dabluck

No it isn't. I was talking about this app

https://www.calai.app/

But I don't work on it I was just giving examples. And I'm not against ads, I just don't think they should be the only way to make money on the internet.

It's definitely true that Apple and Google have not allowed enough experimentation here

Yes, it's fine to nudge the world in the direction you want it to be, but it's also worth reconciling yourself to the world as it exists

Yes open source is a whole different animal, I had a paragraph addressing open source but decided it really needs its own essay, so stay tuned for 'open source is a scam'

I don't know what you're referring to but I own a podcast app and have nothing to do with robocalling

That's totally fine, if you want to work on the sun tracking app in your free time and release it, I encourage it. But there's a lot of weird obsessive niches and I don't think you're going to make all of them, so the people who want weird things to exist should probably fund their obsessive niches. Of course, if you aren't interested in that niche, you shouldn't feel any obligation to use it or pay for it.

If you don't like or want any mobile apps whatsoever, I completely agree you should not pay for them.

I do the same. Then when I lose access and I actually care, I know that's something I should support.

Thanks for reading. Totally agree Apple can do more a lot here and it's disappointing they haven't tried.

The cheaper it is then the more people you need to sustain it. If there are only a small number of obsessives who want the sun tracking app, and the sun tracking app is really great and serving their needs, it should probably be more expensive not less. If the sun tracking obsessives want it to exist, they have to pay for it, because nobody else cares.

Can you list any examples of companies that have done this well? The products I have used that tried this either stopped trying it (Ulysses articulated it really well) or devolved into shinier objects. In practice I think it's pretty tough to pull off.

I think broadly your comment is true, and it would be better for the good actors if the bad actors didn't exist. Apple and Google do make it pretty easy to cancel though vs the wild west of the web

In my experience the only genre of HN comments is that subscriptions are evil, so I'm glad to see there are other perspectives. While it's true that software has been around a long time, it's also true that the world changes and building software in 2026 is much different than even in 2012 let alone 1995.

I addressed this in the post. I don't quite understand what people mean when they say they want to own their software. I mean okay you can put the CD on the shelf. Now what? I understand why they don't like paying money. But ownership just doesn't make a lot of sense when talking about a mobile app.

Hmm interesting, wonder how Anthropic and OpenAI make money. Subscriptions perhaps?

I asked Claude to check my post for spelling and typos, etc before posting, and it told me not to post it because people on hacker news are the same ones who email you about subscriptions, so it wouldn't be well received. Gotta hand it to the AI there!

I get the post was a little provocative, but I have posted a lot of content on the internet in the past and usually get like 1 comment if that, so I'd rather get feedback tbh and it seems like it resonated with a good number of people

The failure here, based on the article, is you had an idea about customer support, and you bought a company to test it.

That's not at all what happened, nor did I say that anywhere. I didn't buy a company in order to test a theory. This is just describing one of the things I did after buying it.

You may or may not be surprised to find out I have actually done this, and it did not in fact make the user happier but in fact enraged them that instead of doing what they wanted me to do I had pointed them to a competitor.

After a long day answering emails, I love kicking back and moderating my support forum.

People keep talking about how much flack I got but I don't think I've ever written anything that has resonated more with people. I'm not mad I got feedback guys I can take it. As for your comment, the title of the piece includes "what I got wrong" so I think it's pretty clear where the learnings were.

I wouldn't use the word cozy but in theory loyalty, evangelism, retention, word of mouth would all improve if people had great experiences and felt like I was accessible and responsive, and this might be transferable to other projects, etc. And of course I talk to users to understand their needs, just doesn't mean I implement all their ideas.

All comments here yeah. Almost to 11K views and there were less than 50 before I posted, with a dozen new subscribers to the blog.

People on hacker news really love to argue about subscriptions! Many of them even email me the same things. Great fodder for discourse.

Thanks. I'm not really understanding the likes comment. What are likes in this context? I was very explicit in the post I thought providing better support would build customer relationships and improve retention, and I learned that really isn't true. Also I wrote this a couple days ago so the blog would have content and only submitted on a whim, had I known I'd get 10K views and 100 comments I would've written it more carefully

I didn't really write this to promote the product and it's not important to understand the content but it's now linked in the first sentence. But since you don't care I think we are good.

We don't charge for night mode. I don't really think versioning would work very well for us, many have tried, but I do agree Apple should facilitate other business models like this in a better way.

Pretty fair comment RE pricing feedback, I thought I was pretty clear I do care about your bugs quite a bit, but you're not necessarily going to have a good experience reporting it, and it's just not going to build rapport despite my best efforts. Though I guess I wasn't clear enough, tbh I just didn't expect so many people to read it

there is so much blind hate against subscriptions, with little (if any) consideration for a sustainable software business.

This is correct thanks for the comment. You will enjoy my next post which is about exactly this. (HN will not enjoy it)

Hmm fair comment I guess I could've elaborated. I've definitely done a lot of this, but you would be surprised how often you don't build goodwill even when you do resolve the problem.

Yes thanks added. Next article: "What I got wrong: Marketing 101"