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Comment by escaper | Hacker News Reader

I get that it's probably "trendy" to say you don't have or need a website but with it being so easy to create a static page, I'm failing to understand why you wouldn't just do that, which is already the bare minimum, if you care about your project and want to sell it?

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Why is an HTML document the bare minimum? I absolutely appreciate this far more accessible form, author's dedication to function and disregard for showmanship. Somewhat paradoxically, for a potential client like me, this is way better marketing than any amount of superfluous CSS sugaring or formatting.

I think this text/plain presentation is a form of showmanship.

Put another way, do think there is ever any amount of CSS that is not superfluous?

It's showmanship in that it's so nonstandard that it's theatrical. We shouldn't stigmatize that.

CSS can be non-superfluous in documents, like when formatting text or a table.

I'd like to focus on the fact that this required orders of magnitude less effort than designing a web site, and most importantly – the presentation did not suffer. There were no compromises to be made.

Some have mentioned that this lacks functionality, but I'm having a hard time imagining what that might be. Maybe mobile-readiness, in that it's preformatted. Considering that this is a Unix-y tool for power-users, I think it's ok to expect them to read this on a PC.

HTML is the standard form of internet document delivery, that's why it's the bare minimum. It's marginal effort to set up and objectively more accessible than not having a website.

I'm all for reducing complexity, but at this extent your are removing pretty huge pieces of functionality for extremely marginal streamlining.

It's a gimmick

Why is an HTML document the bare minimum?

HTML isn't a technical requirement, but they do say their goal is to sell the service.

I believe OP has created an ingenious way to qualify early users, which is also the stated purpose of this release.

I would say the linked url IS a website even though it is made by a single txt page.

I'm not sure though that a txt document is "simpler" than a bare (no js, not images) html document; on one side you can read it with something as simple as curl, on the other the txt didn't render properly on my phone.

Had he done that I doubt it would have done so well on HN. It’s a differentiation point from yet another bootstrap css SaaS with three tier pricing, faded monotone brand logos and circlular portrait photos of the “team”.

tbh i just wanted to have fun building it having the ssh registration just makes me excited, i feel happy every time i try it out; using the api and playing with it is the same, like making a todo list on baxx https://github.com/jackdoe/baxx/blob/master/examples/todo.sh

to me the `yet another bootstrap css SaaS with three tier pricing, faded monotone brand logos and circlular portrait photos of the “team”` is just depressing

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