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Comment by kevindong | Hacker News Reader

> (Currently in closed Beta)

So what's the point in posting this?

Yeah, so we didn't actually post this. And, to be honest, we weren't at all prepared for how much attention we got today. It's cool, but the timing wasn't awesome. We're trying to work our way through all the beta requests and HN/reddit comments. But, I'm a lurker, not a commenter, so I kinda don't know what I'm doing...

Creating awareness, which is fine as they accept your e-mail address so they can let you know when it's possible to test it.

I don't agree with that strategy. This isn't a SaaS company where they're actually resource constrained in terms of server capacity.

Chime has been under development since at least October 24, 2017 [0] and there's no ETA on a public alpha/beta/GA.

Assuming that the poster is (one of) the author(s) of Chime, they shouldn't post this until everyone can download it. It can be alpha/beta software, but to post what amounts to a handful of screenshots is pointless in my opinion.

[0]: https://twitter.com/chimehq/status/922905555013947395

It wasn’t posted by the creator.

GitHub of the link submitter: https://github.com/dsego

Twitter of the Chime dev: https://twitter.com/mattie

As someone who spent some time on support, I can sympathize with their closed beta. If you reach too large an audience before you're ready, you could end up treading water because you spend too much time responding to similar bug reports and feature requests.

and exclusivity. Same strategy as having a full house on opening night with a long queue rather than an empty house with no queue.

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