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Comment by woolly | Hacker News Reader

Is it the exact same thing, though? Can I send Lob a picture via SMS with some text and an address and have a postcard sent? If not, then maybe that's where the extra cost comes from.

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It most certainly does not cost $1.38/customer to subsidize (minimial) server costs of an SMS bot.

It cost as much as they charge for their service. I am pretty sure it does not cost $1.62 for lob.com to send that mail too, business need to make money, unless you are spending investors money...

The brilliant part is that it does most certainly not cost that and that is the profit the site makes. I believe people will find it cheap enough to use this service. Buying postcards and stamps costs about the same.

I don't understand your issue with this. Are you opposed to making profit or are you jealous? I know that I am a bit jealous of not coming up with this.

Why are you jealous when you can easily create your own website that does the same exact thing. You can think of your own added bonus and charge a different price.

Too often we feel like because someone else did something first, or theirs already became popular, that the opportunity is over. That denies the world your variation, which might turn out to be much better.

True words. I think many of us, me at least, have a special appreciation of the original and part of the fun is to think of something yourself. That does not mean, as you say, that we couldn't do the same thing, if not better/more for you.

Maybe I will give it a go ;)

So what? White labels exist for all kinds of services. If they package it up into an easy-to-use app and market it well, and provide some kind of customer support, then who cares?

MMS, possible, not likely with SMS...

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