14 ms·

Show HN: Seven39, a social media app that is only open for 3 hours every evening

• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• duxup 2y ago
  When I lost my job the local unemployment office website would “close” outside of real world office hours. I thought that was annoying but also amusing. I do really like this idea. If anything I want more limited, but also more genuine social media.
  • ripped_britches 2y ago
    Federal EIN registration site does this as well
  • mklyons 2y ago
    My college's class scheduling website also had hours of operation. One of the rumors was that it would stop students from drunkenly dropping all of their classes, but the real truth was that it was based on an old system that needed to process things overnight and they couldn't get funding to modernize it. This was UMD -- it was notorious when I was there for being annoying but still cracks me up. Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I do think it could have some cool dynamics but that is what I'm testing right now.
  • kortilla 2y ago
    The US social security administration site did (and still might) do this as well. Likely to enable batch processing in the evening without dealing with sync issues
    • silisili 2y ago
      Wouldn't surprise me at all. One day we'll have the manpower and brains to figure out how to just have out of hour entries added to the next day's batch.
  • jug 2y ago
    I know a bank in Sweden that does _not_ do this and apparently runs various batch jobs at something like 1-3 am. So, one night I made a transaction to it and it looked just fine in the app, then it was mysteriously gone in the morning! On the receiving side; my cash had still been withdrawn! I called the support and we eventually realized that no, you shouldn't do transfers at 2 am on a Saturday because it's likely to fail and then we have to wait for the weekend to be over for them to reappear. I was like... "Alright, thanks. But maybe you should close your app these hours..." The software engineer within me shudders at the thought of running batch jobs in production while there are ongoing transactions, and where conflicts can and are fully expected to happen.
    • Tijdreiziger 2y ago
      Which bank was it?
• xnx 2y ago
  I'm not sure about the time window, but I am experimenting with an offline once-a-day digest version of Instagram. Might deliver it by email.
  • bloomingkales 2y ago
    The time window makes it an event. I think this is a sleeper hit. Believe it or not, there is a market for creating eventful lives (especially remote ones).
  • leonhard 2y ago
    do you have a repo or some starting points already? Would love something like that but always found it too annoying to figure out how to scrape it properly. (I’d especially like story summaries.)
    • xnx 2y ago
      This is what does all the work: https://instaloader.github.io/ https://instaloader.github.io/ (not my code)
  • ddejohn 2y ago
    > I'm not sure about the time window To me it just sounds like popping down to the pub for a couple pints. I love the idea.
• pbreit 2y ago
  Restrictions, ftw!
  • magicmicah85 2y ago
    lol. I refreshed and suddenly cows everywhere.
  • mklyons 2y ago
    It was only a matter of time before that happened.
• danpalmer 2y ago
  It's an interesting idea, but if it's only open at a convenient time for a particular group, it's going to lack diverse and worldwide perspectives, and those are important for building a welcoming ecosystem. I doubt giving each timezone its own 3 hours would work, but perhaps rotating the 3 hours each day so that it's anchored on a different timezone would encourage that diversity of content and perhaps even encourage creating connections across timezones. That said, if you've had success with it in a friend group, perhaps that suggests it's a nice mechanism for a group chat app, rather than for a public social media site?
  • Shawnj2 2y ago
    I kind of like the idea of a regional social media app which literally doesn’t work in other parts of the world. It makes the space a little more special than something trying to reach everyone IMO
    • devilbunny 2y ago
      At the extreme level of “regional”, that’s Nextdoor.
      • Shawnj2 2y ago
        Sure but Nextdoor is still a huge business trying to reach the widest possible audience of local areas. Something limited by if you’re awake when it’s up is different IMO
        • mattl 2y ago
          Night workers or shift workers would have a different take on it. They’d be the ones posting in your area maybe?
          • Shawnj2 2y ago
            I mean night workers also don’t get to do other traditional evening events like go to a concert or bar so this doesn’t bother me. Night workers in nearby time zones would be able to use it either before or after their shift depending on their location
• kassairan 2y ago
  It would also be interesting to have a one-comment-a-day policy for each user, which might extend the novelty of this
• magicmicah85 2y ago
  I had this idea before and thought it’s too silly but as a social experiment this could become a hit. Implement rate limiting asap though. :)
  • mklyons 2y ago
    haha I'm with you on the too silly side of it, but I have some time to run the experiment and see where I can go with it. Yes, was not expecting it to hit as much of an audience as it did at the end there. Definitely need some mechanisms to stop the spam it saw at the end.
• allenu 2y ago
  Neat idea. I always thought it would be interesting to have social media with limitations of some sort, such as limiting number of posts per day per person (to discourage people hanging out on the site too much or overwhelming followers with their posts), but I never considered limiting the time someone can access the feed. Have you experimented with other limitations?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• mpalmer 2y ago
  Naturally I show up at 10:38
• sandboxdev 2y ago
  I love this idea!
• CamelCaseName 2y ago
  Alright, back to regular life now. See you all tomorrow.
• pogue 2y ago
  We already have this on Bluesky. Everyone is basically in bed by 9pm! Why make an entirely new social media network for this and just make it a timed client for ATProto or ActivityPub?
• btbuildem 2y ago
  Interesting idea! BTW, it shows now: > seven39 is currently closed > Opens in -4h -3m I think the negative numbers might be a bug?
  • mklyons 2y ago
    Ah, just fixed this! Should say 20h now. It was an issue yesterday but I just let Cursor write something without checking.
    • shermantanktop 2y ago
      I think we’ll be seeing this explanation more and more…
    • croddin 2y ago
      I think there is still an issue. I think it is counting down to the next 7:39 local time. Right now it says opens in 22h 50m for me (I am in mountain time) (this was at 8:49 MST / 10:49 EST)
    • wiseStab 2y ago
      There still an issue, it is showing me 'Opens in 35h 8m'
• SoftTalker 2y ago
  Yeah I have thought about websites having "business hours" also. So support staff don't have to worry about getting a call or text message at 0200 that something isn't working... just fix it in the morning.
  • adolph 2y ago
    B&H famously closes online checkout weekly: Online Checkout Open 24/6 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/StoreInfo.jsp
    • Duanemclemore 2y ago
      IIRC it's because the owners are Jewish and observing the Sabbath. I grew up in an area with a lot of observant christians who refused to work on Sunday but forced employees to (unless you belonged to their church of course). So making a rule in contrast that what's good enough for me is good enough for my employees is preferable if you ask me!
  • eru 2y ago
    This sucks for anyone in a different timezone.
    • jjulius 2y ago
      Depends entirely upon the issue and the urgency. Hell, I'd wager we could all use a bit more patience and a bit less of everything being so instantaneous.
      • eru 2y ago
        > Depends entirely upon the issue and the urgency. You could delay everything by a few hours or a day between submitting a post and publishing it. I'm talking about the inconvenience of potentially having to get up at 3am to see what your dad posted. All that said, I think someone should definitely try this idea out, and people can decide for themselves whether they want to us it. I also thought that Twitter's character limit was stupid, but Twitter really took off.
• 6stringmerc 2y ago
  Clever experiment and looking forward to participating, hope it’s educational and a worthwhile undertaking in the short and long term!
• qntmfred 2y ago
  make it livestream only
• locusofself 2y ago
  I found myself wasting way too much time, mostly on social media (really disappointing that Instagram, YouTube and Facebook all turned into TikTok-style short form content with endless scroll). I now use Freedom (freedom.to) on all of my devices to block myself from all of these sites until 8pm every day. I've been getting more work done, and reading more books.
• locusofself 2y ago
  I've definitely considered trying to create a social media website that only allows you to connect with, say 150 people (Dunbar number), and only allows you to make one or two posts per day.
  • khimaros 2y ago
    i would pay for this
  • sksksk 2y ago
    There was a social network called Path, that was this concept, you could only have 50 friends on the network. It was a really nice app, but they just couldn't make it work. I have an idea kicking round the back of my head... when I was a teenager I ran a php forum on a shared server. I shared it with my school friends, and we had about 30 regular members on it. It turned into a full blown social network, we'd have our own memes, we'd talk about who's going to the school disco, make jokes etc... It was really nice, there was no monetization, no ads, the "feed" was chronological, no bots, or spammers. I also used it to learn programming, reading and modifying the code to add our own features. My idea is an open source social network. Completely customisable. It wouldn't be designed to scale up past a couple of hundred users. You'd host it yourself (on aws, heroku or similar), and would be completely in control of the instance.
    • prmoustache 2y ago
      You can do that already with many open source tools, disabling federation from those using activity pub and blocking new sign ups once the user number has reached you desired limit. The reality is things do not work like that, even to maintain a small community forum you need a small but constant influx of new users as people regularly just disappear/leave as in any social group. The real challenge is to let decent human people join without the trolls, bots and scammers.
  • _kyran 2y ago
    This was the concept behind Path.
• adolph 2y ago
  > It is just based on EST for now, sorry. What happens during dailight savings time?
  • deathanatos 2y ago
    … you know we're in DST right now¹ … right? I still haven't recovered my sleep schedule. And it appears that it gets the time wrong: > Current time: 11:56:29 AM EST It's currently 11:56a EDT, or 10:56a EST. (¹at least in America. If you're international, well, I guess that's the answer.)
• gsky 2y ago
  "Opens in 35h+" On what planet a day is 35h long?
  • GreenWatermelon 2y ago
    38h 30m for me, only seven minutes after you posted your comment. I guess OP is having some hard time with date calculations :D
    • mklyons 2y ago
      Lol I am honestly. I just changed it to 7:39pm EST tomorrow but that won't even be right in EST for much longer...
  • davidjytang 2y ago
    Venus or Mercury.
• askmike 2y ago
  Reminds me of MSN back in the day. When I was a kid, there was a big trend of rushing home after school to log into this chat messenger on the computer, everyone would be online for a couple of hours at least.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • doublerabbit 2y ago
    Home from school at 4, tv for an hour, pc at six then dinner at 7pm and bed at eight. I miss the MSN days.
• acheron 2y ago
  That’s fine. Eastern should be the only time zone anyway, all other time zones are just kidding themselves.
• vivzkestrel 2y ago
  you should start with 24 hrs a day of runtime, for every 1000 users cut 1 minute off the operation time so that by the time you reach 1 million users, 1000 minutes are off and it runs only 440 minutes a day
• postalrat 2y ago
  Divide the earth in four days and each day in four to give each user 3/2 hours to interactive with the past 6.
• xnx 2y ago
  Sounds like a variant of the "BeReal" concept: "Its main feature is a daily notification that encourages users to share photos of themselves with friends in their day-to-day life, given a randomly selected two-minute window every day." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeReal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeReal
  • NoPicklez 2y ago
    Having used it, BeReal sort've gets close to this, but in reality people are posting the entire day after that two-minute window and people can still react to your photos throughout the day. Not everyone ends up posting within that two minute window and the only "punishment" for not doing so is that it just says they posted late. BeReal is a great concept regardless, just pointing out the differences and the realities of it.
    • ehsankia 2y ago
      Most people I know are definitely not on top of their notifications like that. I'd be lucky if they respond to my texts within an hour. Even I who am on top of my notifications still somehow miss it sometimes, either because the phone was on the table or I just didn't feel the vibration. That being said, I like it as a way to just journal a picture a day, even without any contacts in the app.
      • NoPicklez 2y ago
        I like the idea that you need to contribute a post before you can see other peoples posts and some of the controls around having to post something in the moment instead of something curated.
• maineagetter 2y ago
  [dead]
• mtillman 2y ago
  I love internet concepts like this. Just silly fun experiments. This one appears to exclude anyone in a relationship in almost every US timezone.
• CaffeineLD50 2y ago
  A clever idea. Has anyone tried it?
• kelseydh 2y ago
  Tricky hours for guy like me in Western Australia.
  • OccamsMirror 2y ago
    Ditto here. Pretty common experience for a Western Australian though. "Hey wow that looks like an amazing webinar!" Instant disappointment when I see the hours. Isolated in time and distance.
• cb33 2y ago
  Make a separate instance/subdomain for each timezone
• deadbabe 2y ago
  I have thought about this concept of websites only available at certain hours, but for people's more prurient interests... Imagine something like OnlyFans except instead of being accessible 24/7 for anyone to see at any time, it's only accessible at very late hours, possibly midnight to 4 AM, etc, in your time zone or whatever time zone you wish. In some cases, your content might only be available on certain days of the week. A neat side effect of this is that if for instance you have a respectable job, but also want to do some debauchery online on the side, no one can simply go see your stuff without respecting the time zone. That means employers aren't going to be looking you up during business hours or your grandma isn't going to accidentally open up links in the middle of the day leading to your spicy content. Stalking someone online becomes a little more complicated because you now have to wait for their content to become accessible. And if someone does see your content, you know it's because they put in the effort to be there when it opens, which can be embarrassing for them to admit. We take it for granted that information about someone is constantly available online once posted but I think the next big trends is going to be these sort of inaccessibility controls, that are not based on money. Before you go trying to make this a business though, keep in mind a big player like OnlyFans can just make this a feature in a weekend, if they haven't already.
• FrequentLurker 2y ago
  Time zones are a problem. It will be 5am for me next time this will be open which is too early but since it opens for 3 hours, I might be able to check in for the second half of the remaining time.
  • ra 2y ago
    This is a huge problem that could be solved by using local timezones instead of just EST.
    • assanineass 2y ago
      [dead]
    • homodyne 2y ago
      [dead]
• appleaday1 2y ago
  I made a AskHN thread about building a social network, and one of the things I was asking is that we want to initially keep things constrained to North America or this time region if possible.
• AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  I’m East Coast so that works for me I love the idea if time boxed experiences so I signed up.
• huevosabio 2y ago
  Ahhhh a friend and I created a similar idea for startup weekend back in 2014. It was called Let's Get Weird. App would open only from 11p to 4a You were be able to chat and share pics only with nearby people Selfies were upside down, because why not At the end of the day period, pics, chats every thing got deleted and it was a blank slate the next day
  • deceptive-footy 2y ago
    What did you learn from running that site?
    • kriulockstein 2y ago
      [dead]
  • KurSix 2y ago
    Did you ever launch it, or was it just a fun weekend project?
    • huevosabio 2y ago
      Unfortunately just like a weekend with weak follow up for a couple of weeks
  • bloomingkales 2y ago
    You were be able to chat and share pics only with nearby people I like how this is considered weird. Like, yeah, let’s talk and share our pictures globally in an instant to people we don’t know.
• exikyut 2y ago
  It would [still] be really cool if this opened between 7:39-10:39 in the user's local timezone.
• furyofantares 2y ago
  Going perhaps even further in this direction, the 3 hour window could shift by an hour every day. All the other solutions I see to the time zone problem are pushing the idea in the opposite direction, back a little toward normalcy, and have their own problems anyway (eg power users who just run multiple accounts and are the ones doing a lot of posting). A shifting window would be even more "slow internet". Of course it would be a different vibe; you'd have stuff to catch up on the days it's in prime time for you. As-is it seems like it'd have more of a real-time vibe.
  • Waterluvian 2y ago
    I love this idea. The eclipse is coming around again. Don’t miss it!
  • nicce 2y ago
    First we create the problem with modern social media and then we solve it with old-school forums.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• setnone 2y ago
  Not bad, availability is pretty low but how about gratification? Is it delayed enough on there?
• dostick 2y ago
  If it’s EST fixed, it is a biggest feature and should be in the name; “for US East Coast”, so you don’t mislead rest of the world.
• nout 2y ago
  I think the timezones issue can be solved by the user just initially picking their timezone and it stays sticky and you can't change it (maybe for a fee you could = some income for hosting...). The nice part would be that people from 3 timezones would be vibing together for 1hr...
  • dingaling 2y ago
    That would be very inconvenient for people on a rotating shift cycle.
    • nout 2y ago
      That's true and maybe that's still a worthy compromise. The point that adds any value to this is the time restriction and if the restriction is removed, then what's the point?
• andsoitis 2y ago
  > test if a time boxed social media experience feels better than an endless one What is your hypothesis(es)? That social media would be better if chats were synchronous rather than asynchronous? That the system can help people better balance between time spend in the virtual world and the physical world? Or something else?
  • mklyons 2y ago
    That's pretty close to what I'm thinking. If you remove the endless, always-on nature of social media, could it create better content and better experiences? "Better" is subjective of course, so it is hard to have a tight hypothesis.
    • andsoitis 2y ago
      > could it create better content and better experiences? "Better" is subjective of course, so it is hard to have a tight hypothesis. Worth thinking about what metrics you think reflects “better” (content, experience). Something that measures quality of engagement. Retention should work. One thing you’ll be up against is that thoughts don’t keep office hours, but someone might still want to share with their circle. You could consider creating a holding pen for things a user comes up with - they can record it, but it doesn’t flow yet. That also gives cooling off period which I bet could simultaneously give the satisfaction of immediate gratification (writing it down) and quality content (reflect before post).
• dailykoder 2y ago
  Fun fact: If you don't open a social media account, then you will most likely not spend hours on their apps. Sounds really fucking crazy, but it's true. I tested it myself!
  • KurSix 2y ago
    Wild experiment! I've heard rumors that deleting the apps also helps, but that might just be a conspiracy theory
  • truncate 2y ago
    I didn't go as far as deleting my account, but just deleting Instagram/YT apps from my phone pretty much got my reel/shorts scrolling to 0/day (I already had notifications off for years). And by just deleting apps on my phone, I'm somehow don't end up using them on laptop as well. I think phone makes it easy for brain to remember and keep the habit.
    • bcraven 2y ago
      By using ReVanced[0] I have completely patched Shorts, adverts, and Comments from YouTube. It's even added SponsorBlock. I can open YT, watch a video, then close it again without all the attention-diverting crap that's usually present. I'd _highly_ recommend it to anyone with an Android phone. [0]https://revanced.app/ https://revanced.app/
  • hashmush 2y ago
    You know what? I've noticed the same thing with eating snacks etc., if you don't buy any, you won't eat any. It's amazing!
    • zhshdbdb 2y ago
      Doesn't work that way for me. Not having snacks in the house reduces the average amount of snacks to a minimum. It however causes cravings sometimes which result in binges
    • deleted 2y ago
• jsfunfun 2y ago
  i hate this idea. 3hrs a day? go live in a 3rd country and spin this as a benefit cool idea
  • idop 2y ago
    > i hate this idea lol > 3rd country lol > benefit cool idea lol
  • anti-soyboy 2y ago
    Sure in the third world you can fuck much more without expending so much time talking nosense on apps
• homodyne 2y ago
  It is officially EDT.
• simonkagedal 2y ago
  I think it's a really cool idea. I signed up because I had a brain fart and thought that "EST" was "European Standard Time" (I was of course thinking of CET). So yeah, the current window wouldn't work for me, but that's fine. Everything doesn't have to be for everyone. We all live in our bubbles anyway; creating artificial rules could actually be ways of creating new, unexpected interactions. This being said – if you were to adjust the rules to accommodate more people, I don't think it should be "open from 7:39 to 10:39 in whatever your local time zone is", because that feels like it would just destroy the whole idea – that everyone is there at the _same_ time. Also, it would still exclude people who work evenings. An alternative solution would be to have multiple windows. For example, if you have one starting at 7:39 PM EST and another one at 7:39 AM EST, there would be more chances that there is some time during the day for people around the globe to check in. Depending, of course, on many things: time zones, sleep habits, work schedule, ability to briefly slack off during work, etc. It would remain true to the idea while opening up for some more people. Just a thought. I also think each window could be smaller, maybe like just one hour?
  • josephg 2y ago
    > So yeah, the current window wouldn't work for me, but that's fine. Everything doesn't have to be for everyone. We all live in our bubbles anyway; creating artificial rules could actually be ways of creating new, unexpected interactions. I like the idea that something like this could be open for 3 hours in the evening local time. Like, you'd get totally different communities coming on at different times, and having completely separate experiences together. But some other people would bridge the gap. While you're online, every hour some people would be forced to leave and some other people could join.
    • StefanBatory 2y ago
      It was always a small source of joy on Discord to see Americans getting on the server while East Asians would go to sleep, with us Europeans being in the middle. It always feels so cute for some reason I can't explain, but I do love that every time.
• webcoon 2y ago
  Not doing it for me here in Germany
• ehecatl42 2y ago
  > based on EST for now LOL. Keep it that way. It's always some time at some point on the planet (so I've been told).
• asdfman123 2y ago
  Fwiw, I created a web based two factor authentication app that's open for 30 minute chunks at certain parts of the day, and you're all welcome to use it. Only downside is you have to share 2FA secrets on my server. I wonder if I should consider making one that's completely encrypted. (I trust me, but you shouldn't trust a stranger.) (It's web based because I only use my work phone and they won't allow me to put my own apps on it.)
• lynnharry 2y ago
  This sort of works like Twitch chat. People in the same community login when the streamer is online.
  • bloomingkales 2y ago
    Almost like the kids are tuning into an episode of Pokemans everyday. I mean, they are mostly kids right? The content creators make children’s tv shows basically, it’s after-school programming.
• KurSix 2y ago
  Curious if it actually helps people feel more connected or if they just end up checking other apps instead
• lemax 2y ago
  It could be interesting to host several isolated versions open at different times, maybe a Nine39, a Five39? But you can only sign up for one.
• simultsop 2y ago
  I don't believe any platform will be able to gain massive trust anymore. After facebook had all possibilities and resources and yet failed to provide. All niche solutions end up on the giant whale's stomach after awhile.
• redbell 2y ago
  > Social media that's only open from 7:39pm to 10:39pm EST. Hilariously, this reminds me of a governmental department that was hosting its server in-house as a simple PC and available only during working hours (9am-5pm), so when the staff left, they turned it off.
• bitxbitxbitcoin 2y ago
  Like a bar you can only go to during a weirdly times happy hour. Wishing you luck! Maybe scarcity is what was needed for third spaces to come back.
• improbableinf 2y ago
  Great idea, but it should be open 24/7 with eight 3-hour windows. One account can only use a single window during the 24-hour period. This will handle the timezone differences.
  • neumann 2y ago
    genius! [edit] I realised as soon as I pressed send that immediately there will be a service that let's you open 8 accounts and seamlessly operate them as a single one.
    • improbableinf 2y ago
      That can be a paid feature for business accounts
      • latexr 2y ago
        Thus immediately killing anything good about the project. It’s barely been announced and we’re already brainstorming the shortest path to enshittification. Things are allowed to exist for fun, most things don’t have to (or should) be concentrated on profit.
  • stevage 2y ago
    The better way would be to choose a time slot when you sign up. Then you always socialise within that slot. Allowing you to use any time any day kills the concept.
    • d1sxeyes 2y ago
      I think you could also be allowed to modify your “three hour slot” up to 24 hours in advance somehow. That way you can handle travelling and relocation without allowing people to game the system and extend their slot to 6 hours or some other weird thing you didn’t anticipate.
      • stevage 2y ago
• 0xEF 2y ago
  What if we took a note from the BBS & time-share days of network computing and used a credits system rather than being open for specific hours? Users make content, get credits to spent on minutes of platform use whenever they wish, etc.
  • Miraltar 2y ago
    I think the idea is to bring everyone at the same time more than just restricting uptime
    • 0xEF 2y ago
      I'm not sure what the goal of that would be and it seems like it would be taxing on the service, if your target audience is global. Asynchronous platforms make sense in a lot of ways, but I am not a strong developer and just speculating from my own experience as a user. What are your thoughts on what the benefits would be to having all users active only during certain hours?
      • Miraltar 2y ago
        Having real time interactions gives a very different feel, it's a little like entering a local pub with bustling activity I guess. In my university years I used an anonymous social app called jodel that would show recent posts in your area. And it kinda had this special vibe, everyday around 8am someone would post a weather forecast for the day and people would greet each other and this type of stuff. Having everybody on the same timeline makes interactions different. And you can have real-time conversations too, which makes me less prone to endless scrolling and more proactive in my use of the app
• nottorp 2y ago
  The problem is you're deciding when other people have free time for them. Maybe people spend time with friends/family in the evening :)
• kotik11 2y ago
  Interesting idea. Among my projects, there's a website blocker, and wasting time on social media is really one of the pain points for many people. I’m curious to see the statistics of your approach over time. It’s hard to believe that people would initially go on social media with restrictions, but who knows. Keep updated!
• mhosayny 2y ago
  Smart naming
• jeswin 2y ago
  This is a fantastic idea. It reminded me of the Dispo app (not sure if people use it anymore) where pictures you take show up only the next day morning. It might be alright to let people pick their preferred 3 hours, and maybe they can change it once a week. Having said that, apps which have tried to slow people down haven't been too successful. People on HN might like it more than the general population.
• bluebarbet 2y ago
  Great effort. But I will make the obvious point that does not seem very fashionable these days. What if we chose instead to cultivate self-discipline? This project is a technical fix to a human problem, but human problems can also be addressed with human solutions. Is there no value in doing things the time-honored way? Personally, I'm not addicted to social media but I do have a sweet tooth. The classic hack here is not to have sugary things in the home, or only in such small quantities as to neutralize the problem. But these technical fixes are expensive. Restaurant desserts are poor value compared to an industrial-sized pot of Nutella, consumed slowly. Well, I've discovered that, with practice and determination, and of course some rules about quantities and time windows, it is in fact possible to resist temptation, even when it's sitting right in front of me all day. Personally, I find this human solution to be liberating and empowering.
  • tossandthrow 2y ago
    > What if we chose instead to cultivate self-discipline? I think that it can not be understated just how much self disciplin moderne people living in moderne societies are possessing. Try to compare how moderne adult people react to sweets, social media, etc. compared to kids and children. Continuing pushing this on the individual does not work. This is like saying that you can become multi billionaire by not getting star bucks.
    • bluebarbet 2y ago
      This makes me feel even more self-satisfied! But yes, very fair point that I had not fully considered.
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  • deleted 2y ago
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  • nither 2y ago
    I agree with you. People using this kind of service likely already have some self-awareness about their social media habits. In the end, self-discipline and personal boundaries might be a better solution than relying on external tools. But I think we can also consider this as another approach to finding a better solution.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• hmans 2y ago
  [dead]
• wenc 2y ago
  If you’re trying to monetize, realize that a feature is not a product. The product is the network. The restricted window is a feature. I can already achieve this with screen time and leechblock. But no quibbles if it’s just hobby project.
• blogabegonija 2y ago
  It's a bit like making a rave with headphones instead of soundsystem. Feels like missing the point of sociality.
• thih9 2y ago
  I prefer to set these kind of constraints on my device and for the hours that work for me. This way I can even pick different hours on different days or not pick hours at all and constrain the time, or do something else. Also, social media platforms are already pretty good for async communication.
• caseyy 2y ago
  I wish someone made social media where everyone gets one post every day. Almost no person on this planet has more than one bit of news to share daily with their extended social network — probably not even the countries' leaders. When accounts share every 10 minutes, it's often spam or some inorganic agenda. Oversharing in natural social networks is penalized heavily, and for good reason - with too much noise and little signal, people get overwhelmed, fear missing out, and cannot agree on anything. Communication becomes a detriment and a chore to the social group. The social group expects everyone to think before they speak, not just blabber endlessly, which is healthy. Also, replacing the "Like" button/signal with a "Thanks" signal would be good because it'd be better to build a social network based on what people find helpful rather than on what people approve of. I think this was originally Jack Dorsey's idea, not my own.
  • Pedro_Ribeiro 2y ago
    I think you're just describing BeReal, which went viral but kind of died out.
    • cyanydeez 2y ago
      The "problem" with most social media is the same with F2P games: they require whales to keep them relevant
      • caseyy 2y ago
        The critical mass problem is only insurmountable for social media that seeks to connect people globally. Locally, you never notice this problem. For example, in your typical gaming clan Discord server, a tenement building's WhatsApp/email group, or a small town's quarterly town hall meeting. It only takes a handful of people in such social groups for the group to serve its purpose. Indeed, TheFacebook easily reached its critical mass when it was limited to Harvard College. Hacker News would work just as well with 500 monthly readers as it does with 5,000,000+ currently. Whales, celebrity influencers (whether from out-of-network or homegrown celebrities), and other such things are only needed to compete with the social media giants today. But if you don't wish to compete and want to serve a small community, then this is not a problem.
• worksonmine 2y ago
  I like the idea of limiting screen time, but not even people living in the same timezone share habits. I can see this becoming more addictive than the alternatives since it might trigger a need to be active during the very specific window.
• julieturner99 2y ago
  speaking of social media with constraints, Minus (100 posts for life) is still around at https://minus.social https://minus.social
• Tepix 2y ago
  As a european user, i think you should use the IP address of the user to determin the time zone and have an opening time for every time zone!
  • imdsm 2y ago
    We could go one better and have it open 24/7! /s
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    For the love of all that's holy, never ever ever use the user's IP address to determine their locale, language preferences or anything similar. It works for the majority of the users and is an absolute nightmare for the rest. Can't even begin to count the times a site has thought I'm from some random country and then switched languages, leaving me to look for the language picker that's hidden somewhere in the page footer. Don't do that.
    • freedomben 2y ago
      Indeed. I'm on Starlink and am constantly running into issues with this. My egress IP changes every so often from Denver to Salt Lake, occasionally Seattle, but even when static seems to be routinely misclassified. Some websites (most frustratingly GOG) will suddenly think I'm in Canada. Most of the time that's fine, but not when buying stuff. It's ludicrous (and has to be illegal) to force me to pay Canadian taxes, international shipping, and incur an exchange rate fee from the banks when I'm livingin in the US and buying a US product from a US company. It's pretty wild that I have to set up a VPN to fix geolocation so it's more accurate. There are also constant annoyances like Chromecasts and sometimes Android pohones randomly showing Seattle or Denver weather, random geo-locked things (like streaming services telling me the show I'm watching is no longer available in my region, even though it is) and others. So yeah, "nightmare" is not a huge exaggeration.
    • 998244353 2y ago
      I once had to solve a captcha in a foreign language because of that. Wasn't something obvious like motorcycles either, it was something like "click on all hamsters" in a grid full of various rodents.
• imdsm 2y ago
  Why 7:39? The domain was available. I feel that!
• Clubber 2y ago
  Back in the BBS days, SysOps without a second phone line would only have their BBS accept calls at night, after hours. They did this because they used their primary (only) phone line during the day to take and make voice calls. Those BBSes had users but not nearly as many as the people with dedicated BBS phone lines that were open 24 hours. This kinda reminds me of that.
• a13o 2y ago
  I don’t think volume of engagement is the main issue with social media. Rather, it’s the scope of access. Social media exposes us to too many people and we forget their humanity. Instead of information spreading across the globe along a lattice of trusted relationships, it teleports through bias-confirming wormholes. Funny enough, the time zone restriction acts as a crude proxy for locality and slightly scratches the itch; more than the time window does.
• brap 2y ago
  I've actually been thinking about this concept for a while now! I miss the old days when social networking was actually social and was wondering if placing restrictions like this one can actually make it fun again. Some other restrictions I think can work: * No more than 1 post per day * No more than 500 friends * No followers * No public posts * No posting links * No commercial pages
  • Ylpertnodi 2y ago
    3 upvotes per day.
    • conductr 2y ago
      When there’s no algorithm, just a list view feed, upvotes don’t really serve any purpose. I think people like doing it though, so I’d make it just something the liker can see - like it adds it to your “liked” list. The poster doesn’t get a notification or any indication of the popularity of their content.
      • wruza 2y ago
        Lack of upvotes (and downvotes) motivates people to post more than usual, cause there's no other way to [dis]agree or feel agreed with. "Don't serve any purpose" this is a claim that will kill your network before you can think how to shape it.
        • grg0 2y ago
          Are you sure that's not the other way around? Upvotes motivate people to post to, you know, get upvotes.
  • recursive 2y ago
    What's a follower when there are no public posts?
• unit149 2y ago
  [dead]
• zeckalpha 2y ago
  Cozy! Midnight.pub is a Gemini protocol instance with a time in the name (but not the access window).
• johnisgood 2y ago
  There should be a tooltip or an element (with text) displaying my current time in comparison to the already specified time, just so I can tell when that window would be in my local time, e.g. if it is at 4 am, then I will probably not even wait.
• jb1991 2y ago
  I met my now wife (!) on seven39. We got married on a whim in LV after poking around in there. Fun site!
• trolleski 2y ago
  Sounds like X nowadays xD
• curtisszmania 2y ago
  [dead]
• randall 2y ago
  fun idea!!
• qwertox 2y ago
  This really did put a smile on my face. Though my first thought was the timezone issue. Maybe have a user register to a timezone which can be changed twice a month or so (for travel) and that will be the time window when that person can enter? Then again, there are so may ways to get around this.
• Fokamul 2y ago
  Ughhh, so basically Reddit with time-limit? Even dumb time-limit, because EST. Nice...
• falcor84 2y ago
  This might be an appropriate time to recommend Cory Doctorow's "Eastern Standard Tribe", which is set in a world where people are separated into subcultures based on the time of day they're most active at, regardless of geographical location.
• MiddleEndian 2y ago
  Pretty neat. I always thought something like this would be a great idea for MMOs. Your account would be limited to a game with a timeslot that's only up 1-2 hours a day. So you could play consistently, but not have to play too long to keep up with other players.
• conorjh 2y ago
  or just exercise some self control?
• pwndByDeath 2y ago
  Back in the BBS times you didn't want to hog the line so you got in and got out, but sometimes a board would limit your time or activity to encourage you to move on. Maybe not the intent of this site, but an alternative option would be a social site that limited you to N minutes per day.
• nicgrev103 2y ago
  I wish someone made a social media site that has no news feed or any feed, like the facebook of old. Only get notifications and updates from actual people who you have friended. I genuinely think this would be popular, it wouldn't drive the engagement that the feeds and algos do but it would be a more wholesome experience the one we all bought into at the dawn of the social network, only for our friends to be swapped out for a constant drip of 'engaging' content.
  • mosquitobiten 2y ago
    Defeat the feed
  • immy 2y ago
    Past: Path, Basement.
  • gryn 2y ago
    what would It do, that WhatsApp currently doesn't ?
    • corytheboyd 2y ago
      Facebook gave you access to friends of friends, which was huge when EVERYONE was on it. That coupled with the Events system was pretty awesome. I don’t know if WhatsApp does this TBH, but it’s something you don’t get with typical messengers.
    • stronglikedan 2y ago
      I don't use WA, but perhaps there could be better discoverability if you have many friends, where the algo could try to prioritize the posts for you.
  • edwin2 2y ago
    I'm convinced something like this will happen one day, probably more than once. If Facebook is the "McDonald's" market segment (the widely popular, wildly unhealthy option), there will eventually be a segment of the market where there is unrelenting demand for a significantly healthier product. Like this: https://www.foodnetwork.com/restaurants/photos/healthy-fast-food-restaurants https://www.foodnetwork.com/restaurants/photos/healthy-fast-... The "health food" of social media will be a product category where there will be market share to capture and whoever gets it right will be rewarded. Those users, like the health nuts of today, will know what there are looking for.
• Invictus0 2y ago
  Why even bother if you're going to half ass it? We don't get an image or even a basic description of what the platform is from your home page. No, "social media" and "3 hours of fun" are not product descriptions.
• nashashmi 2y ago
  The opposite social network would be office work that happens in the office. Unless you live in a toxic environment, those environments are the best.
• bainganbharta 2y ago
  [dead]
• EchoReflection 2y ago
  reminds me of the "experimental" social media app "Minus" https://minus.social/ https://minus.social/ that only allows users to make 100 posts. Both cool ideas, but I feel like they're trying to "sell" limitations (max 100 posts, can only use app at XYZ o'clock) when, unfortunately, limitations are antithetical to what people want (to a certain extent) when it comes to expressing themselves online. Clearly some limitations are necessary (character-limits on X posts, video length on Snapchat videos come to mind). This seems, admirably, different in a new way. Hope it catches on!
• d--b 2y ago
  A social media app where you can only write with a pen. Since everyone is pushing their idea of a social media app with some form of constrain. I think only pen would be pretty sweet. It's slow, it's difficult, it's annoying to edit, yet it's also more personal, and you can draw as well.
• melson 2y ago
  I think its awesome
• psiconaut 2y ago
  we're full circle from the 40 meter band! jokes aside, and perhaps romantizicing noisy channels, but the fact that communication was not guaranteed maybe made it more appealing (thinking 56k modems or long-wave radio).
• uvdn7 2y ago
  Neat. It certainly makes oncall and maintenance easier! It is likely more resource efficient by e.g. minimizing idle compute, maximizing cache hit rate, etc.
• xj 2y ago
  Interesting experiment! Have you considered splitting it into three 1-hour blocks spread throughout the day? That way, people in different time zones would always have at least one convenient slot, and it might also feel more intentional-spending a focused hour instead of a longer 3-hour window.
• nocobot 2y ago
  reminds me of this image board that has been around for a while. similar idea, it’s only open every 12 hours https://chakai.org/tea/ https://chakai.org/tea/
• globular-toast 2y ago
  This is the idea they had at the end of Ready Player One (the film, not the inferior book). It's only taken 7 years for people to start making it a thing!
• TypicalHog 2y ago
  You should perhaps rename it (because of the change I'm proposing) and make the time window either fully random each day or it should slide a bit each day so the whole Earth has equal ability to participate.
• kylecazar 2y ago
  Wow, my discovery of this was timely
• sodokuwizard 2y ago
  It would be even more impressive if brands and advertisers (for when this pops off) ALSO only got to post once a day lol
• TypicalHog 2y ago
  My first day on Seven39 just concluded and I'm def coming back.
• xtrimsky1234 2y ago
  I think there is an idea there, but this obviously won't work. Here are some large drawbacks: * timezones, most of the world is not on EST. If you make it per timezone, then not everyone will be on at the same time. * 7.39 to 10.39 is not practical for everyone even on EST timezone. I go to sleep at 8pm, this means that I avoid screentime 7-8pm because of blue light. We all have different schedules, I tend to only use my computer during the business hours. In the evening I want to spend time with my kids, not be on social. Even if your social network would have a reward, for example 100$ a month to use it from 7.39 to 10.39, I would decline. Some food for thought: * Make the time open only based on a user selection. For example I would chose 9am to noon. Only allow switching time once a month. Clearly display a schedule of when most of your friends have selected a time, so that if I see that actually a lot of my friends have chosen 1 to 4pm instead, I can switch to that. * Most likely after this comment, I will never see your site again. I would suggest adding a demo or a video, for people logging in outside of the hours, to entice them to come back when the site is open.
• nkotov 2y ago
  Reminds me a little bit of early days of BeReal.
• 6stringmerc 2y ago
  It’s hilariously chaotic and clunky and charming. For a brief time it may be the place to be.
• ajolly 2y ago
  It keeps failing to let me post :(
• devchix 2y ago
  How do you unsubscribe or leave?
• qwertox 2y ago
  @mklyons: I am unable to unsubscribe to the emails (no unsubscribe link! and I cannot sign in to manage email preferences). Also, writing to the email address markl<at>... ends in Message not delivered Your message couldn't be delivered to mark<at> because the remote server is misconfigured. See technical details below for more information.
  • mklyons 2y ago
    Hey, sorry about that. I mistakenly believed that my email template had an unsubscribe button built in. I will make sure that the next one has one. If you want to message me your email directly I can remove you so you don't even receive the next notification that the site is opening back up. What do you mean you can't sign in though? I will add password resetting soon but I'm curious if you're running into an issue with the login system.
    • qwertox 2y ago
      I mean that I can't sign in during closed hours to manage that account.
    • revx 2y ago
      Running into this same issue. I tried to send you an email but it bounced. The error was "Your message couldn't be delivered ... because the remote server is misconfigured ... 554 5.7.1 : Relay access denied". Just FYI :)
    • gabesullice 2y ago
      I came back to this post because of this issue. I want to delete my account—not unsubscribe. It's a cool idea, but only accessible to me between 00:39:00–03:39:00 (UTC-01:00). I'm too old for that! :P I assume there is a way to delete my account behind the login wall… but I can't log in outside of the "open" hours. Therefore, I'm stuck: I can't be online during the "open" hours and the login button is disabled and reads "Log in (unavailable)" during the "closed" hours. I also tried to reply to your email with a data deletion request, but the delivery failed. There is no support email on the homepage, nor a way to message you directly via HN.