Looks promising, just installed. Once it's on other browsers I'd love for it to be able to sync between them, so that I can see cumulative stats across all browsers.
Thank you! That is certainly on the todo list.
Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
31–40 of 131 posts
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't implying that YC had changed, just that I can't tell what the reasoning is anymore. The second link is an interesting thing to link, because the reason I included the last line (along the lines of "I guess it could be sold to a malware vendor or something") was more or less because I was thinking on that; I took my time to think, and couldn't find many optimistic things. My only other guess outside of the on…
I'm no expert in YC's business, but I think the confusion might be coming from thinking about this too similarly to how later-stage investment works, where there are fewer investments to place and more information available, and therefore more up-front analysis. It's not feasible to do that in YC's case, where they fund hundreds of startups a year. Nor can such analysis apply anyhow—there's too much uncertainty at th…
(It's no problem! I edit after posting about as much as anyone, so I definitely understand it! I appreciate the depth of response; I just made sure to wait a bit before forming a response to this one; it's fun to watch the stages a comment goes through, sort of like watching thought in process but more refined. Thanks for putting so much thought into your responses!)
That last line in the second paragraph made it click for me, thank you! At first I was under the impression they were funded after the 6 MVPs, but it makes sense that they were funded before/during that! With that bit of context, "betting on the founders" in this case makes much more sense to me.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#33Started using it about a week ago and it's super effective.
I used StayFocused before that but I think this is a bit more effective in emphasising the specific point in time in which I start being distracted.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't implying that YC had changed, just that I can't tell what the reasoning is anymore. The second link is an interesting thing to link, because the reason I included the last line (along the lines of "I guess it could be sold to a malware vendor or something") was more or less because I was thinking on that; I took my time to think, and couldn't find many optimistic things. My only other guess outside of the on…
I think yc would consider all those acquisitions you mentioned to be failures. One of the best things about yc is they are happy to get behind interesting projects built by interesting people and see what happens.
_I_ would consider all of those acquisitions to be failures, but YC has funded advertising companies and other "What if we sell user data?"-style companies in the past, so I'm not entirely sure. (Kuhcoon comes to mind, which was a notable backfire.)
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#35I have this idea I like to think about from time to time. "Know when to be Achilles and know when to be Odysseus." When it comes to online distractions and addictions, I've found anything that any tool that doesn't offer precommitment and restrictions of editing/removing the intervention will be ineffective in the long run. If Odysseus could have untied himself from the mast, he would have. Apps like these seem to be…
Thank you letting us know your thoughts; you definitely raise some valid points on how much control we should give to our users. In our case, our philosophy is that our product should assist users in making the correct decisions, instead of forcing decisions upon our users.
One middleground we are exploring, though, is making it increasingly more difficult to bypass our interventions each time.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#36as somebody with ADHD i use SelfControl and it's my savior.
On the Android side i use a VPN that im connected to all the time that has a dual purpose, to block ads and to control what i do (i installed it on a super cheap VPS). And on my smartwatch i use pomodoro timer to keep me productive. I'ts hard and i fail a lot but it helps.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#37I have this idea I like to think about from time to time. "Know when to be Achilles and know when to be Odysseus." When it comes to online distractions and addictions, I've found anything that any tool that doesn't offer precommitment and restrictions of editing/removing the intervention will be ineffective in the long run. If Odysseus could have untied himself from the mast, he would have. Apps like these seem to be…
Thank you letting us know your thoughts; you definitely raise some valid points on how much control we should give to our users. In our case, our philosophy is that our product should assist users in making the correct decisions, instead of forcing decisions upon our users. One middleground we are exploring, though, is making it increasingly more difficult to bypass our interventions each time.
Will be sure to keep an eye on Motion and how the product evolves. Good luck with the product you all.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#38This is great stuff, Harry. Congratulations on the launch. Since you're asking for it, a request that I have is if there was a mobile-OS wide implementation of it, that'd be great. I've tried launchers like https://getsiempo.com (defunct?) and https://lessphone.app but walked away unimpressed due to a variety of reasons: The main one being having to change habits to adopt to the new UX, whilst solutions like blloc [0…
Thank you so much for sharing these tips and suggestions on mobile. Mobile is definitely on our todo list, more so Android than iPhone. Like you mentioned, Android's digital well-being initiative helps better products emerge. Unfortunately, Apple still does not allow developer access to screen time functionatlities, and the only way to mimic that is through MDM, which not only is a bad workaround but also has been banned by Apple.
I find your personal hack on mobile to be very useful myself too - I found myself to be so much less stressed and more productive after uninstalling apps like Facebook and Reddit on my phone, and disabling notifications on nearly all other apps. When I need to use Facebook, I would go to my computer.
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you letting us know your thoughts; you definitely raise some valid points on how much control we should give to our users. In our case, our philosophy is that our product should assist users in making the correct decisions, instead of forcing decisions upon our users. One middleground we are exploring, though, is making it increasingly more difficult to bypass our interventions each time.
Will be sure to keep an eye on Motion and how the product evolves. Good luck with the product you all.
Thanks!
Re: Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions
#40Started using it about a week ago and it's super effective. I used StayFocused before that but I think this is a bit more effective in emphasising the specific point in time in which I start being distracted.
I'm glad to hear that; thank you. Please let us know how we can make it better.