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Comment by scotchio | Hacker News Reader

I always call this Modern Day Tobacco.

At a certain level of volume, more transparency should be LEGALLY required for multiple companies (auto personalization / recommendation engines / etc.). At least the ability to opt-out. Just hard to define. Could you legally define “bubbling” or super duper smart recommendation algorithms?

Big tech knows this is the direction IMO.

It’s my guess why they randomly started pressing so hard for screen time usage reminders.

They’re selling addiction to kids (and adults).

YouTube, FB, Instagram, Twitter Moments all have liability when it starts to click with everyone.

It’s a serious issue that is totally unregulated and not understood by most.

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I built Pony [0], an email platform that delivers once a day, to see if it is possible for a platform that doesn't manipulate user psychology to succeed.

In the UI I eschew every traditional user manipulation technique I could think of: there are no notifications, there are no unread message counts. There even isn’t read/unread message state. It's launching now, so finally I get to find out: can a platform that doesn't vie for attention, that lets users create their own unguided, unprompted experience succeed?

[0]: https://www.pony.gg

Suggestions:

- Weekly/Fortnightly/monthly delivery. I want a way to say to an old friend "hey, lets keep up with each other every fortnight.

- Offline mode. I want to be able to take 5 letters to a park near my house, turn off wifi, and just write with a clear head.

Hi Andrew, thanks so much for your feedback.

> - Weekly/Fortnightly/monthly delivery. I want a way to say to an old friend "hey, lets keep up with each other every fortnight.

This is probably the most requested feature right now. I want this too but decided I had to keep it as simple as possible for the launch. But this will definitely be fleshed out as there becomes room to evolve the concept. Turning those delivery time radio buttons into check boxes will be exciting. I, for one, would like a delivery mode that syncs up with sunrise/midday/sunset at your geolocation. This will be fun to explore.

> - Offline mode. I want to be able to take 5 letters to a park near my house, turn off wifi, and just write with a clear head.

This is already in the works. I want this too. I even have a ServiceWorker installed for another reason (https://stackoverflow.com/a/55245528/741970) but will leverage it for proper offline functionality as well.

I like it, it's the exact opposite of Inbox

Thank you. That's a great way to put it. I also liked when someone recently described it as an "anti-technology". Why is it often easy to describe something in terms of what it's not?

Because people think in terms of responding to stimulus. It is a lot easier to see pain points and to say, "I don't like that" because the problem is concrete. To describe something in terms of what you want, you've got to do the work of imagining something new -- and thats hard.

Non instant email. Very interesting.

Thank you, thank you :) I have been enjoying it.

I want a university or public library to manage the largest online database of videos (which is defining our culture to a great extent), not a big company like Google. A big company can provide the hardware, though.

> They’re selling addiction to kids (and adults).

To play the devil's advocate, isn't technological "addiction" the inevitable future, so why even fight it? The more engaging technology becomes, the more people will naturally(and perhaps rightfully) choose it over reality. Isn't trying to curb the addiction merely an attempt to postpone the future?

A distinction without a difference. Some experiences promote better outcomes than others. As a society we promote those that are demonstrably better vs those that are not. Why should this new terrain - digital - be exempt?

We don't use that logic with other addictive behaviors, like tobacco, gambling or opioids. "They are inevitably going to take over, so why fight it?"

And, of course, HackerNews.

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