5 ms·
Enjoyable to see these mockery sites. The original Hey marketing was just asking to get mocked. Hopefully they take it in good spirit. The lesson learned I thin
by hellofunk 6y ago
Enjoyable to see these mockery sites. The original Hey marketing was just asking to get mocked. Hopefully they take it in good spirit. The lesson learned I think is, don’t act like God unless you want to get mocked for it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 1123581321 6y agoI like this parody, but I don’t understand what you are saying about Hey’s original marketing. What’s particularly arrogant about product designers saying they’ve identified and solved a problem? Here’s what they originally put up, for reference: http://web.archive.org/web/20200207101953/https://www.hey.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20200207101953/https://www.hey.co...
- yakshaving_jgt 6y agoTo be honest, I think that landing page is great. HN people will get mad when a landing page is not just words on a page, but will also get mad when it is.
- WA 6y agoMy biggest gripe about Hey is that it’s marketed as an email client, but it’s actually a proprietary database you get access to through something that looks like an email address. I’m exaggerating a bit. But I don’t understand why they built a service and not a client. For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses.
- hrktb 6y agoI see Hey marketing as "Email" more than a client or an app. Yes, it's a weird positioning, but to be fair it's also a weird service. They're not about better managing your existing inbox, and I also think completely changing the management of a third party email services while staying within the standards is a lost battle. Hey doesn't solve my issues with email either, but I am sympathic to people trying to rebuild an experience beyond what existing clients can do.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago> But I don’t understand why they built a service and not a client. Some of the core features aren't feasible with a simple client. For example screening new contacts by default, merging/renaming threads only for you, adding notes to a thread, save bits of content…
- hellofunk 6y ago> screening new contacts by default A client could certainly handle this, but it may not translate to other instances of the client. > merging/renaming threads only for you An advertised feature that did not even work on their release. Maybe they fixed it by now, I don't know, I did not end up buying the product. The initial release was quite buggy.
- 1123581321 6y agoAnecdotally, I’ve renamed and merged several threads between the initial release and now.
- hellofunk 6y agoI know that feature was on their internal list of bug fixes, so it sounds like they got through at least that far on the list!
- 1123581321 6y agoYes, I don’t think they’re proceeding in order of report. I‘ve had any significant reported bugs fixed within hours. A couple minor ones are persistent. I assume whatever issue you saw with thread management was fixed quickly as it’s a core feature in the marketing, and demonstrated live by Jason in his product demo streams.
- nyanpasu64 6y agoFor all its promises of open-source friendliness, Tutanota is basically the same. They don't support accessing email through SMTP.
- robjan 6y agoOn Tutanota your email are encrypted at rest and only you have the key. This is not supported by SMTP. It's a trade-off for theoretically better privacy.
- ralphstodomingo 6y agoIt's not marketed as an email client - they're marketing for a certain experience. > For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses. The graveyard of services acquired or dead (or both) is littered with those who attempted to 1) bring about radical change to email 2) without disrupting the current ecosystem of mail clients and hosts. It clearly almost never worked for anyone, so I at least applaud them for going out of their way, loudly trying to veer off of said graveyard. It speaks to the experience they're selling. It may not have appealed to you, but they aren't short of the ones it appealed to. Now, whether it'll work out for them, that's another topic :D
- martin_drapeau 6y agoI don't think email is broken for everybody. Maybe so for Jason Fried and other popular techies who get so much email because they are public figures. Not for my family and friends. So when I read their pitch, I see another locked in platform à la Slack. The tone is quite pretentious too. Sounds more like a pitch from a clique leader to join them. That's what bothers me I guess.
- jb1991 6y agoPart of the issue was how they handled the "application" to be one of the first users. It was quite pretentious. They wanted you to express yourself in some novel, poetic way to convince them you are worthy of testing their golden new service. It was silly. In the end, it was also meaningless, everyone got invites anyway. But, the arrogance lingers.
- 1123581321 6y agoYes, I linked to that page. “ To get on the list, email iwant@hey.com and tell us how you feel about email. Could be a love story, or a hate story — or both. Could be long, could be short. It’s your story, so it’s up to you.” I wouldn’t call that novel or poetic but I understand resenting it.
- hellofunk 6y agoRegardless, it’s quite pretentious to expect people to put forth creative and expressive energy for something they’re possibly going to end up paying you money for anyway.
- 1123581321 6y agoIt’s an interesting question. I’m willing to spend time and energy on top of money for a lot of things. For software, it feels more extra than, say, going to the grocery store, but I don’t know if that actually makes it wrong for a software company to require the effort. And that’s complicated by the value some derive from small exercises like that.
- maitredusoi 6y agoOn the contrary, it will make Hey more known to the community, like free advertising. Mockery is probably the best tool for growth hacking ;)