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Why would one use disposable email adresses for SaaS trials? I have a second emailaddress for this purpose. The only thing I can think of is people looking to c

Why would one use disposable email adresses for SaaS trials? I have a second emailaddress for this purpose. The only thing I can think of is people looking to create multiple accounts at the same SaaS. So basically a form of abuse. Something I'm missing here?

yuvalkarmi 4y ago
That's fair -- one simple answer is privacy: each service you sign up for gets its own email address, but they're all tied to your 1trial account behind the scenes (if you choose to create one - it's optional), so you can still keep track of it. I bet that the second email address you have can easily be tied to your identity. Same reason Apple Private Relay is useful. Before I see value in a product, I may not want to give them my actual email address because I may just end up using it once. I suppose it could be abused, but that's certainly not the intent.
- asdadsdad 4y ago
  Sorry if it comes out as harsh, but there's nearly 100% chance of this getting abused and then blacklisted by anti-abuse vendors, which will in turn render it 100% useless. That's the path all these disposable services took, including things like Private Relay, Firefox something, etc. Can't have nice things edit: typo
  - yuvalkarmi 4y ago
    Also, did Private Relay actually get blacklisted?
    - asdadsdad 4y ago
      it got at least "detected" and provided as an API for people who query these things, and it does get filtered out as a kind of data center/low reputation IP class. But as with anything of this type, it's up to the client what to do with it. Most disposable infrastructure is not trustworthy for the exact reason that they don't associate an individual with a high-cost profile, i.e. at least a credible/high rep email, or an SMS-authed phone number, and so on. Of course there's always the argument that, if your revenue relies on defending against free-trial abuse, then maybe your product is not fit for a freemium model in the first place.
    - asdadsdad 4y ago
      case in point + big thread if you're interested in learning more about this stuff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32917671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32917671
  - yuvalkarmi 4y ago
    lol, it does come off as a little harsh, but I do think it's reasonable to expect the main domain to get blacklisted at some point. Assuming there's some business model to figured out for this, alternative domains could always be added... For now I was just curious to put it out there and see how people respond / if it even gets used at all.

yuvalkarmi 4y ago

That's fair -- one simple answer is privacy: each service you sign up for gets its own email address, but they're all tied to your 1trial account behind the scenes (if you choose to create one - it's optional), so you can still keep track of it. I bet that the second email address you have can easily be tied to your identity. Same reason Apple Private Relay is useful. Before I see value in a product, I may not want to give them my actual email address because I may just end up using it once. I suppose it could be abused, but that's certainly not the intent.

asdadsdad 4y ago
Sorry if it comes out as harsh, but there's nearly 100% chance of this getting abused and then blacklisted by anti-abuse vendors, which will in turn render it 100% useless. That's the path all these disposable services took, including things like Private Relay, Firefox something, etc. Can't have nice things edit: typo
- yuvalkarmi 4y ago
  Also, did Private Relay actually get blacklisted?
  - asdadsdad 4y ago
    it got at least "detected" and provided as an API for people who query these things, and it does get filtered out as a kind of data center/low reputation IP class. But as with anything of this type, it's up to the client what to do with it. Most disposable infrastructure is not trustworthy for the exact reason that they don't associate an individual with a high-cost profile, i.e. at least a credible/high rep email, or an SMS-authed phone number, and so on. Of course there's always the argument that, if your revenue relies on defending against free-trial abuse, then maybe your product is not fit for a freemium model in the first place.
  - asdadsdad 4y ago
    case in point + big thread if you're interested in learning more about this stuff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32917671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32917671
- yuvalkarmi 4y ago
  lol, it does come off as a little harsh, but I do think it's reasonable to expect the main domain to get blacklisted at some point. Assuming there's some business model to figured out for this, alternative domains could always be added... For now I was just curious to put it out there and see how people respond / if it even gets used at all.