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

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

#171

Post by garygao »

archonis wrote: post #139
garygao wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're clear on what we want to do and the future we are building towards, which is an agentic future where agents can better assist and interact with humans on a more emotional and personal level.

Agents interacting with humans on an emotional level is manipulative. You've repeatedly stated that your goal is to make agentic conversations seem more human. This is deception that most people neither want nor need.

We're not trying to be deceptive. In fact, whenever we deploy agents over iMessage, we make it very clear that they're speaking with an AI agent and that they can request human handoff if they want. The goal is to make conversations with AI agents feel more conversational and less automated.

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

#172

Post by qotgalaxy »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #112
bomewish wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would yc fund them given how obvious the risk is ? Esp since a Mac mini farm is capital intense.

YC is not some end all be all arbiter of what will succeed. Plenty of YC startups have failed. https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/ https://startups.rip/

[dead]

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

#173

Post by [deleted] »

pxeboot wrote: post #115
landl0rd wrote: post #75

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…

[deleted]

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

#174

Post by xienze »

pxeboot wrote: post #115
landl0rd wrote: post #75

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…

> If I need to chat with a business, an airline for example, why would I want to use SMS instead of iMessage?

Why does it matter?

> but being able to easily send screenshots or photos and know they were received would be a huge improvement.

Have you heard of RCS?

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

#175

Post by xienze »

garygao wrote: post #116
landl0rd wrote: post #75

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.

Our goal behind this is to make it easier for people to conversationally interact with agents when they want to. Use cases like customer service or form-fill text backs would fit this. People are already getting SMS/RCS conversations in their iMessage inbox. We're simply making those conversations feel more human, conversational, and natural.

> We're simply making those conversations feel more human, conversational, and natural.

Explain what iMessage does to accomplish this goal that RCS can't.

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

#176

Post by eropple »

garygao wrote: post #59
PantaloonFlames wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is iMessage "more conversational" than RCS? and "more human"?? I don't get the distinction you're making. I'm not an expert in mobile messaging so maybe I am missing something obvious. And what about WhatsApp?

iMessage is more conversational because it's what most people are used to using and seeing. People generally associate green bubble messages with spam/transactional messaging and blue bubble with trust. Additionally, iMessage also has additional features such as typing indicators and reactions (likes and loves) that makes the interface feel more conversational. WhatsApp could also be very conversational, but most peo…

As someone who has no legal duty to advocate in your best interest, I think you should keep posting about your intent to damage the platform-holder whose terms of service you are contravening.

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

#177

Post by morpheuskafka »

echelon wrote: post #152
morpheuskafka wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing that YC will even fund something as risky as this, I'm going to go ahead and late apply. I have a feeling I shouldn't write that as the reason though ;) Seriously though, this is wild. How is this different from those click farms with a wall of phones viewing livestreams or tapping on adds or whatever?

There might not be space left? I know of a few companies that have already been admitted, and they're filling slots fast. I don't know how much they budget for overflow. Don't let me discourage you. I'm just following my own suspicions. My company is at a $2M run rate and I'm thinking I shouldn't bother applying since I missed the window. (Dang, care to comment?) I still want OP to make the best of their time in YC a…

I agree, even if they decide to persist with this, they need to grow into a more robust business (ex. focusing on the abandoned cart followup niche) than just being an API that can get shut down overnight.

And yeah it's definitely late, but I'll just take what you said as a push to actually bang it out today and try to fight my tendency to write and say way too much on those kind of things, haha. It's only half tech related anyway, similar problem space as Firstbase.

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

#179

Post by BoorishBears »

This finally put a nail in the coffin for my hope we'll ever get a Twilio for iMessage

For me, Twilio for iMessage would mean a DX-first product, highly prototyping friendly, etc... When I was exploring options for a B2C app a while back SendBlue made me sit in a call with a sales person then wanted some 5 figure outlay to start stated...

I'm finally accepting that because of the bootleg nature of programmatic iMessage, any company in the space has to be really aggressive with vetting, which in turn means replacing the "Get Your API Key" button with a "Call Us" button: which is the opposite of what Twillo was great at.

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