernets, but I always get a kick out of responses like the GP's. Wow.
The human mind's ability to see into the future based on sparse data is a fascinating phenomenon, and fairly ubiquitous.
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#58Neat 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.
Thank you! I really appreciate it. > However, no mention of monetization strategy. Thanks for bringing this up. I was hoping to give a brief introduction and then to field questions. I will definitely not be selling personal data, or data otherwise. I do have some monetization ideas, and I'm really excited to try them out. They're all going to fit nicely with the core concept of the platform: periodicity. One of them…
> I do not have the requisite experience with cryptography to honestly represent to people that this is a private platform.
Fair. E2E isn't trivial. However, platforms generally need to be built privacy focused from the ground up. It's hard to go back to a platform and add these things back in.
I would encourage you to add these features early, with the appropriate warnings until an audit can happen. "Hey, we're trying to keep all your message end-to-end encrypted but we haven't had our implementation audited yet. Thanks for being an early user!"
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#59Neat 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.
Thank you! I really appreciate it. > However, no mention of monetization strategy. Thanks for bringing this up. I was hoping to give a brief introduction and then to field questions. I will definitely not be selling personal data, or data otherwise. I do have some monetization ideas, and I'm really excited to try them out. They're all going to fit nicely with the core concept of the platform: periodicity. One of them…
> I hope that with enough traction and some investment, I'll be able to hire an expert to help add privacy features that I can advertise in good faith.
Now is a really good time to learn. Seriously. libsodium is an excellent example of a library which provides user-friendly APIs that don't require you to roll your own crypto and is very strongly audited by experts — see https://libsodium.gitbook.io/doc/public-key_cryptography/aut... for an illustration. There are lots of other similarly good libraries. All you need to do is to implement some public key infrastructure, making sure that private keys stay private and never leave the user's device and that you can look up the published public key of another user.
Re: Show HN: Pony – a messenger for mindful correspondence
#60I love this thought process. I've gotten into the habit of only checking my email at work when I sign in and when I leave for the day. I know you don't integrate with email because of some time critical messages, but I wonder if you could still integrate as an email/sms app and allow temporary overrides (kinda like how pihole let's you pause it for 5 minutes). That'd be downright awesome
> I love this thought process.
And I love this one.