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This product lets people send up to 10,000 emails[1] at once to a cold list of contacts (ie, not opted in). Let's not kid ourselves: The use case is spamming.
by gk1 8y ago
This product lets people send up to 10,000 emails[1] at once to a cold list of contacts (ie, not opted in). Let's not kid ourselves: The use case is spamming.
The reason it's making $115k/month is because most other ESPs (Mailchimp, etc) don't allow spamming, so spammers flock to (and pay for!) products that look the other way.
To the creator: Good on you for creating a successful business. I hope you take these resources and do something positive for the world.
[1] https://www.gmass.co/blog/you-can-now-send-10000-emails-with-gmass-and-gmail/ https://www.gmass.co/blog/you-can-now-send-10000-emails-with...
- VectorLock 8y ago"I Hit $115k/Month with a Gmail Span Cannon" might not have produced the levels of engagement he was looking for.
- ajaygoel 8y agoYou're confusing a couple of issues. It's not that we're looking the other way. It's that I wanted to design a system where we don't have to look at all. GMass doesn't actually send any emails through its own servers. Emails are sent either through users' own Gmail accounts or through a third party SMTP service like SendGrid. Those actual email server operators (Gmail or SendGrid) have pretty sophisticated systems to detect spammers. THEY will shut down a user's account before I could ever even notice it. I don't have to look, because the owner of the email server will do the monitoring.
- gk1 8y ago> Those actual email server operators (Gmail or SendGrid) have pretty sophisticated systems to detect spammers. Yes, and your product helps spammers bypass those detection systems. You even explain it in the post I linked: > GMass will automatically send 500 emails/day or 2,000 emails/day if your email campaign has more than 500 or 2,000 recipients, respectively. You can also control, however, how many go out per day with the new Spread out setting under the GMass Settings arrow. If left blank, GMass will use 500 (regular Gmail) or 2,000 (G Suite) automatically, but you can override this by setting your own value. And... > It's not that we're looking the other way... we don't have to look at all. That is what the phrase means.
- ajaygoel 8y agoThe text you're quoting has to do with how we distribute volume, NOT how we enable spammers. High volume campaigns does not equate to spamming. You can send a 10-email campaign that IS spam and a 10,000-email campaign that is NOT spam.
- ericpauley 8y agoThis is effectively structuring for email. Would it be immoral to sell a system that allows people to bypass money laundering restrictions by automating structuring? I don't see how this is any different.
- sjg007 8y agoStructuring email isn’t illegal.
- danols 8y agoIt is a spam tool plain & simple. Stop defending yourself and keep counting your money instead. Congratulations on your financial success.
- AznHisoka 8y agoI hate this argument. People always resort to this type of argument when they want to divert responsibility. Have you ever heard of how the environment enables certain behaviors? Supporting a system where people can mass-send emails = enabling spam. How absurd will you extend this argument? "Oh, yeah, 99% of my customers are spammers, but I'm not the one making them click send! They could've just paid, twiddled their thumbs and not do anything with my product!"
- sametmax 8y ago> to the creator: Good on you for creating a successful business. I hope you take these resources and do something positive for the world. Not good on him. It's an immoral business. I don't see why the hn community would endorse this just because it makes money. If the emails were also a tool for privacy, decentralisation or some good objective behind it, i could see the pros and cons. But here it's all pros for him, and all cons for the rest of the world.
- samstave 8y agoYou appear to be ignorant (meaning lacking of information, not 'stupid') of the history of social networks in the bay area: Friendster Hi5 Tagged FB MySpace <-- LA All about email lists and spam. ALL of them. All of them did shady things, founded by spammers, etc...
- ajaygoel 8y agoAre you saying you've never received any benefit from an email you received that was part of a campaign? Like a discount to your favorite store? Not all uses are commercial, either. We have teachers who use it to communicate with all the parents of their students. A tennis club that emails out the week's upcoming schedule to all players. An HOA communicating with its residents.
- anyfoo 8y agoYour use cases sound very much like opt-in (and low volume) mailing lists, not cold list of contacts without opt in.
- sametmax 8y agoPlease post your personnal email address in the next comment, so I submit it to a few campaigns. I'm sure you'll find benefit in some of them, and some might be even legit like your home town council shedule.
- ajaygoel 8y agoajay AT wordzen DOT com
- fasteo 8y agoI guess this product is targetted to very small shops. It’s pretty usual to have the optin in a pc/pos without any email capability.
- NeoBasilisk 8y agoI'm glad it wasn't just me being sick and my mind muddled that was making me raise an eyebrow as I was reading his description.
- CyberDildonics 8y agoNot only is it a spam tool, but this post is an advertisement for his spam tool.
- apo 8y agoReminds me of a HN story awhile back from a guy who built a business with eye-popping revenue. The article was cagey about what the product was - some kind of imported good. Turns out it was counterfeit watches. Ugh.
- lumost 8y agoThis will be a pretty short-lived business once the spam traps detect what's happening.
- throwaway53534 8y agoEven YCcompanies sell your info for marketing. https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spreadsheet_link/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spread...