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Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

formking.io

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Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#2

Post by bgdam »

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium.

That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't want to put in the effort of migrating my sites to your service in either of those cases.

So my advice to you is to start charging.

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#3

Post by 27182818284 »

bgdam wrote: post #2

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium. That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't wa…

I didn't quite have this harsh of an outlook, but I also immediately scrolled to see what "paid" versions there were as a "seriousness" check. That's interesting.

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#4

Post by freddyym »

bgdam wrote: post #2

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium. That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't wa…

To make matters worse, the site is using third party trackers, so your data is already being abused the second you open with the site. Its also closed source. I may sound paranoid, but I won't be using the service.

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#5

Post by lasagna_coder »

bgdam wrote: post #2

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium. That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't wa…

There's a donation button at the top of the page. Also, perhaps it's going to gauge volume and costs before developing a premium model. Looks like an early adopter model. Also, providing a service like this with the trade off being able to use and learn from the data for improving the product isn't uncommon (google forms, google mail...).

One thought I had that could avoid the harvesting data aspect would be to encrypt the data with a public key and then allowing the host to decrypt it locally with a private key. I think that's how products like Lastpass work.

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#6

Post by florg »

bgdam wrote: post #2

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium. That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't wa…

As a small business owner in Europe I have the same perspective. Maybe it's even just a gut feel of "if I pay money it's a more serious business relationship and I can depend on some rules", e.g. SLAs and data handling.

The thing I immediately look for as well is GDPR information.

Besides all that: it looks like a great solution! :-)

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#7

Post by ixxivvix »

I kind of hate the profanity being part of the branding, or anywhere else that I’m going to use professionally. It’s pretty useless since it’s not actually describing the service (what exactly does “no bullshit” mean for forms?), and just detracts it and the team or developer who made it.

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#8

Post by redis_mlc »

Looks like a good MVP, but the .io domain is a non-starter because of the past registrar/mgmt. problems (ie. entire registrar and DNS being pwned.)

If anybody knows if .io mgmt. is professionally managed now, let me know.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/10/io_hijacking_in_tra...

Re: Show HN: I built a free forms service for static websites

#9

Post by divan »

bgdam wrote: post #2

I might be in the market for a forms service, and have been researching them a bit over the past few weeks. As a potential customer, here is the single biggest thing that made me instantly say no: free. Even worse it's unlimited free, not even freemium. That means either the service will sell my information, or the information of my customers (if not now, eventually), or that it's going to die shortly. And I don't wa…

Second the opinions above, but I was also looking for some sort of explanation of why is it free (maybe some innovative idea allowed to reduce costs for long-term support or smth like that)
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