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by tobr 2336 days ago
This might come off as awfully naive, but this doesn’t sit right with me:

> XYLO's mobile music lesson technology is the easiest way to learn new music, right from the comfort of your home. Our platform can teach your child any instrument on any schedule, and let them replay lessons forever.

As far as I understand, this is... a complete lie? You just made some crap up to see if you can make people click?

3 comments

It's understandably naive. As I commented in another thread, many many years ago there were discussions here on HN on doing just this. Most of us agreed it was immoral behavior. These guys are endorsing it.

The argument from the other side was: Yes, you are making some people angry. You're going to piss off 300 potential customers so you can learn enough to get 300,000. You're not taking money and if you protect their email addresses (don't sell them, etc.) then it's worth it because you can save a lot of money and time.

You have platforms that thrive on this : Kickstarter, Indiegogo.

They are filled with concepts, prototypes, what ever that's sold as end products.

Yet they ask for money, here it's offered the possibility to get more information.

Yes, there are many people who lie. That’s what makes it a problem, just like with other types of pollution.

But in my experience your characterization of crowdfunding is mostly wrong. While projects tend to describe their product as they intend for it to be in final ready form, the whole concept of crowdfunding makes it clear enough that backers help fund something that isn’t yet a reality, and that there is risk involved.

It's a lie, but only in a sense that they don't have a product yet. But that's something that they could have striven for if they were funded.
Can't you say the same for financial fraud?

"It's fraud, but only in the sense that we don't have the profits yet. With some investment we'll surely be able to make that much profit and more."

Also, it's not just a landing page. They take PII. I'm honestly a bit surprised this is legal.