Enjoyable to see these mockery sites. The original Hey marketing was just asking to get mocked. Hopefully they take it in good spirit. The lesson learned I think is, don’t act like God unless you want to get mocked for it.
I like this parody, but I don’t understand what you are saying about Hey’s original marketing. What’s particularly arrogant about product designers saying they’ve identified and solved a problem?
My biggest gripe about Hey is that it’s marketed as an email client, but it’s actually a proprietary database you get access to through something that looks like an email address.
I’m exaggerating a bit. But I don’t understand why they built a service and not a client.
For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses.
I see Hey marketing as "Email" more than a client or an app. Yes, it's a weird positioning, but to be fair it's also a weird service.
They're not about better managing your existing inbox, and I also think completely changing the management of a third party email services while staying within the standards is a lost battle. Hey doesn't solve my issues with email either, but I am sympathic to people trying to rebuild an experience beyond what existing clients can do.
> But I don’t understand why they built a service and not a client.
Some of the core features aren't feasible with a simple client. For example screening new contacts by default, merging/renaming threads only for you, adding notes to a thread, save bits of content…
A client could certainly handle this, but it may not translate to other instances of the client.
> merging/renaming threads only for you
An advertised feature that did not even work on their release. Maybe they fixed it by now, I don't know, I did not end up buying the product. The initial release was quite buggy.
Yes, I don’t think they’re proceeding in order of report. I‘ve had any significant reported bugs fixed within hours. A couple minor ones are persistent. I assume whatever issue you saw with thread management was fixed quickly as it’s a core feature in the marketing, and demonstrated live by Jason in his product demo streams.
It's not marketed as an email client - they're marketing for a certain experience.
> For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses.
The graveyard of services acquired or dead (or both) is littered with those who attempted to 1) bring about radical change to email 2) without disrupting the current ecosystem of mail clients and hosts. It clearly almost never worked for anyone, so I at least applaud them for going out of their way, loudly trying to veer off of said graveyard. It speaks to the experience they're selling. It may not have appealed to you, but they aren't short of the ones it appealed to.
Now, whether it'll work out for them, that's another topic :D
Part of the issue was how they handled the "application" to be one of the first users. It was quite pretentious. They wanted you to express yourself in some novel, poetic way to convince them you are worthy of testing their golden new service. It was silly. In the end, it was also meaningless, everyone got invites anyway. But, the arrogance lingers.
Yes, I linked to that page. “ To get on the list, email iwant@hey.com and tell us how you feel about email. Could be a love story, or a hate story — or both. Could be long, could be short. It’s your story, so it’s up to you.”
I wouldn’t call that novel or poetic but I understand resenting it.
Regardless, it’s quite pretentious to expect people to put forth creative and expressive energy for something they’re possibly going to end up paying you money for anyway.
It’s an interesting question. I’m willing to spend time and energy on top of money for a lot of things. For software, it feels more extra than, say, going to the grocery store, but I don’t know if that actually makes it wrong for a software company to require the effort. And that’s complicated by the value some derive from small exercises like that.
I don't think email is broken for everybody. Maybe so for Jason Fried and other popular techies who get so much email because they are public figures. Not for my family and friends.
So when I read their pitch, I see another locked in platform à la Slack. The tone is quite pretentious too. Sounds more like a pitch from a clique leader to join them.
Anytime I see comments referencing “gO To rEdDiT” I can’t help but sigh at the hypocrisy. Your comment adds nothing to the thread and only reduces overall discussion quality further.
What do you hope to gain from such a comment?
To break the chain I’ll say two things:
1. The satire is on point. The original hey.com intro felt pretentious with it’s ridiculous, “Email is broken. Come join our invite only $xxx/month email instead” story.
2. Obviously enough HN users identified enough to upvote the post.
> Anytime I see comments referencing “gO To rEdDiT” I can’t help but sigh at the hypocrisy. Your comment adds nothing to the thread and only reduces overall discussion quality further.
This is completely wrong. If Reddit sucks, and people are making HN like Reddit with low effort content, then what recourse do we have other than to say so? Or should we just let HN turn into another low effort shit content site? You can disagree with whether or not this content sucks all you want, but again, the sentiment is totally off base.
We all work enough hours per day being super serious. I was auditing a mega big bank ones (top5), talking to the head of their PMO, and he offered that we sit in some comfy chairs (armchairs) instead of the typical office chairs. Then I said with a "Spanish Inquisition" voice "put him in the comfy chair" and the guy laughed so hard he was drooling. Best-pre-closing-meeting-ever. Others were just staring at use (probably have never seen this magnificent piece of TV).
I take that these witty comments are a similar thing to this serious and thought-provoking forum.
All in good spirit with high grade and good quality (I like me some Monty Python humor).
Hey all :) creator here (and yes, you can reach me at linus@heyyyyyyyyyyyy.com).
Was talking with a friend last night and I bought this domain on a whim because I thought it would be funny. And then spent a couple hours making this landing page and it's since turned into this elaborate joke. Hope it added something to your day~ haha
The song is awesome, but the clip is cringy as can be.
From the awkward dancing, nonsensical acrobating and sunglassing to Rick himself. Even though the song's got a good beat, he can't seem to move to it no matter how hard the editor tries to cut or how cool he tries to look. And I'm always surprised by such a deep voice coming from such a skimpy guy, which contributes to the joke.
Hey, thanks! I used a CSS library [0] I wrote myself last year that I use for a bunch of other projects of mine, most famously lyrics.rip [1] and free.linus.zone (my free-busy calendar I wrote myself) [2]. It gives the site the "faux-3D" aesthetic.
I like it, but my very scientific algorithms I have developed with the use of science suggest it needs 479% more Arthur Fonzarelli on the home page to achieve legendary status.
> Interested? Reach out to hey@heyyyyyyyyyyyy.com to start our hand-crafted, three-month-long, white-glove onboarding process which comes with a complementary bottle of champagne, a traditional mud massage, a door handle from a vintage Rolls-Royce Phantom, a portrait of a dead European royalty framed in gold, Leonardo Da Vinci's left thumb, and of course, your very own heyyyyyyyyyyyy.com email.
I feel like if you read that part, it is pretty obvious that this thing isn't real.
I was entertained until I clicked a link and awoke my baby in the next room with sudden audio. Trying to get back into the YouTube app to stop Premium background audio playback was .. hectic.
Site seemed slightly entertaining, baby is awake, I'm not currently amused ;)
First mock that showed up shortly after Hey’s introduction was funny, I have to admit that even as a user. Not sure if it did fit on HN but whatever. But this is not only low effort, but what’s there to discuss? Is it really that interesting?
This is pretty great. I think DHH will get a kick out of it.
My favorite parody site made fun of web frameworks and called them "crystal node grunt gems for ninjas". The whole website was genius, but I can't seem to find it anymore. :(
Does anybody else have any more parody sites? (Or know the one I'm referring to?)
Are you kidding? Nobody will take you seriously if you try to pass the 13 y hey off as the 12 y hey. How can anyone trust you when they can't even trust the domain of your email?
Haha I wonder if basecamp people would get mad and start throwing out cease and desist letters once a bunch of people start using variation of heyyyyyy...yy.com domains for their email addresses.
209 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 215 ms ] threadHere’s what they originally put up, for reference: http://web.archive.org/web/20200207101953/https://www.hey.co...
HN people will get mad when a landing page is not just words on a page, but will also get mad when it is.
I’m exaggerating a bit. But I don’t understand why they built a service and not a client.
For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses.
They're not about better managing your existing inbox, and I also think completely changing the management of a third party email services while staying within the standards is a lost battle. Hey doesn't solve my issues with email either, but I am sympathic to people trying to rebuild an experience beyond what existing clients can do.
Some of the core features aren't feasible with a simple client. For example screening new contacts by default, merging/renaming threads only for you, adding notes to a thread, save bits of content…
A client could certainly handle this, but it may not translate to other instances of the client.
> merging/renaming threads only for you
An advertised feature that did not even work on their release. Maybe they fixed it by now, I don't know, I did not end up buying the product. The initial release was quite buggy.
It's a trade-off for theoretically better privacy.
> For me, email is about being not locked into a specific client. And Hey requires a separate client than the one for my existing email addresses.
The graveyard of services acquired or dead (or both) is littered with those who attempted to 1) bring about radical change to email 2) without disrupting the current ecosystem of mail clients and hosts. It clearly almost never worked for anyone, so I at least applaud them for going out of their way, loudly trying to veer off of said graveyard. It speaks to the experience they're selling. It may not have appealed to you, but they aren't short of the ones it appealed to.
Now, whether it'll work out for them, that's another topic :D
I wouldn’t call that novel or poetic but I understand resenting it.
So when I read their pitch, I see another locked in platform à la Slack. The tone is quite pretentious too. Sounds more like a pitch from a clique leader to join them.
That's what bothers me I guess.
This is Basecamp you're talking about. That's part of the cultural DNA.
What do you hope to gain from such a comment?
To break the chain I’ll say two things: 1. The satire is on point. The original hey.com intro felt pretentious with it’s ridiculous, “Email is broken. Come join our invite only $xxx/month email instead” story. 2. Obviously enough HN users identified enough to upvote the post.
This is completely wrong. If Reddit sucks, and people are making HN like Reddit with low effort content, then what recourse do we have other than to say so? Or should we just let HN turn into another low effort shit content site? You can disagree with whether or not this content sucks all you want, but again, the sentiment is totally off base.
I take that these witty comments are a similar thing to this serious and thought-provoking forum.
All in good spirit with high grade and good quality (I like me some Monty Python humor).
https://www.google.com/search?q=da+vinci+duke+of+milan+lette...
Was talking with a friend last night and I bought this domain on a whim because I thought it would be funny. And then spent a couple hours making this landing page and it's since turned into this elaborate joke. Hope it added something to your day~ haha
From the awkward dancing, nonsensical acrobating and sunglassing to Rick himself. Even though the song's got a good beat, he can't seem to move to it no matter how hard the editor tries to cut or how cool he tries to look. And I'm always surprised by such a deep voice coming from such a skimpy guy, which contributes to the joke.
[0] https://thesephist.github.io/blocks.css/
[1] https://www.lyrics.rip
[2] https://thesephist.com/posts/frieden/
With a price like that you never forget how many Y’s you are buying!
I like it, but my very scientific algorithms I have developed with the use of science suggest it needs 479% more Arthur Fonzarelli on the home page to achieve legendary status.
[1]https://youtu.be/Zw6T4Db7_7o?t=29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5LpwO-An4&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32FB-gYr49Y
I feel like if you read that part, it is pretty obvious that this thing isn't real.
Site seemed slightly entertaining, baby is awake, I'm not currently amused ;)
Signed up for my heyyyyyyyyyyyy.com email account and I'm thrilled to find out that I'm user #15!!! My life is officially complete.
My favorite parody site made fun of web frameworks and called them "crystal node grunt gems for ninjas". The whole website was genius, but I can't seem to find it anymore. :(
Does anybody else have any more parody sites? (Or know the one I'm referring to?)
(cf. early versions of the Rails site: https://web.archive.org/web/20060101025821/http://rubyonrail...)
But anyway, looking forward to the Microsoft Word, errr, Notion clones in the coming months.
.. what do you mean they revoked our API key?