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Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

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161–170 of 216 posts

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#161
post #93

Why shouldn't Apple shut this down to prevent spam in order to defend the Apple customer experience.

We are solving a real user pain point and not promoting spam. Users want a more conversational interface when they're reaching out for customer support during off hours and businesses want a better medium to talk to their customers. There is value created on both sides. There is no reason for Apple to ban us.

While I do actually believe you’re trying to solve a genuine frustration people have. I disagree with your opinion that Apple has no reason to ban you.

Apple have always had a negative view on 3rd party APIs replicating their core OS functionality. And that’s exactly what you’re building here. You’re bypassing Apples approved process and selling those services. Even if you guarantee your customers wouldn’t abuse your service, it still defies Apples walled garden.

So Apple will find an excuse to shut you down. It might be a “security” update that changes their API and thus breaks your compatibility. It might be the ToS point others have raised regarding commercial use. It might even just be something as vague as “we detected unusual activity from your account” bullshit. But Apple will close you down just like they did with every other service that bypassed their walled gardens.

The only way you’d survive this is through lobbying. Like what Epic and others had to do. But there’s no way your startup would have the runway for an extended legal battle with Apple.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#162

> We rotate sending identities, warm them gradually, and cap volume per identity per day to stay well below the heuristics Apple uses to throttle abusive senders. Anyone promising \"unlimited blast\" volume is one ban away from disappearing. If you are violating Apple's policies, even if they cannot identify each account you create, can they not simply ban you as a legal entity from using their service, and then sue…

Regardless of the ToS violation... isn't this trivial to detect?

Even if they keep the message volume low, detecting a swarm of accounts that are sending duplicate/similar messages seems rather trivial? The entire business model depends on Apple turning a blind eye, i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#163

I think this is bad and antisocial and you should shut it down. I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot. More practically beeper got blocked for this reason despite not even targeting commercial messaging.

> I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot. I strongly disagree. If I need to chat with a business, an airline for example, why would I want to use SMS instead of iMessage? It’s the same app, but being able to easily send screenshots or photos and know they…

As someone who has never owned a iPhone... what is the appeal of using iMessage? What can iMessage do that SMS/RCS can not do? Apart from the fancy iPhone-to-Mac handoff features i've seen folks use ;)

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#164

> We rotate sending identities, warm them gradually, and cap volume per identity per day to stay well below the heuristics Apple uses to throttle abusive senders. Anyone promising \"unlimited blast\" volume is one ban away from disappearing. If you are violating Apple's policies, even if they cannot identify each account you create, can they not simply ban you as a legal entity from using their service, and then sue…

[dead]

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#165

> We rotate sending identities, warm them gradually, and cap volume per identity per day to stay well below the heuristics Apple uses to throttle abusive senders. Anyone promising \"unlimited blast\" volume is one ban away from disappearing. If you are violating Apple's policies, even if they cannot identify each account you create, can they not simply ban you as a legal entity from using their service, and then sue…

Regardless of the ToS violation... isn't this trivial to detect? Even if they keep the message volume low, detecting a swarm of accounts that are sending duplicate/similar messages seems rather trivial? The entire business model depends on Apple turning a blind eye, i'm quite amazed they got any VC money at all.

Last time an iMessage-for-everyone startup (Beeper Mini) made the news, they had gotten funding from Samsung. Might be something similar here

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#167
post #159
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're helping to support conversational customer support agents that can help users better during off-hours and scheduling assistants that can interact with and understand user requests better than current models over SMS/RCS. This is definitely not just spam but instead the future of conversational 2-way messaging.

I don't know why you're so insistent on trying to build a business on quicksand. Please just stop before you waste any more time or money on this.

They just got 500k from YC, I doubt they'd pivot until they get big enough for Apple to notice, by which point they might cash out.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#168
post #22

It's good YC is funding you because it acts as a later of protection from legal threats by apple. Hopefully if/when Apple litigate this I hope you will fight and set precedent for commercialisation of adversarial interoperability (A digital human right). I suggest you implement Baileys also to your service so it can also be done with WhatsApp so we can accelerate the inevitable litigation.

We are def thinking a lot about interoperability and what it should look like in practice... >:)

You’re about to tie your names and reputations to this.

I would strongly reconsider pivoting unless you actually want to work for no-name companies and on the shady side of technology for at least the next decade.

Re: Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage

#169
post #96
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone would be expressing the same level of concern if the conversations were only started/triggered by an inbound [to you] message. Commingling things like cart abandonment and (actual, user-initiated) conversational messaging dramatically increases the risk that Apple takes action, from my point of view.

Yes, I agree, which is why we try to make the opt-in clear. Use cases like form-fill text back or cart abandonment after the user has opted in and noted down their number are what we primarily focus on

No one ever “opts in” to nagging cart reminders just because they were forced to fill out a phone number to estimate shipping
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