A Sad Startup Idea :( $$ | Hacker News Reader

A Sad Startup Idea :( $$$

oonwoye.com

18 pointsOoTheNigerian22 comments

I would absolutely pay for this. I'm a hypochondriac and think that I'm just about to die for a different reason every day, and have a fear that some people that I keep in contact with on the internet simply won't know until years after the fact.

The company would have to be extremely trustworthy to get my passwords though, and that'll be a tough hurdle. The key to distinguishing yourself would be a great UI with sensible (well researched) defaults and offers of form letters.

But $10-$20 bucks a year? Done.

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/

You can encrypt your passwords or just say "I've left my passwords in a locked box, the combination is X".

DISCLOSURE: That app is mine.

Great. My question is, if I use your service, what if you die before I die :)

I'll send you an email telling you how to pay the webhost :p

oh, well, I think you and I agree ... The death idea is inspiring, but is an overkill. 99% death are natural death. For people who worry about it, they should add their logins to their will. But then, dead people are supposed to be gone, with most of their stuff.

I agree, but some people just want someone to tell their online friends that they died, I guess...

I'm not putting facebook crap in my will.

Just curious. You can also just write down the logins on a piece of paper, and tell a family member to open it just in case. Isn't this simpler/safer?

I had a similar idea around something I called 'deadmansknob', a number of timed releases when you don't check in to a webservice for some period of time.

I also had wrote some stuff that I ping alive once in awhile, except that if I don't, it'll tweet and send random emails to friends, complaining about the temperature.

My idea was way less practical in that it is really more of a prank..

A particularly cruel one, too, if you die and they keep getting posthumous messages from you.

I kind of like it. Might have to adopt this, but I'm not entirely sure how I can set this up to live on after I'm gone. If I don't pay server bills, they tend to shut off service.

Reminds of that "animal crossing" story about the guy with the dead mom.

similar idea here, too. Called it deathgrip. We'd hold on to your information until you died. Impossible to get traction. People don't tend to think much about dying. Those who do simply leave this information with their lawyer.

Entrustet.com and Legacylocker.com are chasing this to some extent.

Lifehacker had a similar post recently: http://lifehacker.com/5617683/what-should-i-do-about-my-virt...

Isn't this called "leaving a will"?

"And to my family I bequeath my entire fortune, providing that they log into my twitter account, and tweet 'I DID IT FOR THE LULZ' upon my death."

I should have answered this in the post.

1. These kind of things are trivial and most likely will not be put in a will

2. The people that have these kind of needs do not write wills.

3. I do not want to leave this herculean tasks to my loved ones. With a click I want my last blog post, Facebook update and Tweet to be put up.

There actually is a company, on of my friends built that does this - they're called Entrustet (www.entrustet.com) and they have something to "manage digital assets" after your death.

I can't remember where I read this, but this service already exists. I searched around and couldn't find it either though. so there is probably opportunity in the space.

Instead of having a service deliver your last thoughts to your loved ones upon your death, tell them yourself, right now. You should be doing this anyway.

If I'm not around, I won't be bothered.

A problem with this: The majority of the death-prone population (the elderly) are not tech-savvy and thus have no (perceived) need for such a service. Call back in 25 years.

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