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Show HN: Posterity Automations – Get things done from the afterlife
Hey there HN – I'm Mohamed, CEO here at Posterity.
I've seen a lot of threads lately discussing how stuff can be transferred safely to significant others and spouses. A key aspect of that transfer is often timing, and the ability to only disclose information if and when necessary.
This is basically what Automations are about; web-hooks triggered in the event something happens, and which can serve as a reliable signal because we verify every death manually.
Today, it's available via IFTTT (https://ifttt.com/posterity https://ifttt.com/posterity), and we'll be launching standard HTTP web-hooks very soon as a follow up.
Hope you find this useful.
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- hirundo 4y agoI would like to pass along my master password and safe combination, but those would allow an attacker to help themselves to most of my estate. Is there a way to do that with your service that you feel includes sufficient security?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoCheck out https://posterity.life/planning/crypto-vault/ https://posterity.life/planning/crypto-vault/ It's E2E encrypted, and can only be opened by whoever you made a recovery key for after your death.
- taubek 4y agoThis is for USA only?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoFor the time being yes. It’s the only place where we know how to reliably verify someone’s death. What other country are you interested in?
- nivenkos 4y agoThe UK has a public register so should be easy if you want to expand. Sweden too IIRC - and there the population register is public too so you can even confirm with the identity number.
- soco 4y agoIn Germany the registrar of the birth place (or last address if born outside Germany) will be notified in case of death and can be asked. Your client would register his address, birth date and birth place with you anyway.
- DeathArrow 4y ago>It’s the only place where we know how to reliably verify someone’s death. No need to verify. You can modify the software to trigger if it doesn't receive periodic signals from someone.
- DJBunnies 4y agoThat is quite the opposite of verification/its intent.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoYeah, dead-man switches are risky when there’s a lot at stake and you forget your password. An alternative we’re considering is the death files published by the SSA if you provide us with your SSN.
- calicocoa 4y agoThis is really interesting. The site is very beautiful! I'm curious: let's say I'm 30 years old. How can I be sure that 'posterity.life' will be around if I live a full and long life. A _lot_ can change in fifty years. This seems like an obvious concern and I don't see it covered in your FAQ. This is not hypothetical. There are many similar (not identical) services that are no more. See SafeBeyond for one such example. What do you say to folks who wonder about whether their lives will be longer than that of this site?
- soco 4y agoI see a market opening: a service to track and manage the afterlife of afterlife services.
- yborg 4y agoThis. Unless you are a mayfly, you are highly likely to outlive any new business. Simpler approach is to have an executor have a way to access a password manager to be able to identify and close out online services.
- donclark 4y agoSeeing this makes me also think... why not offer a service that will lock down all finance, identity and other related services upon the event of a perceived attack? Sure, it would be worthless if it was too sensitive. I key feature would be that it could be unlocked in 5mins or less by an account holder.
- pksebben 4y agothis would be vulnerable to DOSing. Imagine me, your competition, with a finger over a button that can make your money useless for the next five minutes.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoThis is a good question. The way to think about us is more like a home insurance. When you purchase a policy, your home is covered if something happens to it for one year. When it expires, you can renew it again. If the insurance goes out of business, you can choose another carrier or find another alternative. It’s not so different with us. You purchase a subscription, and it covers you for one year if you pass away during that time, and you can renew it afterwards. The services we offer never extend more than 6 months after one’s passing, so you don’t have to really be worried about us being in business for more than 18 months after you become a user, which is really not excessive and in the ballpark of most other services you use. Edit — Typo.
- Edd314159 4y agoI'm fascinated by the pricing implication here. The older you are, and the more imminent your need for it, the cheaper it is!
- mohamedattahri 4y agoNot really; it would be the same as saying that leasing a car is cheaper if nearer to death than not. We're not a life insurance that you have to contribute to in exchange for a payout. We're a service that watches over you for one year to make sure your plan is revealed and shared with your loved ones.
- Edd314159 4y agoWell if you plan to lease the car for the rest of your life, however long that ends up being, then yes the number of years left in your life determines how much it is going to cost you. This comparison breaks down in a few ways: with the car, I realise the value of it immediately, as I get to drive it around, whereas for a service that only activates on my death, the value is only _potential_ until that actually happens. Also, I can terminate my car lease and feel OK about it, I have already realised value, it did its job. If I pay for this service for a year, but I don’t die, have I realised any value? Maybe marginally in the peace of mind I will feel while alive, but there’s no arguing that the optimal way for me (or more realistically, my estate) to get the most value for money is to buy just one year of service, and then kick the bucket in that same year? Edit: I’m not saying any of this necessarily wrong, it’s just a really interesting quirk of pricing incentives
- pmarreck 4y agoI couldn't help dark-laughing at "if dead, then that"
- reddevil7 4y agoLove it! haha
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoLove the idea ( played with similar concept, but could not push it past the design stage ) and the approach ( manual verification as opposed to say.. automatic email check ). I think you did the right way. Good luck!
- mohamedattahri 4y agoThanks!
- idlewords 4y agoThis kind of product/service is launched every few years, but unless users hurry they find they typically outlive them. It would be very interesting to see a post-mortem of the various "schedule stuff to happen after you die" projects, at least one of which I believe was YC funded.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agomost of those I've seen have been shut down your other services after you die, which is really a subset of schedule things after you die.
- idlewords 4y agoThe ones I'm thinking of were variations on "send these emails after my death is somehow confirmed"
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoactually it made me imagine scenarios of lifelong enemies sending a message every anniversary after their death - keeping seat for you in hell, don't dawdle!
- jeffbarr 4y agoTalk about testing in production. You have to die first to see if this triggers, and if not -- your automation becomes the ultimate in legacy code. Seriously, this is a very interesting idea. However, after losing both of my parents in the last 4 years, there's a sad but legitimate intermediate state between alive & well, and deceased. People lose their ability to function and make decisions on their own, might not be able to renew your service.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoI’m sorry for your loss. Your raise a very good point. Two things. (1) Incapacitation is something on our radar, and we really care about getting it right; (2) We put a lot of effort into making sharing and keeping people up to date as simple as possible, so they can reach out to us if there’s a problem.
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- neilv 4y agoAn answer I didn't see in the FAQ: why should someone rely on a tech startup to exist and function correctly after their death, for something important, usually decades later?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoI tried to answer a similar question above. Death may happen at anytime, and we provide coverage one year at a time. If we go out of business before, you have the time to make other arrangements. PS: Will definitely add to the FAQ.
- reddevil7 4y agoMuch needed service! Keep us posted please!
- dxuh 4y agoExcuse the harsh question, but how many people using this have actually died yet? As far as we know, you could just collect money and never trigger anything. It's also very hard to collect reviews for this service. I love the idea and I would like to have it, but I find it a hard sell to actually rely on it.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoVery legitimate on the contrary. Luckily enough, none. You can see how incentivized we are to really go above and beyond if something happens to one of our users; the loved ones we help are our best advocates.
- omoikane 4y ago"Never trigger anything" is actually not the worst outcome, compared to prematurely releasing your secrets, accidentally or intentionally.
- dxuh 4y agoYes, great point!
- replwoacause 4y agoThe “bring your own code” part is interesting, but what happens if there is a mistake in my code that causes one or more of my automations to fail to run? How do you ensure that user created code is in a functional state so that the purpose of the service is fully executed? If my code breaks and I’m dead, then some potentially very important (to me) stuff doesn’t happen?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoIt’s not different from a smart contract. Testing, low is the only remedy, and that can be simplified with a great toolkit, which we’ll be offering.
- WesleyJohnson 4y agoI worked with an Estate Attorney on a similar product that was geared towards shutting down other online services. We started down the path of trying to figure out which services would let loved ones assume ownership vs which would only let you deactivate the account and there were a lot of headaches along the way. The service eventually launched, but it never got much transaction. I believe the Attorney tried to get investors at one point to fund marketing and advertising and everyone felt like it was a good idea, but was worried about adoption. The funding never came and the service was shuttered. I still think it's a good idea if executed properly. Will have to give this a look.
- visviva 4y agoThis is probably a product of my current mindset, but I find the tagline "Get things done from the afterlife" hilariously grim - not only should I be obsessed with "getting things done" while I'm alive, but now I need to be productive after I die! edit: I should add that I actually like this idea, and I'll check it out further.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoHilarious and grim are two words I never imagined side by side, so just for this, I think it was worth it :) Jokes aside, it speaks to the need that many of our users have with regards to having agency in case of death, as opposed to productivity. Glad it caught your interest. Hope you give it a try.
- rundmc 4y agoMohammed, Connect with me on LinkedIN. We could be interested to include a posterity subscription for clients when we launch the US version of https://tontine.com https://tontine.com in the coming months. Cheers Dean
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- _yb2s 4y ago> Free 15-day trial, then $29.99/year Time to start taking those big risks I always wanted to take. There are some real savings here if I manage to die in the next two weeks, plus I can still keep getting things done! Will I need to keep paying to keep getting things done after I die? Can posterity automate that too? How can I cancel my service after death if it fails to deliver, or say, I, as a ghost become dissatisfied with it?
- agilob 4y ago>How can I cancel my service after death if it fails to deliver, or say, I, as a ghost become dissatisfied with it? I guess it should cancel subscription after a successful trigger? A self-killing business?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoYou don’t have to worry about that, we’re we’ll positioned to know if that happens, and the account is automatically memorialized with read only access to those you shared things with.
- crtasm 4y agoManual action needed to begin the process > We rely on a user’s circle of trusted contacts to let us know if something happened to them. It can be anyone they invited or nominated for a role on their account.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoAbsolutely, and by design. The only automated trigger we’re seriously considering is the social security master death records; if your SSN is there, means you passed away.
- discretion22 4y agoAre you really sure about that? https://faq.ssa.gov/en-US/Topic/article/KA-02917 https://faq.ssa.gov/en-US/Topic/article/KA-02917
- mohamedattahri 4y agoSSN theft is a real thing, but as far as automation goes, it's probably the safest in our opinion, and we'll obviously keep it optional. We think the most reliable way is your loved ones signaling it, so they can access your plan and all the stuff you wanted them to know.
- omoikane 4y agoSome services already have similar features that triggers on inactivity or death: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360 https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143 https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143
- RomanPushkin 4y agoI'd pay for the service that would post to my Facebook/Vkontakte/Telegram accounts afterlife. IFTTT is not very reliable IMO, since you can't control the tech once you dead. But if you have a script that human needs to follow whatever what, then it can convince me. Moreover, if the service periodically reminds me to write something to be posted later, it would probably work very well. In other words, my digital life is not around IFTTT, until IFTTT can guarantee on their side that everything is going to work as expected
- mohamedattahri 4y agoWe started with IFTTT to tap into their ecosystem, but webhooks with your own code is probably what you’re looking for.
- ibdf 4y agoIs this a one time trigger, or can you, for instance, periodically continue to annoy some folks by sending them a message or a photo? If, periodically, how does billing work then?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoThe trigger is a one-time event, and you can use it to start some other process than does things periodically. Billing stops if you pass away.
- ROTMetro 4y agoMy mom was a hippie, and she always promised me that after she died she'd figure out a way to tell me what it's like. I was in prison when she passed. Leading up to that first holidays after she passed sucked. Thanksgiving, horrible. Four months after her death, and approaching Xmas, I get a package at mail call. WTF? All of my family/friends had fallen off, so by that point it was only my mom who had still sent me letters. I open it, and it was a book on 'what the afterlife might look like'. She had figured out how to keep her word, and let me know what it was like after her passing. I don't know how it got shipped it came as an Amazon gift but with no identifying info. Her last 6 months she wasn't in a state to arrange anything, so she would have had to plan this like 10 months earlier. But having this gift, that was also an inside running kind of joke between us, oh man, that was so friggen awesome. I'm not doing great myself, and my boy just won't take it serious so we can communicate stuff so this will be super helpful. I have probably thousands of dollars just in re-sellable music software licenses that I need a way to communicate to him, and I can't even get him to bookmark a shared Google doc (funny how relationships go when you completely and utterly fail people and betray them by going to prison).
- doctorhandshake 4y agoThanks for sharing this.
- rundmc 4y agoYou are using a dead mans switch or another method to confirm death?
- joshperrin 4y agoDeath is manually verified, you can read about the process here: https://posterity.life/how/death-verification/ https://posterity.life/how/death-verification/
- prepend 4y agoI used to really like IFTTT. They changed. They turned off stuff that used to work and added different licenses. I would never rely on IFTTT to work in 5 years, much less 50. This is a neat idea, but it doesn’t seem like it will work when I really need it to.
- mohamedattahri 4y agoIFTTT is really the beginning. We’ll be rolling out webhooks, so hopefully, you can build something you can trust off of it. Edit: Typo.
- prepend 4y agoThat’s a good direction. I think you’ll need to deliver a core set of functions that you can promise to run. And describe all the ways you’ll guarantee it to run and even what happens when your company ceases to exist.
- anigbrowl 4y agoInteresting idea, although I'm not sure it's more effective than drafting a will and including the same information about passwords etc. - which is admittedly more difficult for non-technical users. How do you hedge against the risk of people using your service to commit posthumous crimes?
- mohamedattahri 4y agoInteresting question for jurists; can you commit a crime if you technically and legally don’t exist?
- anigbrowl 4y agoTechnically, I suppose the crime would be committed at the time the user configured the service to perform some action that would probably result in their arrest if alive. It just strikes me that you're sort-of automating the executorship process which might leave you holding the bag for a malicious customer.
- motohagiography 4y agoThis is a brilliant idea, and terrifying experiment, in finding out what people were harbouring to their deaths, and how they wanted to project back into the future some material change. Most of it will be to cause harm, and some of it will be so beautiful as to make tolerating the human smallness of the rest of it worthwhile, or so I'd venture.
- binarysneaker 4y agoTech has changed _a lot_ over the past few decades. Auth tokens expire. I'd be interested to hear how you're planning to future proof your solution.
- DonHopkins 4y agoThe Law And Order episode "Rapture" is about a web site that automatically sends out its client's pre-written confessional and gloating emails after the Rapture takes place, which it cleverly detects when the two owners don't check in after a certain amount of time. Unfortunately they both die due to other less supernatural circumstances, the emails are triggered prematurely, and all hell breaks loose! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LawAndOrderS19E14Rapture https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LawAndOrderS19E... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343619/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343619/