NomadList is Hacked! | Hacker News Reader

NomadList is Hacked!

11 pointsdjafer9 comments

Hello, I just entered the NomadList site and found a small ad that offered a good discount for only $2 and you get most of the paid benefits I logged in and paid, then this message appeared to me: "Thanks, your credit card was NOT charged and NOT saved. We're testing new products and pricing on Nomad List and you were part of the test. Thanks! We'll now redirect you to the real Nomad List sign-up page." Then I knew that I had been hacked, perhaps, let me verify the site’s domain, so it was strange, unknown, and not previously available. https://checkout.store Here is a picture from the payment gateway: https://imgur.com/xBUCeAP After returning to the main page, I found that the ad has completely disappeared

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Nomad List is not hacked:

I'm testing different products and different pricing, see this tweet: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1383609211553083394?s=20

I will run this test for a week and then report back.

Not hacked, this is a test that Levels is doing with regards to figuring out if his fake product will actually sell. For those complaining hyperbolically, this is a good way to perform product validation as it shows you exactly who would be willing to buy the product rather than just sign up for a wait list. It helps the creator from wasting their time on building something that wouldn't actually sell. See also, pre-orders and crowd funding.

Wasting your clients' time instead of your own, the logical continuation of having people sign-up for made-up products and yet another winning tactic by guru entrepreneurs.

I don’t think it was a hack, rather it was a real test. The dev mentions it in this tweet https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1377687358095654914?s=20

Can't someone just sue them so they actually have to deliver the content they were pretending to sell? I mean, this looks very shady if done by them.

Seems like a really weird way to test stuff. But the Internet is an ocean, so I guess it doesn't matter if you anger some fish.

I can't imagine who thought it was a good idea to have their product offer something to customers ... and then pull a "lol nope not a real thing!" on customers who wanted the thing.

They probably justified it as some sort of product validation? Its like a huge thing with the community at indie hackers to use a landing page to validate market demand.

I might even go so far as to suggest that the OP was aware of this and is simply trying to start a flame war about the practice of building fake checkout pages.

I think The Lean Startup was the first to popularize this idea, maybe? It’s nothing new, although I’ve always found it a bit weird/distasteful. I’m surprised he’s okay with doing it on his established brand where there is actually something to lose (vs spinning up a totally new site with no existing brand capital).

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