Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

That's a charming idea. I could see how email bridging might be a way to achieve network effect, but then email bridging might just turn it into another email client.

I'm surprised you took the approach that pickup = delivery. I would assume you'd have a lag between them, with only cancellation allowed in that gap. Basically "you have N minutes to reconsider this thing you wrote, if you've changed your mind and want to edit it you have to defer to next pickup".

I would think a "mindful correspondence" system would have an enforced gap between composition and delivery to avoid "oops I clicked send at 6:29 PM but it's wrong and I need to change it".

I mean, this is based on my experience in email and twitter, which you've rightly identified as the opposite of "mindful" correspondence (where "submit" and "deliver" are the same action), and personal experience with business apps that make heavy use of fixed daily jobs (where "submit" and "deliver" are the same action at one very specific deadline that everybody is rushing to hit).

I'm not at all involved with this, but just based on reading the website and reading your comment I think you might have a slight misconception of how this works.

There is no send button. You write drafts, and then at the pickup/deliver time, Pony picks up all the drafts from your outbox, and delivers any mail for you at the same time.

Therefore, you can change your mind about what you've written at any point before it gets picked up.

Yes, but pickup/delivery time is daily/scheduled right?

So if you compose and submit a draft at 10 seconds before pickup/delivery time, you have no time to reconsider. That's what I'm getting at. I would assume a "no drafts submitted before X minutes before pickuup" rule to mandate a minimum reconsideration time.

I understand what you're saying now, sorry. Personally I don't think that's necessary and think it just complicates a simple platform.

To me, it seems akin to writing a letter and putting it in your mailbox. You can go and retrieve the letter any time before the mail carrier picks it up, but after they've picked it up it's gone.

How important is the precision of the pickup time?

To extend your analogy, imagine telling the postman "I'm just finishing off this letter, could you come back in 5 minutes?"

Except your postman is very observant, and noticed your frantic scribbling as he approached. In a display of empathy he gives you a few minutes to finish while he goes to grab a coffee.

Honestly I feel like the spirit of this application would be "just wait until the next delivery".

Any changes 10 minutes before the deadline? That one will wait for the next day. That way you're forced to think for at least 10 minutes "do I really want to send this?"

I think the commenter's point is this creates a "danger zone" for edits you make immediately prior to pickup. There's no time to change your mind and "Undo" them.

Adding a minimum lag (either by adaptively skewing the pickup time by a few minutes, or deferring any just-edited drafts to the next window) would mean you always have time to think about what you wrote.

Thank you!

> but then email bridging might just turn it into another email client.

Exactly. My first attempt at Pony was an email service. People tried it, but there was a lot of confusion about the asymmetry of some people being on an instant platform and some people being on Pony. Email comes with its own norms and expectations, and many people viewed Pony as "rebellious" or "anti-social," which was the last thing I was going for. I am trying to create something very pro-social. I decided that my strategy for overcoming network effects would be to build a unique, excellent product that people loved enough to get other people to use it. That's the only way, really, I think.

I am sure you have thought about this, but following is what I imagine it can be:

I can give username@ponymessenger.com email to new people I start communication with, like maybe part of a professional profile. An email to this address will receive an auto-reply. It will explain that message will be delivered later, and not instantly. Since this is a different email domain and opens a new line of communication, it will not carry an expectation of instant emails. It will be even better if this auto-reply contains a link to a webpage. On that page, they can modify their message or rephrase until the delivery time (with a countdown ideally). Maybe the domain name could be something that implies the delayed delivery part to make it even clearer.

From the recipient/reader side, this has to be a sacred space, away from the continuous traffic of other emails. It is not possible to turn all of our emails into delayed correspondence. Hence, this can not work as just an email client. It should help grow the network without becoming an email client.

Pony is just the messenger service needed in the ever-connected world. I had dreamed of using this kind of messenger. Thanks for building it. I hope this grows into something big.

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