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Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

bail-app.netlify.com

41–50 of 168 posts

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#41
I feel like whatever social awkwardness situation this "solves" ... it just doesn't solve it.

Folks are bound to just hit that button all the time just to find out what happens ... and still be bothered that the other person did too.

Nobody cares just that someone else doesn't want to do something... they care / wonder about why they don't want to do it. You figure that out by talking.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#42
post #10

Hi, I created a quick landing page to validate an idea for an app. I'll be honest, the idea isn't mine. I saw it suggested in a Twitter post which had huge traction, and decided to run with it. At the moment I'm just trying to refine the concept and get an idea of whether there really is space for something like this out there

Do people send calendar invites when hanging out with friends? Personally, if a meetup did actually make it into my calendar, I would not ship it to a friend.

> Do people send calendar invites when hanging out with friends?

I've literally never had that happen, personally. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, though.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#43

This is the most San Francisco thing ever.

Someone once noted that there were a whole series of various startup ideas and products that could be covered by "things 20 something engineers wish their mom would still do for them".

I feel like this one is "Mom I don't want to meet up with Sarah today, can you tell her mom that I have a doctor's appointment?"

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#44
post #8

Is my action of “bailing” transparent to the other party? Via (re)prompting my friend with a notification or something where they might be able to guess I was trying to get out?

The idea is that if you bail and they don't, they'll never find out and your plans will remain uncancelled. But if you both decide you no longer want to meet up, you no longer have to, and nobody gets offended

> you no longer have to, and nobody gets offended

I don't know... I'd be offended that my friend couldn't just tell me directly. But I guess if I'm using the app as well... but doesn't that call into question the nature of the relationship?

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#45

Some folks I knew who rented an apartment in East Village to do their own startup had this exact same idea with this exact same name back in '14. I don't think they lasted very long with it and all ended up getting jobs, but this did at least make me check if this was the same folks. Edit: That said, I would pay to use this if it were done well and if I could get all my friends to use it.

I wonder who bailed first?

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#46
Back of envelope total addressable market calculation:

I’m guessing this will appeal greatly to people 3 or 4 standard deviations to the “introverted” side of the introvert/extrovert bell curve. So maybe 0.15% if it’s as high as only 3 sigma.

It’ll be useful to people who’s friendship circles overlap in that 3 standard deviations of introversion.

Let’s assume Dunbars much discredited but widely quoted ideas are right, and that people typically have ~150 social connections.

So there’s about a 1.5:1000 chance that someone would find this useful.

There’s about a 1:50 chance that any of their friends would also find it useful. (That May be higher if introverts tend to have more introverted friends, but is more likely way lower if introverts have fewer friends than extroverts).

In a city of 5 million, there are probably 150 people who’d have one friend for which this is useful, and maybe 3 people who would use it with two of their friends...

My assumptions might be way off. But to a first approximation nobody is ever going to find this actually useful in their real world relationships...

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#48

I can't imagine being friends with someone who is this incapable of communicating. The solution to this problem is sending a text that says, "Hey, I'm not feeling like coming out today after all. Rain check?" This app is a worse solution than the obvious solution. Trying to be empathetic: if you feel the need to use something like this, I'm not qualified to diagnose you as having social anxiety, but I would suggest y…

But this app doesn't send any notification to the other person unless they also bail, so it is not equivalent to sending that text.

If the other person doesn't bail, you can stick with the commitment.

That opens possibilities, like getting a better opinion about time spent with that person.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#49
post #6

This is a little bit sad and a little bit scary. Have we reached the point where we now prefer to avoid actual communications with our "friends" that this exists? It's up there with people who won't answer phone calls and only want to text.

The service exists, that doesn’t mean there is a demand or a need for it.

Re: Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free

#50
post #25

I can't imagine being friends with someone who is this incapable of communicating. The solution to this problem is sending a text that says, "Hey, I'm not feeling like coming out today after all. Rain check?" This app is a worse solution than the obvious solution. Trying to be empathetic: if you feel the need to use something like this, I'm not qualified to diagnose you as having social anxiety, but I would suggest y…

I agree. The protocol works, but it does avoid emotional honesty. If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends. For others reading this, I suggest a book called Crucial Conversations . If bailing out is a proxy for deeper issues in the friendship, maybe it is time to have a good chat about it.

> If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends.

I have an idea for that! How about an app where you can write things to your friend, which are held in the system's escrow.

"unsaidthings.io"

Then a machine learning algorithm compares them for similarity/reciprocity. If they are similar, then the escrow is released, otherwise neither person knows whether the other submitted anything at all, or whether they did and it was different.

The prototype can skip the machine learning algorithm and instead let the people select from one of 64 possible messages that are compared according to a static table. Or else be allowed to compose sentences out of fragments guided by a "writing assistant" which guides their structure into possibilities that are easy to analyze.

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