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> It doesn't replace friendships, but if you and a friend want to go to an escape room, we can help you find another 2 people to fill out the reservation.... >

> It doesn't replace friendships, but if you and a friend want to go to an escape room, we can help you find another 2 people to fill out the reservation.... > The plan is to make money from partner companies, such as the aforementioned escape room. So, in conclusion, your startup isn't so much about helping people make friends; it's about giving businesses another advertising opportunity and reducing some barriers that keep customers from giving them their money. The friendship stuff is the aspirational, feel-good wrapping paper around the real product. Edit: > Thawd makes getting up, leaving the house, and going out with other people, really easy. "Going out with other people [and spending money together]" is an optional and frequently minor part of friendship. You claim that you're "working to solve this problem [of loneliness], but this the kind of definitional distortion I was referencing in my other comment. The meaning of friendship is twisted to overemphasize its most economically significant aspects. I feel that ethos of business is a big part of this problem, and it won't be part of the solution.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
And with that idea, lies the grain of "truth": if you want friends, you have to buy them things or time. Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies? Or how about free concerts? Or how about meeting up at hackerspaces on open house nights? Or encourage the hundreds of free things happening in a city at any one time? Or what about someone hosting a house party, and staying away from bars and club style events? You can't make money on free. I'm sure it'll be given lip service. And there's juicy data there that can be siphoned, correlated, and sold to the highest bidder. What's the chances of this complying with the GDPR? This is how you degrade friendship to tit-for-tat in a business deal. It's just another adtech business that attempts to attack and hijack friend relationships by sneaking in the back door.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > And with that idea, lies the grain of "truth": if you want friends, you have to buy them things or time. My thoughts exactly. Sorry I preempted your point with the edit to my comment. > Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies?... Or to take it even further: taking a walk in a park, stopping by to say hello, meeting to chat. I'd say some of the most important components of friendship aren't even "things to do."
- com2kid 7y ago
  > Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies? Or how about free concerts? Or how about meeting up at hackerspaces on open house nights? ... Or what about someone hosting a house party, and staying away from bars and club style events? #1 goal is to keep people on the platform. Without users, there is nothing. To keep the lights on, only ~10% of what is on the platform needs to be revenue generating. Everything else is about bringing people together. Open house nights are harder, people tend to feel unsafe when an app leads them into someone else's personal space. As I mentioned in another reply, v1 is about externally created events, future features are around what you are describing. But an existing user base with enough critical mass has to exist before it becomes possible to have people successfully create their own events. > What's the chances of this complying with the GDPR? Very high, I am super paranoid about privacy. As an example of this paranoia, when user's join a pre-event chat room, they are all given a unique UID for that chat room. A mapping table is created in the DB, tracking their real user id to the chatroom's user ID. The user's actual user ID is never sent to other users. After 30 days, the entry in the mapping table is deleted. Everything is like that, end to end, when a user taps "delete profile" every trace of their existence is removed. The only thing kept around are the aggregate review scores they contributed, the "+1" ratings on some particular event is fun, which has no connection to the user. > It's just another adtech business that attempts to attack and hijack friend relationships by sneaking in the back door. I'm boot strapping this myself because I believe an alternative to sitting inside on a Saturday night watching streaming pixels fly needs to exist.
com2kid 7y ago
> So, in conclusion, your startup isn't so much about helping people make friends; it's about giving businesses another advertising opportunity and reducing some barriers that keep customers from giving them their money. I had to find a way to fund it somehow! Original inspiration was when I was traveling, I wanted to meet up at a bar with some locals. I came back to Seattle, friends told me that the idea is great, but that they'd love to see it done here at home! > "Going out with other people [and spending money together]" is an optional and frequently minor part of friendship. You claim that you're "working to solve this problem [of loneliness], but this the kind of definitional distortion I was referencing in my other comment. The meaning of friendship is twisted to overemphasize its most economically significant aspects. V1 feature set is around helping people find things to do at local businesses. Future planned features focus on helping people organize their own events, but the startups that started off in that space initially have all failed. I'm trying to do something morally good, but at the end of the day I have to pay for to keep the servers on somehow. > I feel that ethos of business is a big part of this problem, and it won't be part of the solution. Only a small % of events that are listed are even from partners, and as many non-commercial events as possible will be added, e.g. hiking, public gardens, and the like. But the other side of this is, when it comes to meeting new people, the vast (vast!) majority of people surveyed say they feel safer in public spaces. For high density urban areas, that mostly means commercial spaces. Finally, I don't think helping people find things that they want to do is inherently bad. I do not believe that fulfilling a someone's request to "find me a group to play laser tag with" is an inherently immoral action to undertake just because it is facilitating a commercial activity.
- ardy42 7y ago
  > Only a small % of events that are listed are even from partners, and as many non-commercial events as possible will be added Every social platform says stuff like that when they start, but then they mysteriously start moving away from those promises when they find they can.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  > I had to find a way to fund it somehow! No. You had a choice before that. "Should I make this thing? What does it mean for me to make this thing?" We've told you the implications you've made in doing this. You choose to devalue friendships by wedging commerce into it. And thus, you cheapen the thing you tried to create. > I'm trying to do something morally good, but at the end of the day I have to pay for to keep the servers on somehow. 'I'm trying to be moral, except when I can't afford to be'
lioeters 7y ago
> ..your startup isn't so much about helping people make friends; it's about giving businesses another advertising opportunity.. > I feel that ethos of business is a big part of this problem, and it won't be part of the solution. You're so right to point this out. Your original comment satirizes the narrow mindset of reducing a social and cultural problem to building/selling technological solutions. Often the latter is not a solution at all, but merely another symptom of an underlying illness, the mentality that exploits society and human relationship as a business opportunity. On the theme of friendship and loneliness, Facebook is a prime example.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

And with that idea, lies the grain of "truth": if you want friends, you have to buy them things or time. Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies? Or how about free concerts? Or how about meeting up at hackerspaces on open house nights? Or encourage the hundreds of free things happening in a city at any one time? Or what about someone hosting a house party, and staying away from bars and club style events? You can't make money on free. I'm sure it'll be given lip service. And there's juicy data there that can be siphoned, correlated, and sold to the highest bidder. What's the chances of this complying with the GDPR? This is how you degrade friendship to tit-for-tat in a business deal. It's just another adtech business that attempts to attack and hijack friend relationships by sneaking in the back door.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> And with that idea, lies the grain of "truth": if you want friends, you have to buy them things or time. My thoughts exactly. Sorry I preempted your point with the edit to my comment. > Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies?... Or to take it even further: taking a walk in a park, stopping by to say hello, meeting to chat. I'd say some of the most important components of friendship aren't even "things to do."
com2kid 7y ago
> Is this "service" going to recommend going to the park to watch free movies? Or how about free concerts? Or how about meeting up at hackerspaces on open house nights? ... Or what about someone hosting a house party, and staying away from bars and club style events? #1 goal is to keep people on the platform. Without users, there is nothing. To keep the lights on, only ~10% of what is on the platform needs to be revenue generating. Everything else is about bringing people together. Open house nights are harder, people tend to feel unsafe when an app leads them into someone else's personal space. As I mentioned in another reply, v1 is about externally created events, future features are around what you are describing. But an existing user base with enough critical mass has to exist before it becomes possible to have people successfully create their own events. > What's the chances of this complying with the GDPR? Very high, I am super paranoid about privacy. As an example of this paranoia, when user's join a pre-event chat room, they are all given a unique UID for that chat room. A mapping table is created in the DB, tracking their real user id to the chatroom's user ID. The user's actual user ID is never sent to other users. After 30 days, the entry in the mapping table is deleted. Everything is like that, end to end, when a user taps "delete profile" every trace of their existence is removed. The only thing kept around are the aggregate review scores they contributed, the "+1" ratings on some particular event is fun, which has no connection to the user. > It's just another adtech business that attempts to attack and hijack friend relationships by sneaking in the back door. I'm boot strapping this myself because I believe an alternative to sitting inside on a Saturday night watching streaming pixels fly needs to exist.

com2kid 7y ago

> So, in conclusion, your startup isn't so much about helping people make friends; it's about giving businesses another advertising opportunity and reducing some barriers that keep customers from giving them their money. I had to find a way to fund it somehow! Original inspiration was when I was traveling, I wanted to meet up at a bar with some locals. I came back to Seattle, friends told me that the idea is great, but that they'd love to see it done here at home! > "Going out with other people [and spending money together]" is an optional and frequently minor part of friendship. You claim that you're "working to solve this problem [of loneliness], but this the kind of definitional distortion I was referencing in my other comment. The meaning of friendship is twisted to overemphasize its most economically significant aspects. V1 feature set is around helping people find things to do at local businesses. Future planned features focus on helping people organize their own events, but the startups that started off in that space initially have all failed. I'm trying to do something morally good, but at the end of the day I have to pay for to keep the servers on somehow. > I feel that ethos of business is a big part of this problem, and it won't be part of the solution. Only a small % of events that are listed are even from partners, and as many non-commercial events as possible will be added, e.g. hiking, public gardens, and the like. But the other side of this is, when it comes to meeting new people, the vast (vast!) majority of people surveyed say they feel safer in public spaces. For high density urban areas, that mostly means commercial spaces. Finally, I don't think helping people find things that they want to do is inherently bad. I do not believe that fulfilling a someone's request to "find me a group to play laser tag with" is an inherently immoral action to undertake just because it is facilitating a commercial activity.

ardy42 7y ago
> Only a small % of events that are listed are even from partners, and as many non-commercial events as possible will be added Every social platform says stuff like that when they start, but then they mysteriously start moving away from those promises when they find they can.
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
> I had to find a way to fund it somehow! No. You had a choice before that. "Should I make this thing? What does it mean for me to make this thing?" We've told you the implications you've made in doing this. You choose to devalue friendships by wedging commerce into it. And thus, you cheapen the thing you tried to create. > I'm trying to do something morally good, but at the end of the day I have to pay for to keep the servers on somehow. 'I'm trying to be moral, except when I can't afford to be'

lioeters 7y ago

> ..your startup isn't so much about helping people make friends; it's about giving businesses another advertising opportunity.. > I feel that ethos of business is a big part of this problem, and it won't be part of the solution. You're so right to point this out. Your original comment satirizes the narrow mindset of reducing a social and cultural problem to building/selling technological solutions. Often the latter is not a solution at all, but merely another symptom of an underlying illness, the mentality that exploits society and human relationship as a business opportunity. On the theme of friendship and loneliness, Facebook is a prime example.