
Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions - qiyuxuan96
Hi everyone,<p>It&#x27;s Harry, Ethan, and Omid here from Motion (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inmotion.app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inmotion.app</a>). We built a Chrome extension that uses real-time interventions to prevent people from unknowingly wasting time on online distractions.<p>A few months ago, I mentioned that I was spending too much time on Facebook. Omid recommended a browser extension to block certain sites. It worked well - my time wasted dropped to 15 minutes the next day. However, a few days later, I was setting up my company’s Facebook page, and the extension blocked me at the 15-min mark, the time I set for myself. I needed to finish that page, but there was no way around the hard-block, so I had to uninstall the extension.<p>Later, I tried other similar extensions. Each was either so permissive that it wasn&#x27;t useful for my purpose, or so strict that I had to uninstall it. We realized that existing solutions did not work because their approach is too prescriptive and simplistic. They didn’t recognize that people also need to use Facebook, Youtube, etc. for legitimate purposes. The problem is really intricate. On one hand, Facebook is great for getting reminders on friends’ birthdays or managing business pages; on the other hand, every minute spent on Facebook could potentially lead to a trap. These traps come in all forms - video autoplay, news articles with catchy titles, and sponsored content that looks just like your friends’ posts. Instead of always being hindered from visiting these sites, I needed to have access to their useful parts, but be careful to not get distracted in the process.<p>I decided to build a simple tool for myself - a countdown timer each time I visit a distracting site. We all started using it and liked it, so we decided to hand out the extension to some friends. Surprisingly, despite many bugs, our user retention was infinitely higher than our previous ideas. In fact, we built 6 MVPs during our pivoting process - commission-free prediction market, recruiting platform for quant traders, intercity carpooling service, workplace motivation app, online travel agency, and crypto options market making (last one because both Ethan and I were options traders before our startup; Omid was a college student until this year. For backstory - Ethan and I were best friends in college, and Omid and I have been friends since high school) Since none of these ideas had worked and we were finally getting some users, we decided to work on this one. Also, with this one we were solving a problem that we ourselves had.<p>Here’s how it works now: each time you visit a distracting site (e.g. Twitter), we show a screen where you can choose to either leave or proceed to the site with a visible countdown timer. On sites like Facebook and Youtube, you can choose to hide the newsfeed or video recommendations. Once time is up, we ask you whether you&#x27;re done. When you visit less distracting sites such as Gmail, you get reminders on how long you’ve been on these sites, so you don&#x27;t unknowingly spend too long on things like responding to email.<p>Before you start working on something, you can write down your task, and it will show up with a timer on every tab you visit until you clear the task, so you don&#x27;t get sidetracked. Finally, every morning, we give you a report on how you spent your time the previous day, and allow you to mark the sites that are distracting.<p>We firmly believe in data privacy, and promise that we will never sell user data. We do not collect the URL or content of sites you visit. We had to decide between using Chrome&#x27;s &quot;all_urls&quot; permission and the more narrow &quot;activeTab&quot; permission. If we only had activeTab, each time the user opens a new page they would have to manually activate our extension. That would be an unacceptable user experience in our opinion, so we settled on the broader permission.<p>The extension is free at the moment. We plan on releasing for other browsers in the upcoming weeks. We plan on monetizing either through a premium tier with productivity tools built for power users or charging a very low amount from every user.<p>Big tech companies have been attacking our attention with sophisticated technology, spending billions of dollars to optimize their engagement metrics. We may think we are in control, but often we are unknowingly being exploited by companies who profit handsomely off our attention—which, if you think about it, is the most valuable asset we have. If we could just simply turn off all these products, that would be an effective defense, but for many people that&#x27;s not an option, so something more is required.<p>It&#x27;s far from complete, but we believe we&#x27;re on the road to building a more useful tool to help individuals defend their attention against these traps. This is a problem many in the HN community have thought a lot about. We’d really love your feedback and learn what you would like to see in a tool like this - what productivity problem do you have that a tool could help solve? How can tooling help to give us back control over our own attention? Thanks so much in advance!<p>Harry, Ethan, and Omid
======
ignoramous
This is great stuff, Harry. Congratulations on the launch.

Since you're asking for it, a request that I have is if there was a mobile-OS
wide implementation of it, that'd be great. I've tried launchers like
[https://getsiempo.com](https://getsiempo.com) (defunct?) and
[https://lessphone.app](https://lessphone.app) but walked away unimpressed due
to a variety of reasons: The main one being having to change habits to adopt
to the new UX, whilst solutions like blloc [0] look appealing from far-out,
they need equal amount of buy-in. That said, I am all for zero-config
solutions.

A personal hack, I want to share: I exclusively use distractive websites from
the browser (no installing "fast", "always-on" apps), and I force clear
cookies everytime tabs are closed.

That means, I'm forced to login to view any new comments, likes, messages, or
notifications and that is enough of a detterent and an annoyance that I don't
feel the urge to seek validation often by rechecking on number of upvotes,
likes, or replies of the trails I leave on various social media websites like
news.yc (which is amongst the cleanest social media websites out there, in
that it doesn't employ any dark patterns to lure you in, but that karma count
must keep going up, right? #growth-mindset).

Coming back to mobile, on Android, Google's digital well-being initiative [1]
has help kick-start competing implementations. I particularly like OnePlus'
version of it-- the Zen Mode [2]-- It requires no setup or configuration and
simply learns to know what's causing distraction, shows you a pop-up warning
about too much usage, and if enabled, it simply goes nuclear and denies access
to the phone for 20m.

I'll keep an eye-out for Firefox and/or Brave versions of Motion. Any idea on
timelines for those?

[0] [https://www.blloc.com](https://www.blloc.com)

[1] [https://wellbeing.google](https://wellbeing.google)

[2] [https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-explains-how-and-
why-...](https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-explains-how-and-why-it-
created-its-zen-mode-feature)

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you so much for sharing these tips and suggestions on mobile. Mobile is
definitely on our todo list, more so Android than iPhone. Like you mentioned,
Android's digital well-being initiative helps better products emerge.
Unfortunately, Apple still does not allow developer access to screen time
functionatlities, and the only way to mimic that is through MDM, which not
only is a bad workaround but also has been banned by Apple.

I find your personal hack on mobile to be very useful myself too - I found
myself to be so much less stressed and more productive after uninstalling apps
like Facebook and Reddit on my phone, and disabling notifications on nearly
all other apps. When I need to use Facebook, I would go to my computer.

~~~
agrinman
What about a DNS based approach on iOS? You don't need MDM, just a VPN
extension. You could send push notifications when your DNS server detects a
site to block and mimic the same UX you have with a browser extension.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
You are correct - that would work to send reminders (notifications). However,
we wouldn't be able to prevent people from using their apps. This is
definitely something we are considering.

~~~
agrinman
You could effectively block the network connectivity for them though by
mapping domains to 127.0.0.1. Why wouldn't that be just as good? nextdns.io
does a really good job of running such a service.

~~~
ignoramous
> nextdns.io does a really good job of running such a service.

It is not trivial to build, run, and operate a nextdns-esque service. The
founders, Olivier and Romain, are some of the world's best at what they do,
imo.

That said, a client-side DNS re-write solution might be relatively cheaper to
implement and might even be a tad-easier than deploying an global DNS resolver
with per-user custom configurations and endpoints.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Agreed; it's definitely not trivial. We will definitely tackle mobile very
soon, and this is a potential solution. Thanks!

------
10xRich
I have this idea I like to think about from time to time.

"Know when to be Achilles and know when to be Odysseus."

When it comes to online distractions and addictions, I've found anything that
any tool that doesn't offer precommitment and restrictions of editing/removing
the intervention will be ineffective in the long run.

If Odysseus could have untied himself from the mast, he would have.

Apps like these seem to be designed for our best selves, when we need help for
our worst selves. My best self would probably be successful using this app.
But my worst self, probably will ignore the prompts over time until I get
annoyed and uninstall the app

My app of choice has been Freedom, where you can set a schedule and prevent
quitting the app. I have had problems where I needed to get work done on a
website and couldn't so I understand the use case. A work pass feature is
something I'll suggest to the Freedom team. But for me as a customer, having
success in not over-consuming distracting/addicting sites/apps is immensely
more important than the infrequent inconveniences from having to access sites
for business/work purposes.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you letting us know your thoughts; you definitely raise some valid
points on how much control we should give to our users. In our case, our
philosophy is that our product should assist users in making the correct
decisions, instead of forcing decisions upon our users.

One middleground we are exploring, though, is making it increasingly more
difficult to bypass our interventions each time.

~~~
10xRich
Will be sure to keep an eye on Motion and how the product evolves. Good luck
with the product you all.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks!

------
keenmaster
From my experience, it's better in the long run to apply brute force
restrictions on programs. It's too easy to modify and delete Stayfocusd
though.

Idea: I think we need a cross-platform website/app restriction utility. At the
beginning, you get to choose intervals where you can change your settings for
free. Let's say the interval is 3 months, and your settings dictate that you
can only spend 40 minutes on social media sites (with only 10 minutes during
work hours, zero after 10 PM), and 50 minutes on news websites a day. You can
violate a limit, but you'd have to donate money to a political party of your
choice: the catch is that you'd have to donate the same amount to the opposing
political party! The punishment amount increases the more you violate the
terms of your 3-month agreement.

After the 3 months/year/whatever are up, you can change the restriction and
punishment settings. Holiday exceptions can be pre-programmed, or selected
from a default profile ("student" "professional with 3 weeks vacation"
etc...). You can always make the settings more restrictive before the interval
is over, but not more forgiving.

There would also be an agreed-upon penalty for deleting the program, so that
you don't delete and redownload to avoid the restrictions.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for the suggestion! We've actually experimented with a similar concept
- hold people accountable to their goals through social accountability, where
friends can "watch over" each other and win/lose points (or money, in your
case). Definitely interested in this concept.

~~~
keenmaster
I like the idea of looping in friends, I just wouldn't make the dollar payouts
to them. I can imagine people enjoying sending money to their friends, partly
for ironic comedic value (lol look how helpless I am, haha now we have a funny
story of how I can't control myself and you're a terrible watchdog - maybe
I'll even screenshot and post my failure so that our other friends can
ironically enjoy this). For similar reasons, I also wouldn't pay my future
self with the money. I can imagine people appreciating that as a way of forced
saving, and you don't want them to appreciate the monetary loss at all. In
fact, you want them to hate it - hence part of the punishment being a donation
to a group that they don't like. The great thing about that is that the cost
of the punishment could far exceed the monetary value of it - if you really
hate a political party, the perceived cost could be 5x the dollars donated.
Good luck with your program, and shoot me an email if you're interested in
discussing further. My HN email address is in my profile.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
That makes sense; I know people who've tried out this app called StickK where
you donate to anti-charity if you don't follow habits. Definitely something on
our minds.

~~~
keenmaster
Thanks for the share, Stickk looks interesting. Stayfocusd + Stickk, with
cross-platform usage tracking, would be the holy grail. Another thing to note
is that Stickk has a lot of user complaints, so there’s a lot of room for
competition if they don’t iron out the kinks.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
That's a very interesting thought. Yes agreed - StickK has a lot of user
complaints so we would need to execute much better. A lot of these complaints
arise from the fact that StickK literally puts you in a binding contract to
pay the money - which may be necessary to enforce their kind of product, but
also gets a lot of users angry and confused.

~~~
keenmaster
I looked at some of the negative reviews, and they seem to have a point.

1\. The irreversible, binding contract element needs to be exceedingly clear
and simple to understand as soon as someone opens the app for the first time
(“you will not be able to contact us to reverse the contract, so choose your
terms carefully”). Additionally, give users the reason why the contract is
irreversible up front so that they understand the app’s foundations. I would
want the contract to be irreversible, that’s a feature not a bug, but users
should know that. Users who aren’t comfortable with that should ideally be
offered a weak alternative as long as that doesn’t muddy the service.
Otherwise, turn them away.

Even the button that users press to agree to a contract should be called the
“No Way Out” button or something like that. However, great care should be
taken to ensure that users who behave well don’t get punished (e.g. agreeing
to pay $X if you don’t lose weight, and you lose weight but there’s a bug with
reporting that, or the app doesn’t ping you enough to warn you to check in, or
you don’t understand the consequences of not checking in, or there wasn’t
enough granularity with the terms of checking in). Users who don’t trust the
app as an automatic executor of contractual punishments should be able to
designate a third party arbitrator, like a friend or parent, but that
shouldn’t be the default option. Maybe the user’s friends will be lenient, but
let them find that out.

2\. They have both a “charity” and “anti-charity” option, which is fine.
However, the structure of the “charity” option is problematic. It is not clear
to users picking that option that their funds may go to a charity they
actually dislike, making it more of an Anti-Charity. Additionally, for both
the charity and anti-charity options, they should _let the user choose their
level of granularity._ If a user wants to designate specific organizations,
let them make that trade off. Maybe someone is willing to make a particular
political party their anti-charity, but never in a million lifetimes the
Coalition for Coal (made up). “Charity” and “Anti-Charity” are vague. There’s
a fine line between motivating your users and provoking unmitigated rage in
this space. If that’s hard with the “charity” and “anti-charity” categories,
maybe they should be scrapped entirely.

3\. It seems like they have UI, usability, and bug issues.

Again, I think that the concept behind their app is great, and they have a lot
of potential, but there’s an opportunity for you to do everything they do but
better.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks so much for this! I've saved this analysis and will keep it in mind as
we decide to move toward this direction. Agreed with all three of your points;
we can definitely have better execution on all these fronts.

------
CameronBanga
This looks well packaged, and I can see the argument that it may be easier to
use than the competition.

But how do you plan to make money? I’m looking for a model that isn’t “we sell
data on our customers”, which I see is prohibited based on the TOS. But what
would be the road to profit and what safeguards are in place to prevent you
from just selling to a less ethical company down the road?

~~~
gbasin
Was my first thought, as well. However, making something previously un-
monetizable with a much better UX can unlock new opportunities. Craigslist
sublet board → Airbnb

~~~
qiyuxuan96
We fully agree with this! Thanks!

------
disiplus
as somebody with ADHD i use SelfControl and it's my savior. On the Android
side i use a VPN that im connected to all the time that has a dual purpose, to
block ads and to control what i do (i installed it on a super cheap VPS). And
on my smartwatch i use pomodoro timer to keep me productive. I'ts hard and i
fail a lot but it helps.

[https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol](https://github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol)

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for sharing that - I also know friends who use the VPN method on
mobile. I myself used Forest as my pomodoro timer; one problem I had was often
times I would forget to turn it on.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
> We do not collect the URL or content of sites you visit.

I was very concerned about this, but this is all I needed to hear. Thank you.
This addresses a real market need.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks; it's something we would want ourselves when we download an extension,
so we built it into ours.

------
laurieg
I really like developments in this space.

I too have struggled and continue to struggle with wasting time on the
internet. A couple of things that have helped me recently:

Removing the facebook news feed.[1] I can still use it for messaging, checking
on specific people etc but the wall of information and addiction is gone.

Removing all but the single video you are watching on facebook [2]. Again, you
can get to useful videos or search for something specific but now you don't
fall into the 'youtube hole' when the first video finishes.

I suspect this will be something that everyone has to be conscious of all the
time, much like being careful that you don't eat too unhealthily. I don't
think any one tool will be a magic bullet.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-
eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator-
for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

[2] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-
distractio...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distraction-
free/mjdepdfccjgcndkmemponafgioodelna?hl=en)

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for sharing! Agreed that both of these solutions are helpful, and I've
seen many friends using them. For me personally, I wanted a more all-in-one
solution, so we actually built hiding things like the Facebook newsfeed and
Youtube recommended videos into our extension.

------
pavlov
Be careful — Motion is an active Apple trademark in software (it’s a motion
graphics package that works as a companion to Final Cut Pro).

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for the heads-up!

------
ximeng
The problem isn’t time spent on these sites, it’s finding better quality ways
to spend the time. That’s the real challenge. Solution needs to be pull to
something better not push away from something worse. Not that the push is
necessarily bad but it’s not the full answer.

~~~
trwhite
Couldn't agree more. This was fairly revelatory for me and I've been able to
find more productive ways to spend my time recently. I even (shameless plug)
wrote about it in a blog post:
[https://timwhite.digital/distractions](https://timwhite.digital/distractions)

~~~
qiyuxuan96
That's awesome! I have a question (we ourselves have been thinking very hard
on this) - when you are about to start something distracting, and you catch
yourself, how do you find and get yourself into a more productive alternative?

------
sub7
I would just get annoyed with the prompts and uninstall. This approach
doesn't, hasn't and won't work.

What will work is unfortunately a little more complex to build i.e. you need
to change functionality on these sites forcibly e.g. disable autoplay on YT
automatically, fetch and create a newsfeed on FB to replace the shit stock one
etc etc.

You would then need to keep up with these assholes trying to block your
extension at every turn.

Sadly, this is the only approach that will actually work short of serious
legislation.

~~~
BaitBlock
You should take a look at Baitblock
([https://baitblock.app](https://baitblock.app)). We're working on something
called the "Intelligent Blocker" (not yet in production, almost complete) that
understands how you get to distractions in the first place. Then it removes
the distracting types of comments, posts, search results, recommendations,
links etc from the internet while you're working on studying.

Its kind of complex but works perfectly in trials. We also have the YouTube
recommendations hider feature in the app.

Give it a shot and LMK what you think.

~~~
sub7
Looks great. I'm on Firefox so will wait for a version there.

------
pingec
I just tried it. Unfortunately it does not seem to work with my use case where
I use youtube to play music in a background tab while working on other things.
I want it to block me from actively watching videos but playback in the
background is fine in my case.

~~~
namelessone
Check out Leechblock delaying page feature. There is a checkbox for "Count
time spent on these sites only when browser tab is active"

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for recommending that. We actually do one better - we not only count
time when browser tab is active, but also stop counting time when we don't
detect activity or video playing for longer than 5 minutes :)

------
mnowicki
Hey guys, I have an idea/suggestion for you guys; you might already be doing
this or it might just not be a worthwhile idea, but it sounds useful to me:

Your addon/extension should track the amount of time spent on each of these
time-waster websites, and allow the use to render graphs showing how their
usage over time has changes. Perhaps even allow them to set goals(e.g less
than 30 mins a day max, and under 2.5 hrs per week max) and visually show how
close they are to their goals via graphs and other visuals.

Not only would it show users how much your extension is helping them, it would
also provide them motivation to use it more, not to mention giving you some
nice looking visuals to use for marketing

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Definitely! Thanks for the idea. This is on our roadmap and we plan on
implementing it next month.

------
ohadron
Started using it about a week ago and it's super effective.

I used StayFocused before that but I think this is a bit more effective in
emphasising the specific point in time in which I start being distracted.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
I'm glad to hear that; thank you. Please let us know how we can make it
better.

------
nunodonato
looks great! I'll try it when its usable from firefox, I'm not touching
chrome, sorry :)

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Firefox coming soon!

------
monkin
What about other browsers? Or other online distractions that aren't related to
web browsers? For myself, extensions like this doesn't work at all, and for
most addicted will not work as well.

Would like to see extensions that doesn't block but make reading Facebook or
other services extremely annoying. For example: I go to 9-5 job, and when I
open Facebook all posts are from PornHub. Without a way to turn this off, so
no one will open site like that... :)

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
What I currently do is block on /etc/hosts. But like the OP says I don't
actually want to perma block these sites, I do get real value out of them
maybe 5 minutes a day. It just needs to not turn into 20 minutes. But you can
use /etc/hosts perhaps if you really want a less easily turned off block.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Definitely agree with your sentiment; I probably only need Twitter for 10
minutes on most days. Yes - we are working on making it harder to ignore our
extension when a person's being distracted. The key is really to build a good
classifier of when a person's being productive or not on a distracting site.
We currently let the user decide that when we intervene.

------
stefek99
Excellent execution.

I did something similar myself: [https://github.com/genesisdotre/Bitcoin-
Games-nLightning-Min...](https://github.com/genesisdotre/Bitcoin-Games-
nLightning-Mind-Chrome-Extension)

(with lightning network, streaming satoshis per second)

Quick feedback: \- load instantly (don't wait for page to load) \- choose the
whole day \- I'm from Europe, using 24 hours clock here

(I would like to use it around the clock by default)

------
maroonblazer
Looks promising, just installed.

Once it's on other browsers I'd love for it to be able to sync between them,
so that I can see cumulative stats across all browsers.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you! That is certainly on the todo list.

------
mnemonicsloth
_We firmly believe in data privacy, and promise that we will never sell user
data._

Everybody says that until they get a buyout offer from Google. I like the
problem you've chosen but you're asking me to tie your tool into everything I
do online. That makes you an acquisition target. So: are you going to turn
down a big exit to keep this promise?

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks for voicing your concern. I don't believe we need an acquisition. As
mentioned, we plan on monetizing either through a premium tier with
productivity tools built for power users or charging a very low amount from
every user. We are confident in our ability to generate revenue without
selling user data.

~~~
localcrisis
In that case will you add to your data policy that user data is destroyed in
the event of a transfer of ownership?

If your promise is genuine then there is no difference for you in doing so.

------
mwseibel
I use this product and I love it. It’s the small nudge I need to stay on task
everyday. Recommend everyone gives this a try.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks; please continue giving us suggestions on how to improve.

------
fyhn
I tried this out now, and it seems really useful, both at work and outside
work.

Feature request: There are some sites I consider as generally unwanted
distractions always, and some that I consider as unwanted distractions only
when I'm at work. How about differentiating between work/home modes, or
allowing for profiles, or something similar?

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you!

That sounds very valid - when we built this, we had the working mentality, but
unwanted distraction when relaxing would definitely be useful for ourselves.

------
samching
This is a very useful tool, Harry. Appreciate the detailed writeup and
thoughtful explanation.

Would love to see how you guys use the insights from the extension to
potentially gamify productivity as well as to understand your thinking around
how to minimize distractions on mobile.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you! Definitely.

------
Exuma
I always find apps like this bizarre. How about practicing willpower? The
shortest answer between A (wanting it) and B (having it), is to just do it.
And when you fail, non-judgmentally self-analyze and try again.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
That's actually similar to what my other co-founder told me when I tried to
make this! It turned out, however, that our own willpower can be supplemented
by tools. For example, sometimes I don't realize I've been on Twitter for 30
minutes - and as soon as I'm made aware of that, I leave. I think often times,
it's about awareness rather than being forced by a piece of software.

------
ahmedfromtunis
Thank you so much. It just installed it and I find the idea super cool. One
suggestion, though: make it possible to enable 'hide news feed/recommend/...)'
by default. Good luck!

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you! Yes - we are planning on implementing something along the line of
remembering the last time you hide newsfeed, video recs

------
slig
Congrats on shipping! I've just installed and I'm curious on how do you plan
to monetize this extension (since it's free and doesn't collect the URLs of
the sites visited).

~~~
kick
They had a line in the post that explained that:

 _The extension is free at the moment. We plan on releasing for other browsers
in the upcoming weeks. We plan on monetizing either through a premium tier
with productivity tools built for power users or charging a very low amount
from every user._

~~~
slig
Ouch, thanks! I missed that.

------
lopatin
Just installed and this looks great. Good job on thinking it out more than
other extensions.

Question unrelated to app, but to your experience: Why did options market
making not work out?

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thank you.

A major reason is in crypto, people can already leverage 100x, and thus people
who would normally use options for leverage no longer need it.

------
georgebarnett
I will not use chrome but I’d love to try your extension. Could you add a way
to get a reminder from your team when Firefox or safari support is available?

~~~
qiyuxuan96
We have an informal manual list of emails of people who have requested
Firefox. Please email harry@inmotion.app and I'll add you to the list. Thanks!

------
hoangbkit
This is good stuff, just tried it! looks very promising.

~~~
qiyuxuan96
Thanks! Love to hear what you think

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carterjbastian
Fantastic work, Harry! This is a great product!

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qiyuxuan96
Thank you! Would love to learn your thoughts :)

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hackerews
I like the idea! Looks similar to focus mode from Google's digital well-being,
which I use often.

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qiyuxuan96
Thanks!

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Nextgrid
The fact this is VC funded is a red flag. There’s no reason why such a simple
tool needs VC-level funding, and as a consequence the VCs also won’t be happy
with the (relatively) low revenue from a paid product compared to a scummy
product that stalks users.

“We won’t sell your data” is just wishful thinking and we both know that. It’s
only a matter of time before this turns malicious and starts spying on users
or wasting their time for the sake of “engagement” (the very thing it’s
designed to fight against).

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qiyuxuan96
Thank you for raising this concern. I believe YC sees value in our work not
because they see money in us selling data; but rather they realize how big a
problem we are solving, and, if we solve it correctly, how much value and time
we bring to each person. A paid product can certainly generate much, much
higher revenue than a product that sells data - Grammarly and LastPass are
perfect examples of this.

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chubb
Congrats Omid and team! I’ve been using it everyday. Probably saves me an hour

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omidr
Thank you! Glad it's been helpful!

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mrborgen
Awesome! Just installed it, looking forward to seeing how it works.

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qiyuxuan96
Thanks! Please let us know your thoughts :)

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jczhang
Hmm, are there any plans to solve this problem for mobile?

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qiyuxuan96
Yes! It's on our roadmap. Android is easier than Apple due to developer API
constraints, but we plan on tackling the mobile problem very soon (in the next
1-2 month).

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jczhang
Great to hear. Already enjoying the app. One concern a friend brought up is
that he says he has security concerns about the extension in terms of tracking
keypresses (triggered by dialogue box that said all data is read and can be
changed when installing the extension). Thoughts?

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proszkinasenne2
@qiyuxuan96 Hi there. I am developing a cross-browser extension
development/deployment SaaS. Would you be interested in hearing more?

We make life easier with things like: \- versioning, \- packaging extensions
for different extension galleries, \- collecting payments, \- gathering
analytics (extension views, installations etc.).

Ping me at niespodd@gmx.ch if interested.

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kick
I've been thinking on this for a few minutes, and I'm realizing I have no idea
on what criteria YCombinator funds anymore. This seems like something the
Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud might have funded.

The extension looks cool (outside of it being proprietary) and it looks like
you did a good job on it! I'm just trying to think of reasons as to why YC is
trying to mimic Softbank. The only reason I can think of is that extensions
occasionally get sold for thousands to malware vendors and the like, but that
doesn't seem like something that would bring _that_ much of a return, and
seems too user-hostile to be something YC would bank on.

~~~
dang
YC has always funded startups where the initial idea seems small but the
founders seem effective and it's possible to imagine a path from the small
thing to a big thing. That's one of YC's favorite kinds of startup to invest
in. The fact that they seem odd and not worth funding is an advantage!

Actually, if you read
[http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)
and
[http://www.paulgraham.com/altair.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/altair.html),
this startup is the sort that pg was writing about. That's why I told these
guys to include the bit about solving a problem they themselves had; it's a
classic marker. See also
[http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html):
"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people
dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign."

It's a fun exercise to imagine a path from the small thing to a big thing. Can
we do it in this case? I'd say so. Online distractions, addictions, and the
exploitation of human attention by big-tech companies are a big deal.
Reclaiming control over time and attention could be something that a lot of
people care about.

~~~
kick
I wasn't implying that YC had changed, just that _I_ can't tell what the
reasoning is anymore. The second link is an interesting thing to link, because
the reason I included the last line (along the lines of "I guess it could be
sold to a malware vendor or something") was more or less because I was
thinking on that; I took my time to think, and couldn't find many optimistic
things.

My only other guess outside of the one listed is that it could be sold to
Facebook or twitter after getting a large audience, because it aligns with
historical acquisitions somewhat.

I'd be happy to be shown wrong in a year (I'd literally take anything over
what I imagine is going to happen to it), but presently I'm mostly just
confused.

Responding to the edits I only noticed after responding:

 _" Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other
people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign."_

I wasn't trying to discourage the people making the extension! I was mostly
seeing if I could get any spare guesses as to what YC's mindset was when
thinking about this.

Regarding whether what it's combating is a big deal:

Certainly, but I'm not sure if the solution to all of those is...a new big
tech company, to put questions of profitability aside. It seems partially like
bait to be acquired by a social media company, or Nielsen (which is a literal
malware company at this point, they pay users to MITM their connections; a way
to get the same data without paying seems like something they'd love).

~~~
dang
I'm no expert in YC's business, but I think the confusion might be coming from
thinking about this too similarly to how later-stage investment works, where
there are fewer investments to place and more information available, and
therefore more up-front analysis. It's not feasible to do that in YC's case,
where they fund hundreds of startups a year. Nor can such analysis apply
anyhow—there's too much uncertainty at the earliest stage.

The way YC looks for signal is different: simple and rooted in a few
fundamentals. Do the founders seem effective? are they talking to users? and
so on. The funny thing is, even though the fundamentals are simple and have
been laid out in pg essays for a decade or more, it's surprisingly hard to
reason with them. The mind doesn't like to stop with so little. I think that's
why YC funding something like this feels paradoxical. (In the present case, it
wasn't what they applied with but something they came up with later; but that
helps make the point.)

"Bait to get acquired" would be considered a negative, since that's not how a
business like YC ends up with the few big successes that make or break it.
It's more like this: is there some plausible random world in which this thing
ends up becoming a major breakthrough? It doesn't have to be probable, just
fairly imaginable. And the founders have to seem like the kind of people who
might, with luck, pull it off.

(Sorry for editing the carpet from under you! What I just wrote here was in
response to your pre-edited comment too, but hopefully is still relevant.)

~~~
kick
(It's no problem! I edit after posting about as much as anyone, so I
definitely understand it! I appreciate the depth of response; I just made sure
to wait a bit before forming a response to this one; it's fun to watch the
stages a comment goes through, sort of like watching thought in process but
more refined. Thanks for putting so much thought into your responses!)

That last line in the second paragraph made it click for me, thank you! At
first I was under the impression they were funded after the 6 MVPs, but it
makes sense that they were funded before/during that! With that bit of
context, "betting on the founders" in this case makes much more sense to me.

