71–80 of 131 posts
Everybody says that until they get a buyout offer from Google. I like the problem you've chosen but you're asking me to tie your tool into everything I do online. That makes you an acquisition target. So: are you going to turn down a big exit to keep this promise?
From my experience, it's better in the long run to apply brute force restrictions on programs. It's too easy to modify and delete Stayfocusd though. Idea: I think we need a cross-platform website/app restriction utility. At the beginning, you get to choose intervals where you can change your settings for free. Let's say the interval is 3 months, and your settings dictate that you can only spend 40 minutes on social m…
Thanks for the suggestion! We've actually experimented with a similar concept - hold people accountable to their goals through social accountability, where friends can "watch over" each other and win/lose points (or money, in your case). Definitely interested in this concept.
We firmly believe in data privacy, and promise that we will never sell user data. Everybody says that until they get a buyout offer from Google. I like the problem you've chosen but you're asking me to tie your tool into everything I do online. That makes you an acquisition target. So: are you going to turn down a big exit to keep this promise?
I will not use chrome but I’d love to try your extension. Could you add a way to get a reminder from your team when Firefox or safari support is available?
What about other browsers? Or other online distractions that aren't related to web browsers? For myself, extensions like this doesn't work at all, and for most addicted will not work as well. Would like to see extensions that doesn't block but make reading Facebook or other services extremely annoying. For example: I go to 9-5 job, and when I open Facebook all posts are from PornHub. Without a way to turn this off, s…
What I currently do is block on /etc/hosts. But like the OP says I don't actually want to perma block these sites, I do get real value out of them maybe 5 minutes a day. It just needs to not turn into 20 minutes. But you can use /etc/hosts perhaps if you really want a less easily turned off block.
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Thanks for the suggestion! We've actually experimented with a similar concept - hold people accountable to their goals through social accountability, where friends can "watch over" each other and win/lose points (or money, in your case). Definitely interested in this concept.
I like the idea of looping in friends, I just wouldn't make the dollar payouts to them. I can imagine people enjoying sending money to their friends, partly for ironic comedic value (lol look how helpless I am, haha now we have a funny story of how I can't control myself and you're a terrible watchdog - maybe I'll even screenshot and post my failure so that our other friends can ironically enjoy this). For similar re…
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What about a DNS based approach on iOS? You don't need MDM, just a VPN extension. You could send push notifications when your DNS server detects a site to block and mimic the same UX you have with a browser extension.
You are correct - that would work to send reminders (notifications). However, we wouldn't be able to prevent people from using their apps. This is definitely something we are considering.
The desktop problem is pretty solvable for programmers. I wrote a simple bash script to add/remove blocked sites to /etc/hosts. I mapped that script to aliases 'focus' and 'distract' that block and unblock sites, respectively (requiring the root password). Finally, I set up a root cron job that runs 'focus' every hour during desired time windows (for me that's morning until late evening on Mon-Sat inclusive).
That system works exceedingly well, but I can't port it to iOS.
Right now I use Lockdown (VPN-based) with a block list and it works okay, except when I want to unlock by disabling the firewall. There's no automatic reenable option making the whole system less effective. I considered writing my own VPN-based system but haven't got around to it. Would love to see Motion tackle it.
We firmly believe in data privacy, and promise that we will never sell user data. Everybody says that until they get a buyout offer from Google. I like the problem you've chosen but you're asking me to tie your tool into everything I do online. That makes you an acquisition target. So: are you going to turn down a big exit to keep this promise?
Thanks for voicing your concern. I don't believe we need an acquisition. As mentioned, we plan on monetizing either through a premium tier with productivity tools built for power users or charging a very low amount from every user. We are confident in our ability to generate revenue without selling user data.
If your promise is genuine then there is no difference for you in doing so.