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Comment by teraflop | Hacker News Reader

The ToS that you're presented with upon signing up is pretty absurd. It requires you to commit to providing feedback "on a regular basis of not less than once each week during the Beta term", and to creating "a written evaluation of the functionality, performance, usability, and stability of the Beta Site and documentation provided."

It also prohibits you from linking to the site or disclosing any information about it, including the existence and contents of the ToS. Boy, I sure hope I don't get sued for posting this comment. /s

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Well did you agree to them? I think you can share as long as you didn't agree.

Be a useful beta tester or give up your right to use the beta.

S/he brings up a useful point of understanding the ToS. What if the next iOS and Android require my location be constantly shared with third parties? I would lose privacy or have to go without a smartphone which is freakishly hard in today's modern world.

Obviously that's a hypothetical but I appreciate anyone who pushes back on digital rights given how deep we are in the civic/digital rights gray zone.

> have to go without a smartphone which is freakishly hard in today's modern world.

Totally off-topic but sometimes I find it unnerving how hard it is to spend a week without any type of mobile device. People look at you like you're insane.

Just like saying you don't own a tv in the 90'. It's weird at first but a fantastic social filter. Saves you so much time to bond with the proper people, the ones that are ok with people different from them.

> What if the next iOS and Android require my location be constantly shared with third parties? I would lose privacy or have to go without a smartphone which is freakishly hard in today's modern world.

Or run Replicant or similar, which would assuredly continue to offer the option of preserving your privacy. (It's somewhat less convenient, and limits your selection of devices, but it's an option.)

Sounds like typical closed beta ToS.

How dare they!

Seriously though, I'm an indie iOS developer with a semi-popular app. I have hundreds of TestFlight users, but I only get feedback on betas from a handful.

This can be frustrating, considering the whole point is to get things right for many edge cases before it leaves beta.

Sounds like you need a better test->feedback->fix feedback loop. Only include people in your beta who will give you actionable material.. most consumers miss the point of a beta and think it just means 'early access to latest features'.

If your only reward for beta-testing is "early access to latest features" (i.e. no rewards afterwards) most people will assume the only point is indeed "early access to latest features".

Many companies do this to test the robustness of their system by letting people in in controlled beta-invites waves instead of going 0 to 60 in a stampede inauguration. The tight loop you're referring to seems to me more typical of QA/QC testing, which is a paying job. Trying to pass this job into customers is tricky, since most of them are not interested in following tight reporting schedules or writing lengthy standardized reports.

Completely agree. At the same time though even if it's a 5% rate of feedback, that's still valuable, I just wish it was higher.

(Hence my defense of Planet having TOS requiring feedback for their beta).

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