[BubbleRings]

I have to agree with cootsnuck here. If you are one of the people that found it necessary to raise red flags in these comments about this web site, here’s why I think you got your level of paranoia wrong in this case:

1. The site was never going to scale. The guys are printing physical letters and hand-inserting them in envelopes with stamps, for free!

2. So some entrepreneurial folks on the internet have gathered a hundred physical addresses, and they know a self-reported name and IP address, and maybe some persistent cookie info about a human that might be the first person’s friend. So what? Go bring up https://www.beenverified.com You can gather more info there in 15 minutes than the Continue and Persist guys will get over their whole project.

3. Learn to recognize a fun project that was done out of kindness and a spirit of adventure! Yeah maybe they should have not put up the language of “we get to sell your data if somebody offers to buy our web site”. But so what! The whole thing is just a kind adventure that brought a smile to the faces of some strangers, and will never be more than that. I appreciate it!

[krisoft]

> The guys are printing physical letters and hand-inserting them in envelopes with stamps

These things can be done at massive scales cheaply.

> for free!

That increases my level of concern, not decreases.

> Yeah maybe they should have not put up the language of “we get to sell your data if somebody offers to buy our web site”.

Maybe? What the heck do they need the data for a second after they sent the envelope?

> But so what!

So they don’t get my friends addresses. So that.

> The whole thing is just a kind adventure that brought a smile to the faces of some strangers, and will never be more than that.

You say that. But that is at contention here.

[walterbell]

> printing physical letters

After collecting data content for the physical letters with a commercial survey/marketing website.

[brookst]

100%

As insidious as data harvesting is, I am even less of a fan of the pearl clutching / performative cynicism that is so popular these days.

Why yes, when I say “good morning” to the barista who hands my my coffee, it is possible that the shop is recording me and will use my voice in an elaborate voice cloning scam to get grandma to transfer her life savings to Nigeria.

But breathlessly alerting me to this impending disaster and soberly advising me to never use my voice in public is not going to impress me.

[heysammy]

I can't think of a better example of gaslighting, wow.

[BubbleRings]

Care to elaborate?