[SeaDude]

Hello, Very interesting. I've been using Edge's built-in voice reading a lot more recently for the exact case you mention on your homepage: listening while working. I have two questions for you after reading your TOS and Privacy Policy. I was expecting to see "you" scraping data from each site or otherwise monetizing the service, but nothing stood out. Either your TOS/PP is incorrect, or you don't have an obvious income stream for the service you are rendering.

So the questions: Who are you? and How are you doing this for free?

Thank you,

[rapnie]

Good to see others checking TOS/PP too, and asking these questions. Especially as there is absolutely no transparency. Who is the company, or some people behind this, contact email? The TOS says 'use at own risk, we are not liable for anything' and also mentions 'Refund policy' (?).

The domain is namecheap, no more info. And the HN user tiburon is a new account.

There are 4 trackers on the site. Besides GTM (mentioned in PP) there is twitter-ads.

Do you have more info, tiburon?

[tiburon]

currently it’s free and there will be some paid features in the future, the site is preparing for that.

[rapnie]

Yea, I read the indiehackers thread and understand you currently focus mostly on the technical side.

I assume you'll have the business side well thought out too. My feedback would be to be as transparent as possible, once adding commercial services, and turn that into a true USP.

[tiburon]

thanks for the input. We have built several products before and we follow the same strategy almost with every new product.

[chiefalchemist]

In light of the various concerns, it would be helpful (read: to many here essential) if you elaborated more. What other products? Is there a contact email? Etc.

[tiburon]

why it really matters on who I am? I'm a developer with passion to help people listen to podcasts and the idea was simple. How can I offer it for free? I do a lot of work to make it happen, there will be a premium version with more features which are being cooked with the help of many developers who loved the idea too.

[scandox]

You know ten years ago I would have 100% agreed with you. In fact I would have been outraged as to why anyone would want to know.

And yet today, I consider the provenance of a product to be more or less my No. 1 consideration in whether I will use it or not.

We live in a world where brands and products are established, then monetized and eventually their userbase becomes just a trading chip that passes from hand to hand. We're giving access or money or trusting systems and we really have no control over the transfer of that trust, data or money.

So unfortunately now, yes it really matters a lot. You're asking me to add code to a website of mine: I want your address, your email, your phone number...I need to know who you really are.

[rapnie]

Ah, I just missed this comment when sending my reply.

Many people indeed do not care, and just use any cool service they encounter (and yours is cool, don't get me wrong).

An increasing body of people (including me) is more wary of just using any stuff that is out there on Wild West internet. And for good reasons.

In your comment you provide information that would be very valuable to have on your site.

E.g. 'I am a passionate developer and intend to provide Premium services eventually. The basic services you find here will continue to be free.'

[chrismorgan]

Given the purpose “to help people listen to podcasts”, I’m a bit puzzled about which end you’re tackling it from. Does it not make more sense to work on the user’s side, on browser software, where you can make all sites work, rather than helping the odd site here or there to support this? When approached from the website side, I don’t expect many to adopt it.

(On the browser side, I am aware that various browsers have speech controls hooked up, most commonly inside a Reader Mode—to say nothing of screen readers, which have a different target market. There’s also the Web Speech API which could be used to replicate WebsiteVoice’s functionality using whatever voices are offered by the user’s device. Its quality will be heavily platform-dependent.)

[timClicks]

It matters because one of your potential customers thinks it matters. And presumably because services without a business model don't have a long future.

[tiburon]

timClicks that is not true, there are many products out there that do not rely on capitals, It does not matter who I am personally. The service is free of charge until we cannot make it free of charge anymore for whatever reason. We are focusing now on user's feedbacks who already added the widget. you can find more answers on our business model there. https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/finished-mvp-to-turn-blog...

[aasasd]

Out of curiosity, are you not some variation of a programmer or engineer like the majority of people here? Asking because I wasn't able to combine my work with anything demanding mode attention than music.

(However, I must say that audiobooks go splendidly with manual work that doesn't require much thinking.)

[robert18]

I think there are many services similar for free, they most probably have their own TTS