Not being able to use my own domain name with Hey is a non starter for me. It’s like not being able to transfer your cell phone number when you switch carriers. Horrible.
For sure. Their thinking is probably let's see how popular it is before offering custom domains which are typically for businesses (or techies). The problem with that is, that the techies are the ones they really need to target first, since if they get hooked and loved it, then consumers will follow. I started writing a tweet when I first saw this about the typo then realized they intentionally misspelled it, and sighed. Reminded me of the days of working for a company where they felt ever employee needed a special crazy title. Often clarity is best. Sometimes plays on words work, but in this case I feel it certainly doesn't.
Yeah, that sucks big time. I can accept the closed ecosystem, not being able to use open protocols. If you wan't to do something far away from known standards, then this might be a requirement. But locking users into the service like this gets into the way of their general stance.
Perhaps they plan to introduce custom domains in future? Maybe this just didn't fit into the initial release?
> Perhaps they plan to introduce custom domains in future? Maybe this just didn't fit into the initial release?
Most probably.
This is how basecamp always did thing, even back when it was called 37signals: they release a MVP, they generate money as early as they can, then they start agile feedback loop, improving the product throught many iterations.
They were one of the teams that made agile popular after all.
They also promote the philosophy of rejecting features and not noting the requests for them down.
Only a feature that has been requested and rejected enough times pass their "filter" of something that should be added to the product.
I'm betting a custom domain name will pass such filter and end up being implemented in one year or two.
Oops. Thanks for answering that for me. I'm shopping for a new provider and with that interface (and Apple controversy) Hey looked promising. If it had own domain support with infinitely many addresses (I use them for categorization) and supported a standard protocol I'd have considered it despite it's painfully high price. Like this, though, it looks like a bit of a joke.