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Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

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Re: Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

#31

Post by wlesieutre »

Waterluvian wrote: post #10

A few thoughts: 1. This is a really neat idea. I love the creativity. 2. But for $5 you're not giving me a whole lot more than what I can get for myself on Reddit, HN, Social Media. What do I get exactly that I can't get by just asking on social media? 3. Call me wrong, I'm not actually sure how I feel on this. But it kind of slightly maybe smells like profiteering. Do you really need $5 per person? Does the price re…

For $5 you get the knowledge that the other users have also paid $5. I imagine that cuts out a whole lot of troll accounts and people waving their dicks around.

Unlike Chat Roulette, there's a financial consequence for getting banned and you would need to pay for a new account.

Re: Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

#32

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

Oh man, we did this (MVP style) about 6 years ago, called it Collabo. Tested it with a Facebook group, then we manually connected random people together and scheduled them video chats. We called it "the water cooler for solopreneurs." Really just a fun experiment more than a business. Happy to share whatever learnings I can dig up.

Edit: Just found the homepage mock. "A first-of-its-kind virtual water cooler for freelancers and solopreneurs." It was invite only, too. At least at the start.

Re: Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

#37

Post by ryneandal »

vasco wrote: post #8
Pete-Codes wrote: post #2

I thought I'd put something together for people working from home. I've been working remotely since July and honestly, the lack of social contact gets old fast.

Working remotely for almost 4 years here. Whenever I join a call with co-workers to "hang out" there's no work being done. If someone is there I will speak to them or I'll want to hear what they're saying. And if we're just quiet, my work just becomes the same as if I weren't on the call except I can't have Spotify on. I think there could be a demographic for this tool, but I'd wager not a lot of work will be done wh…

We leverage pair programming to alleviate this issue. It works incredibly well, but YMMV

Re: Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

#39

Post by mey »

jyriand wrote: post #30
Pete-Codes wrote: post #2

I thought I'd put something together for people working from home. I've been working remotely since July and honestly, the lack of social contact gets old fast.

I usually just have a twitch programming stream running in the background. I can participate in the discussion via chat if i feel like it or just focus on my work while hearing someone typing in the background. Not sure why but it gives me a sense that I’m not totally cut off.

I have also found Twitch to be a great way to feel a social connection while WFH as a freelancer working solo.

Re: Show HN: I made a chat roulette for remote workers

#40

Post by larrywright »

larrywright wrote: post #11

I wish I could be optimistic that this won’t be abused by creepy guys to show off their junk, but I’m not.

I somehow missed that this was a paid service. That is actually probably enough of a barrier to adoption that it could minimize junk-showing. It also removes the anonymity a bit (credit card), so it could serve to discourage that behavior.
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