I would say that this is a great example of doing unscalable things in the beginning of a startups lifecycle, which is an arguable section of a recent Paul Grah

I would say that this is a great example of doing unscalable things in the beginning of a startups lifecycle, which is an arguable section of a recent Paul Graham essay. Take it for what it's worth, but if you believe PG then this might be viable after all. I don't think providing great service degrades the value of a service product.