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Hey HN, I'm Daniel, founder of Thread. I started Thread two months ago because I believe current social media and social networks are built in a way that harm

Hey HN, I'm Daniel, founder of Thread. I started Thread two months ago because I believe current social media and social networks are built in a way that harms our ability to meaningfully connect with one another. They're highly addictive, superficial, and socially isolating. They also run a reputation of violating user privacy and selling it to third parties. I strongly believe in ad-free, private social networking as an alternative. It's all about building and maintaining relationships with the people closest to you. If this sounds interesting, please try out the app! It's still very early, beta software. On pricing: I think advertising is out of the question. It's a strong misalignment of incentives in trying to deliver long term value for end users. I have some ideas here, but the most obvious thing that comes to mind is a subscription based service (say ~$10/year). I would love to hear your feedback (questions, comments, suggestions) on what I'm building. Reach out to me personally at daniel@thread-app.com.

data4lyfe 7y ago
This is super cool. How long did it take you to build it.
- danfang 7y ago
  I started building out the product in early July, so it's been about two full months of work. I recently quit my full time job as a software engineer because I really believe this problem requires my full engagement and devotion!
  - bigwavedave 7y ago
    I apologize for not really having anything to enhance the discussion, but I like what you're saying and the ideologies you express; I thought you should know.
rolltiide 7y ago
I'd say charge for certain easy to develop features. like number of circles or extended message history, or creating ephemeral messages, or viewing ephemeral messages twice, extended emotions to add to someone else's message (instead of just a heart or a laughing face, more wider range) and maybe less easy to develop features like animated stickers
- danfang 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm definitely considering a freemium model. My own struggle is that I believe deep, interpersonal communication should be for everyone - it feels wrong to "exclude" people from certain mediums of expression just to make a profit. I have some more 'experimental' ideas that I think would allow Thread to remain free at its core, but still charge users for additional, advanced services.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
I created a group and wanted to update the name, I was confused by how it worked, I thought I'd type it in and click the back arrow seeing no button. Realized later I have to tap "Done" on my keyboard. You might want to consider adding a green "Done" button below or near the "Delete Group" button even though it's slightly redundant, it's less confusing. I'm trying it on Android. Not sure how I can convince friends to try this out though, have a hard time getting people to use Signal. How's this compare to iMessage in regards to encryption btw? I know encryption isn't entirely trivial to cover this early on. Edit: Also when I click "Contacts" and I deny permission on Android it crashes the app. Might want to handle that case.
- danfang 7y ago
  These will both be addressed in the next release. Thanks for the due diligence.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    No problem, it looks great otherwise!
lucky_cloud 7y ago
https://get.thread-app.com/privacy-policy/ https://get.thread-app.com/privacy-policy/ We may disclose personal information to: ... third parties, including agents or sub-contractors, who assist us in providing information, products, services or direct marketing to you. There's no marketing in iMessage, certainly not based on the things I type into iMessage. Also, to be clear, "marketing" is advertising. You say "ad-free" but then you give yourself the right to advertise. There's also nothing I can find about end-to-end encryption, which is one of the best features of iMessage. I almost exclusively use iMessage because I know Apple isn't spying on me. When friends message me on Instagram, I reply in iMessage.
- danfang 7y ago
  Founder here. This is great feedback. My interpretation of the clause is that we can use services like Mailchimp to send you marketing materials for when we release new products and features. These would be strictly opt-in. I'm not a legal expert, but I will try to come up with a policy that more clearly expresses that you will NOT receive marketing about third-party services and our only usage of these services would be to update you all on our new product offerings. We're considering offering E2E encryption, but we believe that we can deliver a ton of value by allowing users to search through their messages and for us to efficiently organize and categorize your content. I think there is a middle ground where we can encrypt non-pertinent data, but still preserve metadata so we can provide some intelligence on top of the content you choose to share on the platform.
  - mentalpiracy 7y ago
    > I'm not a legal expert, but I will try to come up with a policy that more clearly expresses that you will NOT receive marketing about third-party services and our only usage of these services would be to update you all on our new product offerings. You do not need to be a legal expert to state this in your policy in plain language. Examples: "We will collect your contact information for the purpose of updating you about this product." "We will not collect analytic data." "If this policy changes, you will be notified 60 days before data collection begins." You do not need to predicate openness and honesty on legal expertise.
shyn3 7y ago
You probably will need to take advantage of network effect in some way. I.e. if I have a $10/year paid account and I create a group, the person joining my group can join it for free, however if they are trying to join another group on their own then it would get them to pay. Or free for X period of time, because getting a person on the platform to start is hard. I registered but I don't know anyone that has it so I have to convince people to set it up. Maybe allow public groups? Or maybe not. Looks rather cool!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

data4lyfe 7y ago

This is super cool. How long did it take you to build it.

danfang 7y ago
I started building out the product in early July, so it's been about two full months of work. I recently quit my full time job as a software engineer because I really believe this problem requires my full engagement and devotion!
- bigwavedave 7y ago
  I apologize for not really having anything to enhance the discussion, but I like what you're saying and the ideologies you express; I thought you should know.

rolltiide 7y ago

I'd say charge for certain easy to develop features. like number of circles or extended message history, or creating ephemeral messages, or viewing ephemeral messages twice, extended emotions to add to someone else's message (instead of just a heart or a laughing face, more wider range) and maybe less easy to develop features like animated stickers

danfang 7y ago
Yeah, I'm definitely considering a freemium model. My own struggle is that I believe deep, interpersonal communication should be for everyone - it feels wrong to "exclude" people from certain mediums of expression just to make a profit. I have some more 'experimental' ideas that I think would allow Thread to remain free at its core, but still charge users for additional, advanced services.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

I created a group and wanted to update the name, I was confused by how it worked, I thought I'd type it in and click the back arrow seeing no button. Realized later I have to tap "Done" on my keyboard. You might want to consider adding a green "Done" button below or near the "Delete Group" button even though it's slightly redundant, it's less confusing. I'm trying it on Android. Not sure how I can convince friends to try this out though, have a hard time getting people to use Signal. How's this compare to iMessage in regards to encryption btw? I know encryption isn't entirely trivial to cover this early on. Edit: Also when I click "Contacts" and I deny permission on Android it crashes the app. Might want to handle that case.

danfang 7y ago
These will both be addressed in the next release. Thanks for the due diligence.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  No problem, it looks great otherwise!

lucky_cloud 7y ago

https://get.thread-app.com/privacy-policy/ https://get.thread-app.com/privacy-policy/ We may disclose personal information to: ... third parties, including agents or sub-contractors, who assist us in providing information, products, services or direct marketing to you. There's no marketing in iMessage, certainly not based on the things I type into iMessage. Also, to be clear, "marketing" is advertising. You say "ad-free" but then you give yourself the right to advertise. There's also nothing I can find about end-to-end encryption, which is one of the best features of iMessage. I almost exclusively use iMessage because I know Apple isn't spying on me. When friends message me on Instagram, I reply in iMessage.

danfang 7y ago
Founder here. This is great feedback. My interpretation of the clause is that we can use services like Mailchimp to send you marketing materials for when we release new products and features. These would be strictly opt-in. I'm not a legal expert, but I will try to come up with a policy that more clearly expresses that you will NOT receive marketing about third-party services and our only usage of these services would be to update you all on our new product offerings. We're considering offering E2E encryption, but we believe that we can deliver a ton of value by allowing users to search through their messages and for us to efficiently organize and categorize your content. I think there is a middle ground where we can encrypt non-pertinent data, but still preserve metadata so we can provide some intelligence on top of the content you choose to share on the platform.
- mentalpiracy 7y ago
  > I'm not a legal expert, but I will try to come up with a policy that more clearly expresses that you will NOT receive marketing about third-party services and our only usage of these services would be to update you all on our new product offerings. You do not need to be a legal expert to state this in your policy in plain language. Examples: "We will collect your contact information for the purpose of updating you about this product." "We will not collect analytic data." "If this policy changes, you will be notified 60 days before data collection begins." You do not need to predicate openness and honesty on legal expertise.

shyn3 7y ago

You probably will need to take advantage of network effect in some way. I.e. if I have a $10/year paid account and I create a group, the person joining my group can join it for free, however if they are trying to join another group on their own then it would get them to pay. Or free for X period of time, because getting a person on the platform to start is hard. I registered but I don't know anyone that has it so I have to convince people to set it up. Maybe allow public groups? Or maybe not. Looks rather cool!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]