5 ms·

I'm sorry, but its just not worth expending the extra effort to get you signed up to my service. I can get millions of people before it even starts becoming an

by Aetius 16y ago

I'm sorry, but its just not worth expending the extra effort to get you signed up to my service. I can get millions of people before it even starts becoming an issue.

jat850 16y ago
I feel that's a flawed attitude. It's like reverse entitlement. Were I a startup founder, I would make it my goal to ensure that EVERY. single. potential customer can use my site, within my capabilities. (edit: I don't know why you're getting downvoted; you stated your philosophy as part of the discussion, which I don't think is a good reason to get downvoted.)
- Aetius 16y ago
  It is my goal. But not right now.
  - julianz 16y ago
    Sure, but look at the clusterfuck above where people are arguing about something called Quora -- they can't even agree on how you log into the site, because some people only saw it when you had to use Facebook. Users will only give you one chance, if they see a reason not to come back then they won't come back, regardless of later changes you make.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    I think you have the right goal, FWIW. For now. Because it's about priorities. Especially for a startup. When you're building a startup, in my experience you want to advance on the narrowest front you can, as you build out the feature set and reach the market. Don't provide 5 ways to do X if you can just provide 4. Or just provide 1. Etc. There'll always be room in the future to iterate and add support for additional use cases, additional integration points, and additional polish. But you generally want to get to market fast, get real users, real customers, validate your market assumptions and business model assumptions, and slow or stop your burn rate before your runway runs out. Saying NO to some things frees up additional time/money to say YES to others. So you should prioritize.
- mquander 16y ago
  I don't think a philosophy of "I'm going to force people to use the proprietary, closed, run-by-a-weird-company solution instead of the existing proven free & open solutions, because it's slightly more convenient for me" is going to be very well-received. Nor should it be.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
skmurphy 16y ago
You might make the same argument for only supporting IE as the only browser you app works with. I suspect it's actually an issue from day one as there are folks who would sign up but don't because you require Facebook.
- Aetius 16y ago
  Not for my market. 90% of them have facebook accounts.
  - natabbotts 16y ago
    It is your market. I am a teenager (guessing that is your market based on stats). I have a facebook account (don't use it much), but will absolutely never sign in to another site using Facebook. The security issues worry me, as does the access you have as a service to my facebook profile.
  - nkurz 16y ago
    In practice, it's probably even pretty close to 100%, given the login requirement. :) In answer to my own unasked question, yes, there may be logins available on bugmenot (http://www.bugmenot.com/view/facebook.bug http://www.bugmenot.com/view/facebook.bug) although when you search for 'facebook' it says it says that it has been 'barred'.
  - skmurphy 16y ago
    The fact that they have a facebook account does not mean that they want to use it to login. There is some loss from day one given your strategy.
dboyd 16y ago
You are aware that there are more people not on facebook than people on facebook, right?
- Aetius 16y ago
  I am. What you're probably not aware of is who my market is (hint: 90% of them have facebook accounts).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - mkinsella 16y ago
    How do you know 90% of your market has a Facebook account when 100% of your registered users are required to have a Facebook account? Don't allow your user base to be restricted by another user base.
- portman 16y ago
  A service with an addressable market of the entire Internet is very rare. Usually your addressable market will be something like: "English speakers over the age 22 with household income of at least $30,000 per year." And then suddenly more people are on Facebook than not.
Marticus 16y ago
Forcing me to be okay with everyone and their dog seeing what I do on my own time and on a completely different site is unacceptable, and frankly just lazy on their part. That has nothing to do with "commitment." I as a consumer get nothing out of it other than a lack of privacy and the heavy-handed assumption that some startup's "service" outweighs that. No thanks, and the fact that I'm not the only one means that if you're using FB to authenticate as a startup (IE need to get as many PURCHASING customers as possible), you're doing it wrong. If I like your service enough, I will make sure to tell people about it. You do not need to try to do that job for me. That's insulting. Edit: Please note that I realise that you may be an exception if it is something whose market IS a Facebook user (apps, etc), and I am simply addressing the issue as a whole as I have seen completely disparate sites that require a FB login for no reason that I can fathom.
- cliffchang 16y ago
  I think you may misunderstand what signing in with Facebook does. 1) It could, potentially, provide some value to you as a user. Quora gets to suggest people to follow for you based on your Facebook friends, so your experience on there is seeded with relevant information. 2) Nothing you do on the site you signed in with is published to your Facebook profile, without your explicit consent on a dialog box.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Nothing you do on the site you signed in with is published to your Facebook profile, without your explicit consent on a dialog box The trouble with this statement is that some users (myself included) don't believe (a) this is true even when they say it's true, or (b) that if it's true today it will still be true tomorrow. Such paranoid users are worried that FB will make a privacy policy change that turns the privacy off "as a benefit to users," and the opt-out checkbox will be buried seven links deep. I try to use FB's controls to make my FB stuff fairly private, but I still operate on the assumption that one day FB will break my assumptions about what is or isn't shared. The recent "Places" launch confirmed it for me. If I hadn't read someone else's blog post, I wouldn't have known that simply refusing to opt into places wasn't enough, I also had to explicitly block friends from checking me into locations.
joeyh 16y ago
You know, early adopters tend to think about technology, and make choices such as not using facebook. You're likely setting yourself up for negative publicty from some person with a blog and a large following. Is it really worth risking that to shove onto users your choice of being technologically locked in to someone else's company?

by Aetius 16y ago

I'm sorry, but its just not worth expending the extra effort to get you signed up to my service. I can get millions of people before it even starts becoming an issue.

jat850 16y ago

I feel that's a flawed attitude. It's like reverse entitlement. Were I a startup founder, I would make it my goal to ensure that EVERY. single. potential customer can use my site, within my capabilities. (edit: I don't know why you're getting downvoted; you stated your philosophy as part of the discussion, which I don't think is a good reason to get downvoted.)

Aetius 16y ago
It is my goal. But not right now.
- julianz 16y ago
  Sure, but look at the clusterfuck above where people are arguing about something called Quora -- they can't even agree on how you log into the site, because some people only saw it when you had to use Facebook. Users will only give you one chance, if they see a reason not to come back then they won't come back, regardless of later changes you make.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I think you have the right goal, FWIW. For now. Because it's about priorities. Especially for a startup. When you're building a startup, in my experience you want to advance on the narrowest front you can, as you build out the feature set and reach the market. Don't provide 5 ways to do X if you can just provide 4. Or just provide 1. Etc. There'll always be room in the future to iterate and add support for additional use cases, additional integration points, and additional polish. But you generally want to get to market fast, get real users, real customers, validate your market assumptions and business model assumptions, and slow or stop your burn rate before your runway runs out. Saying NO to some things frees up additional time/money to say YES to others. So you should prioritize.
mquander 16y ago
I don't think a philosophy of "I'm going to force people to use the proprietary, closed, run-by-a-weird-company solution instead of the existing proven free & open solutions, because it's slightly more convenient for me" is going to be very well-received. Nor should it be.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

skmurphy 16y ago

You might make the same argument for only supporting IE as the only browser you app works with. I suspect it's actually an issue from day one as there are folks who would sign up but don't because you require Facebook.

Aetius 16y ago
Not for my market. 90% of them have facebook accounts.
- natabbotts 16y ago
  It is your market. I am a teenager (guessing that is your market based on stats). I have a facebook account (don't use it much), but will absolutely never sign in to another site using Facebook. The security issues worry me, as does the access you have as a service to my facebook profile.
- nkurz 16y ago
  In practice, it's probably even pretty close to 100%, given the login requirement. :) In answer to my own unasked question, yes, there may be logins available on bugmenot (http://www.bugmenot.com/view/facebook.bug http://www.bugmenot.com/view/facebook.bug) although when you search for 'facebook' it says it says that it has been 'barred'.
- skmurphy 16y ago
  The fact that they have a facebook account does not mean that they want to use it to login. There is some loss from day one given your strategy.

dboyd 16y ago

You are aware that there are more people not on facebook than people on facebook, right?

Aetius 16y ago
I am. What you're probably not aware of is who my market is (hint: 90% of them have facebook accounts).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- mkinsella 16y ago
  How do you know 90% of your market has a Facebook account when 100% of your registered users are required to have a Facebook account? Don't allow your user base to be restricted by another user base.
portman 16y ago
A service with an addressable market of the entire Internet is very rare. Usually your addressable market will be something like: "English speakers over the age 22 with household income of at least $30,000 per year." And then suddenly more people are on Facebook than not.

Marticus 16y ago

Forcing me to be okay with everyone and their dog seeing what I do on my own time and on a completely different site is unacceptable, and frankly just lazy on their part. That has nothing to do with "commitment." I as a consumer get nothing out of it other than a lack of privacy and the heavy-handed assumption that some startup's "service" outweighs that. No thanks, and the fact that I'm not the only one means that if you're using FB to authenticate as a startup (IE need to get as many PURCHASING customers as possible), you're doing it wrong. If I like your service enough, I will make sure to tell people about it. You do not need to try to do that job for me. That's insulting. Edit: Please note that I realise that you may be an exception if it is something whose market IS a Facebook user (apps, etc), and I am simply addressing the issue as a whole as I have seen completely disparate sites that require a FB login for no reason that I can fathom.

cliffchang 16y ago
I think you may misunderstand what signing in with Facebook does. 1) It could, potentially, provide some value to you as a user. Quora gets to suggest people to follow for you based on your Facebook friends, so your experience on there is seeded with relevant information. 2) Nothing you do on the site you signed in with is published to your Facebook profile, without your explicit consent on a dialog box.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Nothing you do on the site you signed in with is published to your Facebook profile, without your explicit consent on a dialog box The trouble with this statement is that some users (myself included) don't believe (a) this is true even when they say it's true, or (b) that if it's true today it will still be true tomorrow. Such paranoid users are worried that FB will make a privacy policy change that turns the privacy off "as a benefit to users," and the opt-out checkbox will be buried seven links deep. I try to use FB's controls to make my FB stuff fairly private, but I still operate on the assumption that one day FB will break my assumptions about what is or isn't shared. The recent "Places" launch confirmed it for me. If I hadn't read someone else's blog post, I wouldn't have known that simply refusing to opt into places wasn't enough, I also had to explicitly block friends from checking me into locations.

joeyh 16y ago

You know, early adopters tend to think about technology, and make choices such as not using facebook. You're likely setting yourself up for negative publicty from some person with a blog and a large following. Is it really worth risking that to shove onto users your choice of being technologically locked in to someone else's company?