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It is moderately annoying one has to sign up (and give one's email etc) to even see the product in action. Why couldn't they put up a public demo where all your

It is moderately annoying one has to sign up (and give one's email etc) to even see the product in action. Why couldn't they put up a public demo where all your work is shared/can't be saved just to check it out. The fact one has to sign up to see the product in action says to me they either lack confidence in their product, or are desperate to monetise everyone who wants to check it out. I've been waiting for some product to invent a painless way to sketch 3d objects with a touch interface for years.

tkk23 4y ago
>I've been waiting for some product to invent a painless way to sketch 3d objects Do you know https://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/ https://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/? It is open source [1] so you could adjust it to your needs. [1] https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl
kuroguro 4y ago
The only thing worse than that is discovering you need chrome after you've given your email away.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gt585 4y ago
  I know- we hate it too. But we had to double down on the browser our userbase uses. We’re working to get it to more browsers as fast as we can!
  - kuroguro 4y ago
    No worries, HN has a way of making me jump on the band wagon of criticizing things. Figured that's probably the case shortly after posting the comment. Best of luck w/ the project, looks awesome from the videos :)
- FractalHQ 4y ago
  Just use Brave (and don’t press any crypto related buttons if they offend you for some contrived reason)
moron4hire 4y ago
Because, if they did that, they wouldn't get your email address. How could you even consider such a thing? /s
funstuff007 4y ago
For a consumer product this practice is indeed annoying. For a B2B or B2B2C product, it helps weed out the hobbyists and nosy competitors.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Competitors don't have an issue creating dummy accounts to test who they are up against.
  - funstuff007 4y ago
    dummy accounts that have corporate email domains? While not impossible, it's a non-trivial hurdle.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Why do you want to bother with that, fake emails are a dime a dozen, no need to bring the real corporation into the picture.
      - funstuff007 4y ago
        see above > For a B2B or B2B2C product
        pjmlp 4y ago
        So what? I don't need a company email to extract the information I care about. Never did research for competition when replying to RFPs?
wolframhempel 4y ago
This attitude really bothers me. I have no affiliation with Womp, but from the looks of it, it's a cool product made by a small team. And they are giving it out for free - literally for free. But free still isn't enough. Even the notion to get some contact data in the hope that some subset of subscribers might be willing to pay for it in the future is somehow insulting to you. Instead, you want the transaction to be completely one sided: "give me stuff and get nothing back". "But if they had confidence in their product, they would just make it open and people would try it out. And if they like it, they might buy it later!" - Right? Wrong! People have increasingly short memories. Even if they like it now, by the time it makes it out of alpha, they'll long be chasing the next, shiny thing. So you have to keep the link alive to follow up on it. That's just good business. So how about you have some sympathy for the talented people who put this together and give them the chance to follow up in a few months on the off chance that this is something you might be willing to use properly?
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > And they are giving it out for free - literally for free. Not free of friction, that's for sure. Do you want every service out there, free or not free, to ask you to sign up to access everything?
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  How about they make the app completely frictionless to try out, and then charge money for it? I don't want to sign up for something before I try it, but if I'm using something I don't mind paying for it Problem solved
- scsh 4y ago
  I felt the same about having to signup to even see it do something. It's really not about THIS particular product or the people behind it. It's just that I'm expected to do this with seemingly ever new thing that I want to interact with. It's become so common that, for me, the signup gate becomes a decision point where I ask myself "Do I really care/want to see this?". The answer is no a non-zero amount of times and I do bounce off it at that point. I do get the desire for them to want an audience to give updates to and try to have a consistent user base. The thing that sucks is that not only do they want to email me, so does everyone else. I've never been very protective of my inbox but the volume has gotten crazy recently so that's had to change. If they let me in and then asked for my email to continue after a couple minutes I'd be more inclined to provide it.

tkk23 4y ago

>I've been waiting for some product to invent a painless way to sketch 3d objects Do you know https://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/ https://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/? It is open source [1] so you could adjust it to your needs. [1] https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl https://github.com/stephomi/sculptgl

kuroguro 4y ago

The only thing worse than that is discovering you need chrome after you've given your email away.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gt585 4y ago
I know- we hate it too. But we had to double down on the browser our userbase uses. We’re working to get it to more browsers as fast as we can!
- kuroguro 4y ago
  No worries, HN has a way of making me jump on the band wagon of criticizing things. Figured that's probably the case shortly after posting the comment. Best of luck w/ the project, looks awesome from the videos :)
FractalHQ 4y ago
Just use Brave (and don’t press any crypto related buttons if they offend you for some contrived reason)

moron4hire 4y ago

Because, if they did that, they wouldn't get your email address. How could you even consider such a thing? /s

funstuff007 4y ago

For a consumer product this practice is indeed annoying. For a B2B or B2B2C product, it helps weed out the hobbyists and nosy competitors.

pjmlp 4y ago
Competitors don't have an issue creating dummy accounts to test who they are up against.
- funstuff007 4y ago
  dummy accounts that have corporate email domains? While not impossible, it's a non-trivial hurdle.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Why do you want to bother with that, fake emails are a dime a dozen, no need to bring the real corporation into the picture.
    - funstuff007 4y ago
      see above > For a B2B or B2B2C product
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        So what? I don't need a company email to extract the information I care about. Never did research for competition when replying to RFPs?

wolframhempel 4y ago

This attitude really bothers me. I have no affiliation with Womp, but from the looks of it, it's a cool product made by a small team. And they are giving it out for free - literally for free. But free still isn't enough. Even the notion to get some contact data in the hope that some subset of subscribers might be willing to pay for it in the future is somehow insulting to you. Instead, you want the transaction to be completely one sided: "give me stuff and get nothing back". "But if they had confidence in their product, they would just make it open and people would try it out. And if they like it, they might buy it later!" - Right? Wrong! People have increasingly short memories. Even if they like it now, by the time it makes it out of alpha, they'll long be chasing the next, shiny thing. So you have to keep the link alive to follow up on it. That's just good business. So how about you have some sympathy for the talented people who put this together and give them the chance to follow up in a few months on the off chance that this is something you might be willing to use properly?

ekianjo 4y ago
> And they are giving it out for free - literally for free. Not free of friction, that's for sure. Do you want every service out there, free or not free, to ask you to sign up to access everything?
Firmwarrior 4y ago
How about they make the app completely frictionless to try out, and then charge money for it? I don't want to sign up for something before I try it, but if I'm using something I don't mind paying for it Problem solved
scsh 4y ago
I felt the same about having to signup to even see it do something. It's really not about THIS particular product or the people behind it. It's just that I'm expected to do this with seemingly ever new thing that I want to interact with. It's become so common that, for me, the signup gate becomes a decision point where I ask myself "Do I really care/want to see this?". The answer is no a non-zero amount of times and I do bounce off it at that point. I do get the desire for them to want an audience to give updates to and try to have a consistent user base. The thing that sucks is that not only do they want to email me, so does everyone else. I've never been very protective of my inbox but the volume has gotten crazy recently so that's had to change. If they let me in and then asked for my email to continue after a couple minutes I'd be more inclined to provide it.