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Comment by Hadjimina | Hacker News Reader

we do have some plans but nothing finalised yet. We actually removed the stripe implementation because we want to publish it as a PWA on appstores. For pricing we would probably go the subscription route. An other idea we had was for an ad-based service (I also hate ads so give me a sec to explain): When you talk to a friend about movies you are currently watching, the might recommend a good movie they just saw on netflix. Now in our case we could have recommendations like that but they would be ads.

Obviously you don't want to be spammed by ads in every conversations and it's going to be tricky how they come across. Do you think something like that would be greepy or ok? Or would you say it's better to have it a premium subscription based service? We are trying to figure this stuff out ourselves atm...

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the AI giving you paid ads as part of normal conversation has a taste of dystopia to it, but I don't think it's creepy IFF the user is made aware of it beforehand. Definitely include an option to pay and remove ads if you go this route.

Also possibly concerning, is the financial incentive to push conversations into areas where the ads are discussed. People dont always talk about consumer goods, but with the ad model you might have the situation where AI keeps bringing them up anytime it is remotely relevant. turning conversations into commercials, and missing opportunities for learning generic words by replacing them with named brands.

You: "Hi how are you?"

AI: "Thanks to my Frosted Flakes and cup of Folgers that I bought from ShopRite this morning, I am feeling great! Have you tried Frosted Flakes?"

Reality: "I'm good, you?"

that said, there could be some value in seeing brands you recognize around the words they represent (like saying "frosted flakes cereal" above instead of just "frosted flakes") since the context will help you remember what the generic words mean.

Also dont underestimate the issues you might have getting Brands on board with this. you are asking them to give you permission to use their brand name in conversations that they cannot approve of in advance. that's very tricky too

As long as the paid version removes this advertising (picks a random movie for instance) and you're up front with the fact that the "free" version will include sponsored content in the conversation [1] then I see no problem at all.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that if the product is free, "you're the product".

[1] I wouldn't even care if the conversation went off on a massive tangent temporarily to include the advert. The point is that not everyone can afford to pay for such a service, and advertising can solve that issue.

I think the problem with ads based on the conversations is twofold:

1. Whatever you do to make it work for useful ads ("Oh, you like Goddard? Check this out on Netflix...") could also be super creepy ("Oh, you have ED? So sorry, have you tried Superdrug?") and I don't think there's any way you're going to know ahead of time. As a techie sure I see how it would be cool to have the "AI" just "say the ad" but... at least be very, very selective about what can be advertised.

2. If it works, it'll be a slippery slope. First it's our conversation about the movies, then it's movie mentions our previous conversations, eventually it's all our conversations ever, dumped into another AI to target the ads -- at which point, Facebook buys you I guess, so there's that.

If I were you I'd target the education market, make it subscription based, offer some kind of big-ish discount for public schools, and also offer some kind of specific features for language schools. For instance my teachers give me homework, why not have them seed your program with some key phrases I need to practice?

Anyway, data point of one, but if it had an iPhone app and Thai was an option, I'd pay $10/mo without thinking about it.

well as long as you learn the language

Please please paid subscription instead of ads

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