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Bail – Get out of your plans, guilt free
- BossingAround 7y agoLooks interesting, but would really require some velocity. There's the social problem of requesting others to install the app by an individual. I'm not gonna ask my friends to install bail just in case they'd like to cancel, because I might want to cancel.
- marcofiset 7y agoThis concept is begging for integrations into existing calendar apps, not being an app itself.
- chris140957 7y agoMight be absolutely right about this - thanks for the feedback. Will probably start with a google integration in the first instance. As you can probably tell, this concept is still in its infancy
- chris140957 7y agoI'm leaning towards a setup where its a calendar integration where you and your friend may have no idea if the other even has the app installed.
- ocdtrekkie 7y agoSince "I'm not going to ask my friends if they have Bail installed, and presumably Bail needs to know an event on their side and my side is the same event" was my first thought on reading this concept, calendar integration seems practical. However, I have an issue right following that idea: I rarely ever send calendar invites to social events. In the example on the site, "Drinks after work", that's an event I cannot possibly imagine sending as a calendar invite for, so it's baffling to me how I could Bail it.
- chris140957 7y agoHi, I created a quick landing page to validate an idea for an app. I'll be honest, the idea isn't mine. I saw it suggested in a Twitter post which had huge traction, and decided to run with it. At the moment I'm just trying to refine the concept and get an idea of whether there really is space for something like this out there
- itake 7y agoDo people send calendar invites when hanging out with friends? Personally, if a meetup did actually make it into my calendar, I would not ship it to a friend.
- chris140957 7y agoI did wonder that. Personally, I put social events in my calendar but don't specifically invite the other people to it. I'm still validating the concept, but am initially leaning towards this being more of an integration with calendar services, particularly facebook where people probably do have common invites
- itake 7y agoI've only used FB events among friends for big events (Lets all go to Vegas!) and even then most of the coordination happens in a chat group.
- JohnFen 7y ago> Do people send calendar invites when hanging out with friends? I've literally never had that happen, personally. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, though.
- bennicholes 7y agoi saw the tweet as well. if you want some help designing and researching UX and flows, let me know.
- nrclark 7y agoHow do you get people to use it? Like let's say I have drinks plans with my friend, and I want to bail using this service. How to I tell her to install the app? Wouldn't asking her to install it be pretty rude? It would basically be saying "Hey, FYI I like to bail on stuff a lot. So you probably shouldn't make any plans involving me." I could see that stigma as a critical roadblock against growing the kind of user-base you'd need for this to get popular.
- leetrout 7y agoThis is a little bit sad and a little bit scary. Have we reached the point where we now prefer to avoid actual communications with our "friends" that this exists? It's up there with people who won't answer phone calls and only want to text.
- lostcolony 7y agoThat's not the reason. Telling a friend you want to cancel is hard, and depressing, and so you oftentimes go just to not bail on them. And hate it. But what if your friend is feeling the same way? What if you both want to cancel, but neither of you wants to hurt the other person. Well, with something like this, you can bail without letting them down; they only know you wanted to bail -if they also want to bail-. That's the key bit.
- groby_b 7y agoOr you could be adults and talk to each other. Telling a friend you want to cancel is usually hard because you haven't practiced setting boundaries. This app doesn't help. It just postpones the problem until you meet somebody who doesn't need the app, except now you're even further behind in practicing that skill. I get the desire to automate interactions. I really do. I have days where I really would rather not see people at all. But it doesn't work. In the very best case, if it works as designed, it deprives you further of human interactions, making it even harder outside of the app context to interact.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoAlso, parent post laments that they may go out with a friend even if they hate it. Sheesh, if you're going to go out with me, your friend, just to be nice yet hate it, stay home. Have some respect for both of us and just cancel.
- brnt 7y agoMaybe its a cultural thing. Around here we grow up and learn to state our preferences honestly and understanding its not hurtful to be truthful but rather the opposite. Weaseling about is something you correct small children on.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mooreed 7y agoIs my action of “bailing” transparent to the other party? Via (re)prompting my friend with a notification or something where they might be able to guess I was trying to get out?
- chris140957 7y agoThe idea is that if you bail and they don't, they'll never find out and your plans will remain uncancelled. But if you both decide you no longer want to meet up, you no longer have to, and nobody gets offended
- thestoicattack 7y agoThis could leak information to the other party if bailing is still available during the event. By trying to bail myself after you show up I could "prove" you really didn't want to be here after all.
- retsibsi 7y agoSimilar to the problem with the 'secret crush' version of the same idea -- people can insincerely tick every box, simply to see which of their friends has a crush on them. I guess the same caveat applies: only use this app with people you trust. (Of course, some would say that if you really trust each other you don't need this app; but I don't know, I can see a use case for those situations where your plans have become inconvenient, but not sufficiently inconvenient to back out at short notice without seeming rude. I wouldn't use it myself but I don't even use a calendar app.)
- JohnFen 7y ago> you no longer have to, and nobody gets offended I don't know... I'd be offended that my friend couldn't just tell me directly. But I guess if I'm using the app as well... but doesn't that call into question the nature of the relationship?
- stbtrax 7y agoA version for intimacy: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/31/20939932/lovesync-sex-button-gadget-tech-kickstarter-campaign-viral https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/31/20939932/lovesync-sex-bu...
- chris140957 7y agoI've also seen a similar one about wanting to get out of your marriage. Some people have questioned the antisocial aspect of the concept, but at least its more light hearted than that...
- robbiet480 7y agoBased on this tweet obviously https://twitter.com/mattiekahn/status/1224100727578120193 https://twitter.com/mattiekahn/status/1224100727578120193
- chris140957 7y agoYep, making no attempt to claim this idea as my own. But just saw it had huge traction
- busterarm 7y agoSome folks I knew who rented an apartment in East Village to do their own startup had this exact same idea with this exact same name back in '14. I don't think they lasted very long with it and all ended up getting jobs, but this did at least make me check if this was the same folks. Edit: That said, I would pay to use this if it were done well and if I could get all my friends to use it.
- chris140957 7y agoYeah, a number of people have suggested that similar things have been proposed but have never got off the ground.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- codewritinfool 7y agoI wonder who bailed first?
- VectorLock 7y agoDid they use the app? Talk about dogfooding...
- ackbar03 7y agoYea, they had an entry "work on startup" in it and realized all the founders had chosen to bail so the project got canceled
- ipnon 7y agoWe need an indexed and searchable startup graveyard to prevent this problem in the future.
- discreteevent 7y agoI would nearly set something ad driven up to to do this just to see how long I could last before getting sucked in to my on graveyard.
- kerkeslager 7y agoI can't imagine being friends with someone who is this incapable of communicating. The solution to this problem is sending a text that says, "Hey, I'm not feeling like coming out today after all. Rain check?" This app is a worse solution than the obvious solution. Trying to be empathetic: if you feel the need to use something like this, I'm not qualified to diagnose you as having social anxiety, but I would suggest you talk to someone who is qualified to diagnose you with social anxiety.
- hosh 7y agoI agree. The protocol works, but it does avoid emotional honesty. If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends. For others reading this, I suggest a book called Crucial Conversations. If bailing out is a proxy for deeper issues in the friendship, maybe it is time to have a good chat about it.
- kazinator 7y ago> If this is a chronic thing, then perhaps there are some unsaid things that need to be said between the friends. I have an idea for that! How about an app where you can write things to your friend, which are held in the system's escrow. "unsaidthings.io" Then a machine learning algorithm compares them for similarity/reciprocity. If they are similar, then the escrow is released, otherwise neither person knows whether the other submitted anything at all, or whether they did and it was different. The prototype can skip the machine learning algorithm and instead let the people select from one of 64 possible messages that are compared according to a static table. Or else be allowed to compose sentences out of fragments guided by a "writing assistant" which guides their structure into possibilities that are easy to analyze.
- bradthater 7y agoMake sure to mention this one next time there is a thread about project ideas!
- kerkeslager 7y ago
- jupp0r 7y agoIt's basically solving a version of the prisoners dilemma by giving both parties a filtered communication channel to signal cooperation.
- adaisadais 7y agoThis is the most San Francisco thing ever.
- duxup 7y agoSomeone once noted that there were a whole series of various startup ideas and products that could be covered by "things 20 something engineers wish their mom would still do for them". I feel like this one is "Mom I don't want to meet up with Sarah today, can you tell her mom that I have a doctor's appointment?"
- sandoooo 7y agoIt's remarkable how much of the criticism aimed at SV can be summed up as: # they're 20-something. # they're white. # they're male. # and this is low status.
- blast 7y agoThis is like Bang With Friends. Whatever happened to that thing? https://www.businessinsider.com/bang-with-friends-co-founder-interview-2013-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/bang-with-friends-co-founder... Maybe it should be called Bail With Friends.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoIt would be pretty depressing if you got "You're off the hook" messages every time you hit bail. That means, most of your "friends" were looking to get out of the plans they made with you.
- dpeck 7y agoit's weird to see social anxiety as a "popular" thing in culture now. Is it a humble brag as an easy way to have social-proof of having plans and people who want to hang out with the them, while not having to "document" that they actually do?
- Andrew44 7y agoOne problem I can see is this: If I was the one who made the plan in the first place, I could hit the "Bail" button just to see whether my friend secretly wanted to bail and then I could call them up on it... This would result in things being more awkward than just having a frank conversation in the first place!
- JohnFen 7y agoIf I feel like I can't ask my friend "are you really up for doing this?", then they aren't actually a friend...
- hardlianotion 7y agoI think the name would be better applied to an app for crowdfunding conditional releases from gaol pending trial.
- duxup 7y agoI feel like whatever social awkwardness situation this "solves" ... it just doesn't solve it. Folks are bound to just hit that button all the time just to find out what happens ... and still be bothered that the other person did too. Nobody cares just that someone else doesn't want to do something... they care / wonder about why they don't want to do it. You figure that out by talking.
- bigiain 7y agoBack of envelope total addressable market calculation: I’m guessing this will appeal greatly to people 3 or 4 standard deviations to the “introverted” side of the introvert/extrovert bell curve. So maybe 0.15% if it’s as high as only 3 sigma. It’ll be useful to people who’s friendship circles overlap in that 3 standard deviations of introversion. Let’s assume Dunbars much discredited but widely quoted ideas are right, and that people typically have ~150 social connections. So there’s about a 1.5:1000 chance that someone would find this useful. There’s about a 1:50 chance that any of their friends would also find it useful. (That May be higher if introverts tend to have more introverted friends, but is more likely way lower if introverts have fewer friends than extroverts). In a city of 5 million, there are probably 150 people who’d have one friend for which this is useful, and maybe 3 people who would use it with two of their friends... My assumptions might be way off. But to a first approximation nobody is ever going to find this actually useful in their real world relationships...
- ericmcer 7y agoI think more than 0.15% of people feel guilt/anxiety about wanting to cancel plans last minute. I don't have any data to back that up, but it is a fairly common emotion. 999/1000 people feel nothing when they have to renege on a social engagement?
- derision 7y agoNo those people just know how to communicate like a normal human and say hey I'm really not up for it tonight let's reschedule. If anyone replies negatively or aggressively to that they then should find new friends. This is ridiculous
- bigiain 7y ago"communicate like a normal human" is a bit unnecessarily negative/aggressive there. Some people genuinely do have trouble with that. belittling them isn't gonna help any...
- 7y ago
- mywittyname 7y agoWhere I come from, it's common practice to follow-up before an event in an effort to give the other person an out. I.e., "are we still up for lunch tomorrow?" Do other people not do this?
- dx87 7y agoNot where I'm from. If the other person agrees to be somewhere at a certain time, I assume they're going to be there unless I hear otherwise.
- kelnos 7y agoIt's situation dependent for me. If I've made plans with a friend to grab lunch/dinner/drinks on a particular day, we often won't decide on a location until less than 24 hours beforehand. So in that case, I'll usually open with "Hey, are we still on for lunch? Where should we go?" Even if a location is already set up, if the plans were made more than a few days in advance, I'll likely confirm. But if I've made plans with someone for only a few days in the future, and we've already picked a location/activity, I'll assume they'll be there unless they reach out to cancel.
- coupdejarnac 7y agoNext up, an AI to send you friendly texts, because you have no real friends.
- csours 7y agoPretty sure this already exists
- ipnon 7y agoI thought this was going to be a service to schedule robocalls to your phone: Robocaller: "Hello is this $FIRST_NAME $LAST_NAME?" Happy customer acting surprised: "Why yes it is. May I ask who is calling at such an hour? I'm hanging out with my friends." Robocaller: "Yes this is $AUTHORITY. We need you to do $MANDATORY_TASK immediately. Happy customer acting surprised: "Oh my! Okay, I'll be there soon." Happy customer to friends: "Guys, this is so crazy, but I've got to run!" Then you leave the party or whatever. Side-effects: you can't sleep at night because you're thinking about how weird you are.
- ackbar03 7y agoI'd pay for that just for the lulz
- siracusa23 7y agoI wouldn't like a friend which is incapable of communicating. I can't look at this and consider it interesting, it's not only enabling a toxic behavior, it's encouraging it. I'm actually disgusted by this. I'm glad I see other people with the same perspective in the comment section as the fact that someone thought about this, thought it's a good idea and implemented it is terrifying. What happened to "Hey, I don't feel like doing this tonight, let's postpone it?"
- scarejunba 7y agoHaha, this is a hilarious idea. I love it. Clearly this is to combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance on the two-person level[0] which is utterly reasonable considering the phenomenon is widespread no matter how much people like to talk about their ability to be socially able to handle interactions. My objection is that it may make it too easy to get what I want momentarily, i.e. I want to place high activation energy constraints on exiting because in the period leading up to the event, there will be many moments where I dip below my threshold of excitement for the event. However, since activation energy to set up the event is high because of natural constraints (I have to make sure everyone is available, that the event is available, that the venue is available), this means that if I lower the threshold to exit, I will bias strongly towards exiting. Given that, I consciously hard commit myself to events. Post making this choice I have a far more active social life. This is why I won't use your app. It's because it actually does make a thing easy, but I don't want it to be easy. Love that you used Netlify to knock it out, though. How did you enjoy the experience of developing it? 0: Really, this is exactly the Abilene Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
- egypturnash 7y agoHow on earth am I supposed to get my friends to use this without implicitly saying “hey I kinda want to bail on this thing” by telling them to use this?
- aridiculous 7y agoIf anyone winds up using this consistently with friends (which they won't), it's likely they'll just see a continually increasing number of aborted events, due to the removal of a barrier. It's good that a cancelling party feels some shame. It keeps humans from letting their short-term avoidance always overcome the communal and long-term benefits of some kind of sacrifice.
- crtlaltdel 7y agoi applaud the lean methodology. minimal detail, free-tier hosted contact form. throw it out on HN and a few other sites (i've not looked, just assume) and check the your conversions per channel in a day or two. HN is a great place to see what tech-leaning people think of stuff (even if it can get a bit sideways at times) and get some free unsolicited advice on everything from implementation patterns to prior art to the occasionally valuable feature idea.
- flatiron 7y agoAre we getting yelped?
- rhacker 7y agoI'm a little confused. Do you have to make the plans in the first place using an app called "Bail"? If so I imagine the non-bail rate will be extremely extremely low.
- oh_sigh 7y agoThere was an app on Shark Tank that was this, but for timing your hook up with your preferred sexual partner
- romwell 7y agoTo the developer: kudos. Ignore the naysayers. Why build this — why the f* not? It's not like there are apps out there that do the same. And adding another way to interact with people is fun. That's not to mention it might help people with anxiety. Sure, it's not a silver bullet. I don't know if I'd really use it. But it's novel, and why not. Now, there's a real problem with this app, and it's that it's a feature turned into a product. It's a problem because: 1) Bail is not a Google Calendar / Facebook Events replacement, which is what people use to schedule things, AND 2) It would be a great feature in both of these products. If it ever gets implemented, Bail is instantly obsolete. Again, kudos to you! But as a user, I hope the calendar software I use gets this functionality, and I won't have to introduce anyone to yet another app. It's not at all a problem unless you're betting everything on this app. Who knows where this will bring you though. Best of luck!
- ravenstine 7y ago> To the developer: kudos. Ignore the naysayers. Why build this — why the f* not? It's not like there are apps out there that do the same. And adding another way to interact with people is fun. Because some people have the moral compass to think about the consequences of the applications they build. The world doesn't need more crutches for people who can't communicate in such a basic way. Think about it; if you don't want to do something with someone or are unable, you owe it to both yourself and the other person to speak your opinion. Waiting for the other person to bail first is a lack of communication. This isn't going to help people who have communication problems. It can only make their disability worse, or cause them to resort to being friends with others with the same disability, which can prevent them from overcoming it. Personally, I'd lose respect for someone who tried to use this "feature".
- VectorLock 7y agoIs this even a thing or just a landing page with an email harvester?
- reidjs 7y agoOff topic, but OP if you need a guide to help you get off netlify and host your service through a remote server (e.g. a DO Droplet) check out this guide I recently wrote https://medium.com/@reid.sherman/deploying-and-configuring-a-digitalocean-droplet-to-host-server-side-rendered-web-applications-382fdce32ff https://medium.com/@reid.sherman/deploying-and-configuring-a...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- adamrezich 7y agoyounger generations are losing the ability/will to communicate decisively in uncomfortable social situations, can't see any positive long-term effects here
- xyzelement 7y agoI don’t think the developer even thinks this will ever work. To begin with - this means that both parties must register their event on the service when making the original plan. (How else would you later manage what to bail on and who that affects) Can you imagine anyone actually doing that? If you are someone who makes such flaky plans constantly, you aren’t also someone who will think ahead like this. To be honest reading the comments that treat this as something other than an obvious dead end is scary.
- ronyfadel 7y ago“ Bail is still being built, and will be available very soon, on iOS, Android and online.” I have a feeling that OP hasn’t started working on anything, and is using this to prove that there’s a market for it. Sneaky, but good for you!
- maxymajzr 7y agoHow exciting! I can't wait for next brilliant idea. Maybe... "notify your friends when you're thirsty via click of a button! Subscribe now, only $4.99 a month!"