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Ask HN: Reduce sign-up hesitation by offering account deletion?

4 points by kfei ↗ HN
I have some sort of mysophobia of digital footprint, and it often stops me from signing up for new products/services. IMO, a product/service offering account deletion can really increase my intention to sign up.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this.

3 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 7.6 ms ] thread
arkitaip
Maybe if you're targeting techies. Most other people won't care. Personally I like the idea and imagine something like "We provide easy and complete account deletion (not just account archival)".
middle1
You started a great topic. As a customer, I also want VISIBLE option to delete my account anytime, not just after request and writing to particular support. Being in a role as a service provider I offer this option directly in the dashboard as I believe if users don't need an account, they must have the option to delete their data completely.
brudgers
This is a feature that might create some value for people who are not your intended market. They are not your intended market in several ways:

  + They are high demand.
  + They are predisposed to delete their accounts.
  + They have low interest in what you offer.
Signups only matter if the person is retained. It is not the best place to optimize. Making a product good enough to overcome that reluctance is harder and being easy to implement is why account deletion is attractive.

If people can try out the product/service without an account, then there's no friction for people with a reluctance to sign up. Not requiring an account may mean directly interacting with users on a one on one basis. That's a good thing at the point when signups by people who demand account deletion move the needle on the size of the user base.