A low-risk way to dip your toes in is to email a blogger to say that you enjoyed their post or that you found it helpful. The message doesn’t have to have useful information in it, just be sincere. Per OP, often there won’t be a reply but also often it’s much appreciated - particularly by non-mainstream writers.
A woman wrote a glowing review about a book of poetry my late grandfather wrote. After he died and I was combing the internet for references to him, I found her blog & post. I sent her an email sharing the news and to express how nice it was to read her words as I remembered him. She got back to me quickly. Turns out she had met him at some point in her youth through her mother. We ended up trading stories for a few days.
I sometimes get emails and blog comments like this and always love them. One of my favorites was a comment last year, left on a 15 year old post about building my first gaming PC. I love how the comment said it was a "really fantastic build for the time". Something about "for the time" made me feel so retro :D
Also authors. Not the mega superstars of the world but even very bestselling novels as long as you show that you thought about it or actually did read the book
I don't often email the HN mods, but now and then I'll pitch an idea, and they respond. I usually end it with a big thank you to all of them, because they do thankless work, though I think most here on HN appreciate them for their work, this is an out of the norm community. :)
As a member of the younger generation, nobody really explained to me how powerful email contact actually is. Anyone who leaves an email somewhere for me to contact them gets a big kudos, anyone who also then replies to my email within 15 minutes is amazing and I always appreciate a direct line of communication.
I do wish IOS would support push mail for private mail servers.... You can't have everything I guess
I used to. I do much less now that email is no longer available for whois results from domains because of GDPR. It really killed communication on the internet. The switch to non-protocol based corporate communication services was the other half of killing it.
I've received a couple of emails about ghidra-delinker-extension, but I would not limit this to only emails. I've also had numerous people contacting me through GitHub issues or Discord messages over the years, with this as a topic starter.
I've had deep technical exchanges with smart people all across the world I would've never met otherwise. I've seen people using my tool for completely insane projects successfully. I've even had a data scientist from India who was inspired and motivated by my story of presenting at ACM 2025 as a hobbyist to put his work out there.
Interacting with all these people has broadened my horizons - literally going halfway across the globe in one instance. All of that happened despite me being an introvert, who hates initiating any form of social interactions with people and sounds like a raving lunatic on my blog.
Maybe I should be the one to send out more emails...
I have emailed people based on a YouTube video, podcast episode, blog post, or just browsing a project on GitHub. If their email address is available I see that as permission to contact them for "wholesome" purposes. A few things that come to mind:
1. clarification on something in particular that they have already published
2. engage in genuine discussion about adjacent topics in which their opinion is specifically relevant
3. expressions of appreciation
4. corrections of information to prevent genuine harm or significant frustration for others
My success rate is probably 50-75% but I only do it a few times per year.
Cold-calling to get people try try your new app or answer a survey is rude.
I’ve had about 10 emails about things I’ve said or presented on this website. I haven’t replied to all of them, which makes me feel bad because each one of them was a nice little surprise on any random day. I worry that no response makes people feel bad. I just can’t respond sometimes because of the anxiety I struggle with. But gosh do I love hearing from strangers about anything. I bet if I can get more comfortable talking with strangers I’ll really enjoy being old one day.
I receive a dozen or so emails a year from people who read my free sci-fi books. they are generally to say thanks, or to point out spelling errors or something factually incorrect that I have usually fixed. Most are shocked I reply. I guess quite a few also get zapped by my aggressive spam filters, which with the amount of spam I get is going to make it a real problem in the future.
Their silence says nothing about your worth. They might be busy, taking a break from email, or not in a place where they can engage with new folk…who knows? And what does it matter?
> The first time I emailed a stranger, I swear my cursor hovered over Send for a full five minutes.
I would estimate communication is 95% non verbal and 5% verbal. The problem with online interaction is you are limited to this 5% while interacting with an almost infinite number of social groups and people.
Learning how to adapt to online socialization is learning how to adapt to being blind. Only you aren't blind, you are choosing to wear a blindfold.
Whenever I write something that gets some traction, I get emails. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. One of them is from a guy that tells me "I love your blog, but you got terrible spelling." If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't bother doing a spellcheck before publishing.
I'm always saying it's better to finish on a good note rather than a bad one, "<Insert Bad Things> but <Insert Good Things>" (eg. "You're stupid but I love you" vs "I love you but you're stupid"), but that's the kind of case where it's clearly better to do the reverse. Huh.
I agree with this and have received insights on difficult challenges, but I've found that each year it gets more difficult to find an email address for someone.
Maybe it's because I'm a negative person, but even when I do keep in touch with people, I can count those I've stayed in long term contact with on one hand.
And the knowledge I can offer others is also limited.
On some level, strangers are easier to connect with than people who are in your life more permanently, like neighbors. Maybe there are fewer expectations and more mutual curiosity. It seems backwards, but for dipping your toe into more personal connection, it is an easier path.
I read a whole article about how cool it is to email people and I’m opening to the idea… then I see the signature and realize it’s probably just a cheap way to get dates, that come to him.
Email them because most people these days never receive a personal email from another real human being, instead of newsletters, solicitations, marketing, announcements, notifications and spam.
What's the best way to contact someone about to get real feedback on a paid app / SaaS? Give them a free license? Mention something specific about them, so they knew you actually cared enough to check out that person and manually write the email?
I think the last time I emailed a stranger when I had no business reason to do so was to thank someone for creating an excellent set of instructions for running OpenBSD on the exact model of laptop I wanted to use. I didn't expect a response and I didn't receive a response. I just thought he should know that something he did helped someone else, and now he knows.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 62.7 ms ] threadSo every now and then, I spread some joy by sending an email to a complete stranger.
And I always add that I don’t expect a reply, so they don’t feel obligated to respond.
All emails I got so far from Nigeria claimed to have been sincere!
I do wish IOS would support push mail for private mail servers.... You can't have everything I guess
Maybe I'll have Claude send him a thank you.
I've had deep technical exchanges with smart people all across the world I would've never met otherwise. I've seen people using my tool for completely insane projects successfully. I've even had a data scientist from India who was inspired and motivated by my story of presenting at ACM 2025 as a hobbyist to put his work out there.
Interacting with all these people has broadened my horizons - literally going halfway across the globe in one instance. All of that happened despite me being an introvert, who hates initiating any form of social interactions with people and sounds like a raving lunatic on my blog.
Maybe I should be the one to send out more emails...
1. clarification on something in particular that they have already published
2. engage in genuine discussion about adjacent topics in which their opinion is specifically relevant
3. expressions of appreciation
4. corrections of information to prevent genuine harm or significant frustration for others
My success rate is probably 50-75% but I only do it a few times per year.
Cold-calling to get people try try your new app or answer a survey is rude.
RSA129 - I have a color copy of the prize check. I asked how many he sent out.
Or it gets filtered as spam. very common
I'm reading lots of reply's on here from people afraid of talking to strangers. Is there something wrong with you all?
FWIW: Strangers have the best sweets.
I would estimate communication is 95% non verbal and 5% verbal. The problem with online interaction is you are limited to this 5% while interacting with an almost infinite number of social groups and people.
Learning how to adapt to online socialization is learning how to adapt to being blind. Only you aren't blind, you are choosing to wear a blindfold.
No.
...I'm still not sure it isn't. :)
And the knowledge I can offer others is also limited.
Odd you think this way..... however why would this be a problem?
Or do you believe one is only allowed to meet prospective partners though exploitative 'dating' apps installed on ones fondle slab?