i think the scary thing about onboarding teams onto products like this is the fear that it won't exist in a year.
i wonder if the "lite" solution looks something like a chrome extension for gmail.
an auth layer that lives on top of an existing mailbox that just adds the "last touched by michael" or "assigned to sally" and "seen by X, Y,Z" gives me:
(A) the security that the underlying layer will exist in a year
(B) a light solution to some of the coordination problems
Can you share more about what you've built? I've got a bakery in Chicago and I'd love to learn more about the things you're building. Contact info in my profile.
Years ago I saw a post on HN (or maybe reddit) about using reverse dutch auctions for these sort of situations and how it provided the fairest outcomes for all parties.
It was the first time I had ever heard of that concept, and since then I have felt that it really is the best way to create a fair market clearing price for all participants where the maker with a limited stock of product (taylor swift) and the buyers (fans) get to participate.
> I have felt that it really is the best way to create a fair market clearing price for all participants
Fans don't want a market clearing price. Artists will also say they don't want a market clearing price, and some (most?) of them are being honest when saying that. They want a price that allows a large number of their long-term fans to be able to attend their concerts, and that price will be well below a market clearing price.
For a massive artist like Swift, with huge demand and limited supply for tour dates, a market clearing price would mean only people with high levels of disposable income would be able to go to the shows. Many of those people would only be casual Swift fans. So the die-hard fan who has listened to every album a hundred times but has a low paying job can't go, but people who have never listened to an album but earn a lot of money can.
In other industries, that kind of market dynamic isn't a problem. People will accept that only very rich people can afford supercars, even if they aren't necessarily car enthusiasts, whereas lots of die-hard car enthusiasts can't will never be able to afford a supercar.
But music is its own thing, for reasons I don't entirely understand. Perhaps it's because, more than other industries, successful artists owe so much of their success to a loyal following of fans, and they want to preserve that relationship over short-term profit maximization. Or perhaps it's because many people just feel that music is an inherent part of the human experience, and shouldn't be subject to the same raw market forces that prevail in other industries. I'm not someone who goes to see a lot of live music, this is just behavior I've observed in others.
Artists and fans want some kind of system that allows long-term fans to attend shows at "fair" prices. In this context, "fair" is not determined by the market, but by some kind of intuitive and emotional sense of how much a concert ticket "should" cost. I can't say what the price is, but I can say that if the market-clearing price for Swift's latest tour turned out to be $600, the fans wouldn't say "OK, fair enough, I can't afford it but I will accept the outcome as utility maximizing for the greatest number of market participants." They would say something closer to "this is total bullshit"
The ticket prices start high and are gradually reduced at a set rate until they reach a pre-defined minimum. The idea being that scaplers can't profit off of purchasing early since the official clearinghouse is lowering the price all the time.
People have to make a judgement call on the value of the tickets and purchase at an appropriate time.
Apparently there is actually an approach called "Dutch reverse auction" [0], but that's not what the proposal is about - rather it's a about a regular Dutch auction [1].
I lose stuff a lot. It started as a URL (https://www.lost-item.com/eric/) that I can put on a sticker on my stuff so that when people find my phone, wallet, credit card, keys they can contact me.
I preferred that over my phone number or email address because I didn't want to put anything that identifies me on the items, so a form on the internet acts as a barrier.
In general, I find that people are really nice about it. I've recovered my full wallet at least 3 times and my phone probably 5 times.
Yes, I am forgetful. If I were smarter, I would just not lose stuff. But because I'm not, I have that.
Hosted on github pages and uses firebase, so basically it costs me $1 a year + the domain registration fee. So after I recovered my cell phone just once, I basically figured it's been paid for for life.
Lifetime revenue from strangers on it is less than $100. Value of items recovered to myself, probably $3k.
I built this years ago, before the pandemic. While QR codes existed, pre-pandemic, it didn't really feel like something that was ever going to get mass adoption.
Maybe just in my circles.
Now, it seems weird to imagine that people wouldn't know. :)
This seems like something that could have massive tail upside. You help someone with lots of resources recover something of sentimental value, they tip you couple $k.
Yeah i have all these ideas for what I would do to market this eventually. Life keeps getting in the way, but because at this point it provides me a lot of utility it doesn't matter to me that other people don't use it (i have stickers on my phone, wallet, airpods, etc. I have iron on patches in clothing items, my backpack, etc)
In a world where I have more time and energy for this, I would implement tipping systems, sell the actual stickers and iron on patches to users, try to partner with schools and PTAs so kids who lose their stuff can recover it, etc.
> Yes, I am forgetful. If I were smarter, I would just not lose stuff.
It's really not about being smart, some people are just more forgetful and distracted than others.
What I found helps is to do a regular check that you have your stuff with you. Whenever I leave somewhere I check that I have my keys, wallet, and phone.
Yeah, I'm just a careless person in some dimensions to be honest.
Last summer I lost my wallet on a golf course, and twice at bars. I do a "wallet , keys, phone, airpods" check when I leave the house, but it wouldn't have caught those events for me.
This solution isn't failsafe, but for a few hours of work and almost no ongoing costs, it makes it POSSIBLE for people to get things back to me (and significantly increases the odds)
i love 33mail. I've been a user for years and I think it's amazing.
I pay for it, and I have a custom domain (several maybe?) and use that in addition to the default free @___.33mail.com subdomain.
People often ask me about my custom domain and ask how they can do the same thing for themselves.
I explain it, and they are interested, but they never do it.
I think there's too much friction for non-technical people. Most people in my life have never registered a domain before. They don't know what an MX record is. Even for someone technical, it takes some effort.
If there was an onboarding flow for that paid plan that looked like: "make it easy for someone who has never registered a domain to get a custom domain set up with 33mail" I think that would be huge.
That experience might look like:
1. Hello, user! Please pick a domain! ____
2. Tell me where to forward all your emails: ____
3. Enter your credit card number: ____
4. Click "save"
Tada! Now anythingatall@thatdomaintheyjustregistered.com
forwards to their email address!
Then you register the domain for them. You're either a registrar or you work with a registrar. You control the DNS for them (or maybe it gets added to your 33mail dashboard so they can add A records or whatever).
I love your service. I want it to make 80k/mo. Y'all have provided me a lot of happiness. And I've been pleasantly surprised when I've gotten support email responses from y'all.
> None of the people who report to me should really be focused on the current quarter.
When I have a good quarterly conference call with Wall Street, people will stop me and say, “Congratulations on your quarter,” and I say, “Thank you,” but what I’m really thinking is that quarter was baked three years ago.
i wonder if the "lite" solution looks something like a chrome extension for gmail.
an auth layer that lives on top of an existing mailbox that just adds the "last touched by michael" or "assigned to sally" and "seen by X, Y,Z" gives me: (A) the security that the underlying layer will exist in a year (B) a light solution to some of the coordination problems