[RamblingCTO]

it looks a bit unfinished tbh and is pretty slow. HN success hug of death?

I built something similar: https://newsletterify.com but is also not really finished. There's a copy cat of my product of which I'm not sharing the link, but I love that there is some competition out there. I love reading newsletters and aggregated information when I have the time, but emails aren't really the medium imho

[davidchua]

Thanks for the feedback!

So sorry that you're experiencing slowness. I haven't done any performance test on it as for the past few months its mostly been used by just friends and family.

I hope it is faster now.

Tbh, I'm not sure what else to build on top of it as when I built it, I just wanted a safe and private place to be able to curate newsletters without exposing my main email address and allow friends to view my subscriptions.

What do you think feels needs to be touched up? Is it the UI?

[RamblingCTO]

we're solving the same problem then ;)

for me it definitely is the UI! you could think about adding a UI kit on top of it for a more polished look? and the biggest downturn for me personally is the google login. I wish you good luck with the project mate!

[latexr]

For those clicking, in contrast to the other options this one is paid. Most basic package is $3.99/month or $39.99/year.

[RamblingCTO]

Yup, and the prices will change, I just haven't gotten to that part yet. I did a bigger rewrite that I had to do first (moved backend to supabase, introduced pagination everywhere). New pricing will be up asap and will be around $6.99/$69.99 for a lite version (small number of summaries) and $9.99/$9.99 for the regular plan. Will include 7+ days of free trial. That's almost half of the copy cat btw. If anyone's interested, I can get in touch after I updated the pricing

[Beijinger]

I don't want to discourage you, but the prices look insane. Especially considering that you compete with competitors that are free.

Please be very clear about your USPs and your target audience.

[RamblingCTO]

In your view, how do you think I compete with these "free" services? And how can they stay free, if they have to pay 1) their time 2) their compute infrastructure and 3) LLMS and 4) email receiving (that's pretty cost intense btw). And if they don't monetize, how long do you think they'll stick around and get new features all the time?

I really don't get the sentiment on HN that everything should be free, sorry.

[latexr]

> I really don't get the sentiment on HN that everything should be free, sorry.

That’s not what your parent comment is arguing. The point is that it’s hard to sustain a business against competitors which offer the same thing for free, and the higher your price point the harder it is.

Maybe you aren’t offering the same thing or your service is so much better that it is worth the price, but that’s a different argument.

> And how can they stay free (…), how long do you think they'll stick around and get new features all the time?

I use one of this other services. It is open-source and I don’t know what their costs are, but it’s been working for me for years. I have zero need for more features from them, I’m happy with the simplicity. That I know of they don’t have LLM costs because they don’t use LLMs, and to me that is a plus. If your service is using LLMs, that honestly makes me less interested in it.

[RamblingCTO]

That's fine, I'd say that the parent comment didn't check out the website before arguing over the price. I'd say it's an entirely different service. Great that whatever solution you use works for you, love that. I wanted something more, so I built my solution. I don't think I'll ever get rich, but the cost structure is prohibitive just for myself.