
Ask HN: Would you pay to have a penpal? - earlyriser
There&#x27;s an epidemic of loneliness and there are some services that are trying to solve in some way this problem like having lunch with strangers or professional huggers.<p>I&#x27;m toying with the idea of creating a penpal service because I like to email and I want to solve problems like this. If you have read &quot;The hacking of the American Mind&quot; you&#x27;ll know that one of the things we can do to become happier is to CONNECT (the others are Contribute, Cope &amp; Cook).<p>The focus of the service would be to &quot;be there&quot; in an empathetic way for the people who need to be heard or exchange.<p>Do you think you could use something like this (now, or at some point of your life)?
Do you think someone of your entourage would benefit from this?
======
whitepoplar
If you charge for it, do so in a way that doesn't seem like you're paying for
the friendship itself. Imagine two scenarios: 1) You pay $10 for the pleasure
of seeing your friend. 2) You meet your friend for drinks, where you end up
spending $10. There's a subtle difference between the two, the latter of which
is pleasant, the former not.

~~~
rorosaurus
Depends on the culture of the target audience too. In Japan, paying for a
friend isn't terribly uncommon. OP could consider that market as well.

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outsidetheparty
I really want to like this idea, I think the ideals behind it are laudable,
and honestly I would fall well within its target market.

There's zero chance I'd ever sign up for such a service.

It feels artificial (It's an internet friend you have to pay for!) and self-
defeating (it's a platform for shared misery!) The idea of being paired up
with some other lonely person so we can vent at each other empathetically
about how lonely we both are doesn't sound like it'd be a support at all; it
sounds like a burden. Best case scenario is we really hit it off, and then
there's one more person I like but don't really get to ever connect with for
real, because long-distance. Got plenty of those already, thanks.

~~~
amelius
But what if this other person is on the company's payroll, and is/acts really
cool? And perhaps they are being rated by other users, so you'd know in
advance?

EDIT: removed some ambiguity in wording.

~~~
outsidetheparty
> But what if this other person is really cool?

That's the "best-case scenario" I was talking about. Still not great.

> And perhaps they are being rated by other users, so you'd know in advance?

Whaaaaaaaaat hell no kill that idea with fire.

First off that implies that users are being paired up with many other users,
not one-to-one (otherwise there's no way for a user to build up 'ratings')
which makes it sound more like a subject-specific message board than a "pen-
pal" service.

More importantly, wtf? rating individual users? On a service whose purpose is
for people to empathetically "be there" for one another? Seriously? "Bob's
really lonely and hurting, but he's also kind of dull. One star." No. No no no
no no.

~~~
amelius
Ok, I changed my wording a bit. What I meant is that the other person (the
penpal) could be paid by the company. As such, I don't think it is bad if they
are being rated.

~~~
schoen
In this case I think you are effectively offering something like
psychotherapy/counseling/coaching/advising. It's not necessarily bad if some
these things are provided by people without certain kinds of training,
although there are some serious and complex problems that really are best
handled by a professional.

I have three thoughts about this:

* You should think carefully about your marketing about the nature of the service that you offer (as you can see that some people were really rubbed the wrong way by the original description).

* Similarly, you should be sure to be clear about the scope and nature of the relationship.

* You should consider the issue of things that "escalate quickly", e.g. customers who behave inappropriately toward your staff, or customers who threaten to harm themselves or other people, or who seem to be in need of more extensive professional help. You might think this is unlikely if your service isn't marketed as psychological counseling, but all of these things are going to come up eventually!

Overall, I think it's pretty useful and valuable to have more places and
options that people can turn to for conversation, interaction, and advice. I
agree that it's really tough that so many people feel isolated and don't know
where to turn for connection or how to talk about their experiences.

(Edit: People in this thread seem really upset about describing the other
person in this interaction as a "friend". And indeed, if I pay someone to
interact with me for various purposes, I wouldn't describe that relationship
as "friendship". It is a professional relationship, not a friendship. But it
doesn't mean that the relationship isn't beneficial. There are all different
kinds of relationships that involve payment that can be enormously beneficial.
Maybe you can even develop some new ones!)

(Edit 2: It doesn't have to be presented and marketed as something like
psychotherapy. It can still just be corresponding about one's situation. But
the parameters should still be as clear as possible.)

~~~
earlyriser
Thanks for your comments. I was an Educational Psychologist at some point.
This wouldn't fall under the umbrella of traditional therapy, but it will be
certainly a professional relationship that will need some clear framework
(ethical and operational).

And I agree also with you in how beneficial is to have multiple choices for
interaction and advice. I was delighted when I read philosophical counseling
is a thing.

------
zapperdapper
There are a range of services out there already. There was a YCombinator
startup where you could sign up and be a volunteer "listener" after completing
some online training - sorry forget the name now - it was designed to solve
the issue you are talking about.

There's also Interpals - a free penpal service. You can use it to learn
languages too, although some people seem to use it as a dating site!

~~~
HorizonXP
[https://www.7cups.com](https://www.7cups.com)

7 Cups

~~~
zapperdapper
That's the one - thanks for reminding me!! :)

------
orev
No. People are lonely because they have incentives to do things other than
make human connections, mostly in the form of technology. It’s not a problem
that is caused by lack of availability, it’s a problem caused by short-term
gratification that is more appealing and easier to obtain for people.
Providing availability would be moot since there’s no demand to begin with,
and any that exists is already met by online forums like this.

A penpal situation in particular is the antithesis of what you’d want, as
sitting down and writing letters to other people is actually _work_ that
people don’t want to do. Maybe the first time is fun, but then it becomes a
chore. I’m not going to pay someone to sign me up for a service which carries
a bunch of obligations in addition to what I already have in my life.

------
hellepardo
My opinion is that as long as there exists free ways to connect with people,
nobody is going to pay for it. So it's tough for me to see a way to build a
business around this; I don't think people will be particularly willing to
pay.

------
pmiri
While I would love to find a penpal, I don't think I'd pay for such a thing. I
can only imagine the pricing revolving around a convenience fee, and that's
not too much to hang a business on.

------
ibdf
People already pay to be listened to. It's called therapy. So yes, I think
people would pay for it. Perhaps someone that's just lonely wouldn't use such
service, but people that are truly depressed and struggling to make it each
day my give such service a try.

The problem with this services is that you are paying to have a "friend", that
might says whatever you want to hear. So it would work best if it's sold as a
professional service and not as find a buddy service.

------
leggomylibro
No.

Here's the problem with paying for social things: I already feel like nobody
ever treats me like a human being unless money is involved. The only time
anyone smiles at me is if they're chasing a tip. The only time anyone speaks
to me is if they need something or are getting paid for it. And that hurts.

So, using your service would hurt emotionally. That's kind of a tough sell.

------
politician
I'm 99% sure that I saw this idea floated during the DotCom boom on Slashdot.

Maybe it was Interpals [0]?

> For over a decade, InterPals has been the Internet's premier free site for
> online correspondence, cultural exchange, and learning foreign languages.

> Created in April 1998, the site began as the "International Penpal Page." A
> friendly forum for people to find email and postal penpals from around the
> world, the page quickly became so popular that it was rebuilt from the
> ground up in 1999 and renamed InterPals. (Want to see what it looked like?
> View archived versions of InterPals).

[0] [https://www.interpals.net/](https://www.interpals.net/)

------
dewey
There are a bunch of subreddits for that already so I'm not sure a paid
service would work that well for that. One advantage could be that people stay
more engaged for longer because they are paying for it?

~~~
earlyriser
Some subreddits are awesome. The advantages here will be avoiding flakiness &
ghosting, the intended depth of the connection (something that would be more
along catharsis than let's say discovering a stranger's books taste), a focus
on the client needs and avoiding "catching feelings".

------
tucaz
If the service is good and truthful it has a great potential.

If it’s fake and people have to force themselves into a helpful mood then it’s
probably not gonna work.

I guess that the magic behind something like this is to be able to create
actual human connections.

Anecdotaly I find that getting drunk with people is the easiest and fastest
way to make connections like that. Not that it is a good idea, but it works.

~~~
earlyriser
Yes, I think authenticity is the key here.

There's no way to scale this (as a one-man show) and keep with the quality, so
I'm not trying to make this a big business, just something sustainable.

------
orasis
Fascinating idea. I don't mean this in a bad way, but it fulfills the same
role as prostitution - a basic need met with money.

~~~
Tharkun
My thinking was similar but a bit more cynical: if I'm going to be paying
someone for company, I feel like I'd get more (pardon the awful pun) bang for
my buck with a sex worker.

------
tmaly
I would definitely not pay for this. But there are a lot of interesting cool
people out in the world that would be nice to meet for intellectual
discussion. Finding them is the challenge.

Maybe an idea that will suggest meetup groups based on some personal scoring
method.

I know the meetup site now spams the hell out of me with new meetups that I
have absolutely no interest in.

------
justboxing
I am convinced that there's a (paid!) market for this, but you are also asking
for feedback from the wrong crowd, that's why you are getting feedback like
this

> There's zero chance I'd ever sign up for such a service.

Majority of HN users are I am guessing under 50 and most if not all have good
paying jobs -- money is a factor in quite a few instances of loneliness
directly or indirectly. Ex: Guy loses job, girlfriend leaves him, starts
drinking and become lonely.

The loneliness epidemic is also very prevalent in the 50+ age group, esp. with
rising longevity and healthcare facilities in the developed world, people are
living longer and longer.

I saw in the news the other day how the mailman was sitting and reading mails
to senior citizens in some french village and they were paying him for it.

You should do a quick and simple MVP, and position it positively, like "make
friends anywhere in the world" or something like that, not too cheezy, but
nothing "negative" sounding like "overcome your loneliness" etc cos that will
just remind people how lonely they are.

I recently interviewed at [https://www.keen.com](https://www.keen.com) and
when I visited their site, it looked scammy like 1 of those online horoscope,
lover gurus and tarot card readers. On site I learned that they are very
highly profitable since 2004. It's a bunch of online properties where people
call into a phone # and discuss their relationship, get "happiness advice"
etc. Apparently quite a few of those "Advise providers" are making a fulltime
income.

You could apply the same principles to penpal / email to help people combat
loneliness, make news friends, and get relationship (this also causes
loneliness with breakups, divorce etc) advise etc.

Email me if you wanna discuss more. Email in bio.

------
kiliantics
There's good reason to believe that the increase of loneliness is being caused
by an increased sense of alienation in society, which was predicted to occur
due to economic forces under capitalism by Marx. So heartwarming to see this
loneliness being viewed as just another potential to extract profit from
people...

------
yesenadam
No; there's no need to pay. There are a load of free dating/friendship sites.
I got onto a couple about 10 years ago and made friends from dozens of
countries. Learnt Spanish cause I liked the Latin Americans I met so much.
(Still friends, now old friends, with a few of those original people from 10
years ago.) That just changed my life, never had so many awesome friends. Also
later I joined a free language-exchange site, where you're matched with
appropriate people and teach each other your native language—another very good
way of making friends. Sure, it's not great for real hugs, but apart from that
:-)

------
GT0nizuka
One group of lonely people who need Connection are residents in assisted
living, memory care, nursing homes, etc. They will likely not seek out a
service for themselves, but their relatives might pay. Family members often
don’t have the time, inclination or ability to stay connected with their older
relatives, especially those at a distance. And frankly (sadly) many of the
residents have simply been forgotten. Pen pal emails would not cut it for most
of the over 70 crowd (especially those with dementia), but a snail mail
handwritten letter or card could go a long way toward brightening somebody’s
week.With some additional tech video pen pals might work. There is a vast
untapped market of “upwardly mobile people who cannot pay enough quality
attention to their older relatives living in facilities”.

------
kylehotchkiss
No.

I have seen USA's loneliness crisis in the news several times the past few
days in relation to the tragedy in Florida. However, it feels wrong to
capitalize on it. Especially given that people living in poverty may be the
ones suffering from loneliness the most.

Cool idea if it were offered as a community service, and managed by a team of
people who are passionate about helping people find community. Of course, a
consensus that there is a loneliness crisis in the USA doesn't appear to have
been reached with people with authority to take wide actions

------
axaxs
Just being honest - no.

There exists too many free forums on the internet, and moreso even subreddits,
to make such a thing worth paying for.

------
volandovengo
I’m sure somebody would pay.

Sure there may be proxy services out there that cater to these needs, but this
isn’t to say that they can’t be improved.

Check out also the number of companies that are doing some version of digital
therapy.

Would recommend reaching out to the people that are using other support
channels and hearing their stories and thinking of ways to support them.

------
mgeorgoulo
All of these are already handled by facebook and such. Maybe involving
something useful in the process would justify a new service.

For instance look at language exchange, which is penpals with an intent to
learn each other's language. There might be other useful stuff a service could
match people for.

~~~
codingdave
I'm not sure that Facebook already doing something is a valid reason not to do
it in a new service. Quite the contrary, Facebook has validated the market for
online connection, but is now struggling to find a way that to do it that is
received positively by all. This could be a great time to slice off a piece of
Facebook and make a new service.

------
ytNumbers
I don't think people will pay for a penpal. However, they might pay for advice
if the person giving the advice qualified as some kind of expert in the area
in question. Perhaps you could consider an idea pivot to something similar
that people would be willing to pay for.

------
Kagerjay
I would say no, because paying someone to do this means your friendship is
shallow and based off money

------
crimsonalucard
>There's an epidemic of loneliness.

This problem isn't solved by a penpal service. It's solved by the living
situation. The people you live and work with everyday are the people you
become closest to.

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maxbaines
Call it PayPal :0

~~~
mullen
PenPayPal

------
purplezooey
The argument "X already exists" is not a reason not to do something. We have
both Coke and Pepsi ya know.

------
jasonmp85
I would pay _not_ to have one.

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6d6b73
No

------
etrautmann
No

------
debt
$0.00

------
Nyr
This is pathetic and you should feel ashamed for trying to exploit individuals
with such needs for profit.

As others have pointed out, those seeking that kind of companion already have
free alternatives available, in Reddit and other places.

~~~
hoborama
You think he should build it for free? How is he supposed to pay his bills or
eat while he's making it? Profit is not necessarily a dirty word.

~~~
Nyr
I don't think that he should build that, period. It is an abomination of an
idea.

Just like the "professional huggers" which he mentions. You can't purchase
human affection.

~~~
earlyriser
I think it's fine to call this an abomination. I wouldn't be on Ask HN if I
didn't want honest opinions.

However, the very spirit of being a hacker is to solve problems with less than
optimal solutions, like duck tape. Human affection is the optimal solution,
but people who use services provided by professional huggers know that they're
buying an interaction that is positive to them, not a feeling in the other
person.

