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Comment by furi | Hacker News Reader

Humans talking to other humans in the local area and doing things together exists all over the world and has done since the dawn of time, what part of it isn't scalable?

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Thanks furi, good point. Humans indeed talked to each other and have done things together since the dawn of time. But the problem is that our way of living has changed significantly during recent years.

Most of the people simply don't have the possibility to gather around and talk about their life/problems. It is becoming a luxury to have a live talk with a real person.

I am sure that the above mentioned organization is doing great job helping people, but the answer to your question why it is not scalable is that such approach can help only to a very limited amount of people. Why ?

Because: - meeting in person is not always possible - meeting in persion is not always desirable - it is limited only to local areas

1) Not always possible? Attack the reason why. It's often either work or study, which can be changed given enough political pressure, or kids, which sometimes can be included, sometimes not

2) Undesirable? Please elaborate.

3) Transportation widens local for the rich to a wide area for few day trips, which is a scheduling problem. For a day trip, mark a circle with 8h travel diameter. It is relatively far, yet here we are, anonymous in cities.

1) physically impossible - large distances, time consuming, fear

2) it is hard to discuss many (if not most) personal issues in personal or in group meetings. Suicidal thoughts, depression, life advice - you cannot simply go out there and discuss all these during your first/tenth meeting with a person in private.

You probably want to emphasize what you bring to the table, and de emphasize what other approaches are not.

This discussion started not because your product idea is bad, but rather because your pitch included trying to tell us that what this Danish group has been doing is not scalable, even though they are doing it since decades with great success. This felt like saying it is somehow the wrong approach.

I think you can add to society with such a chat app, but there is a lot of indication that quality personal interaction is superior, and there are many many groups, even anonymous consulting etc, who have tackled these issues for decades! That clearly is scale, look at AA.

For example, one may also say that non anonymous and close connections, the opposite of what you offer in your app, is precisely the point of this Danish initiative, and your app really targets different issues. In that view, your comment seemed rather flippant. When pitching your app, you probably avoid seeming ignorant of the actual issue at stake.

Best of luck to you

The fact that you see real-life interaction with other people in any meaningful way as a luxury or even possibly undesirable is so incredibly problematic (to an almost pathological degree) that I am genuinely worried for you.

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