[landl0rd]

I think this is bad and antisocial and you should shut it down. I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot.

More practically beeper got blocked for this reason despite not even targeting commercial messaging.

[paul7986]

I agree this no bueno and anyone not in my contacts gets filtered out.

Why build a startup outside of making money from spamming community (mobsters) when its only annoys almost every human who receives spam calls, voicemails and texts? I mean even the founders and or those closest to them.. Im sure they love all the spam calls, voicemails (most recently being the annoying personal loan b.s.) and texts... right?

Im sure there's money to be made with spam outfits (mobsters) and more shaddy folks but again this isn't helping the issue that bugs almost every cellphone user out there. The government now is working on trying to fix this issue further, I bet there's more money there to be made in help fixing the issue then exborate it!

[garygao]

Our goal behind this is to make it easier for people to conversationally interact with agents when they want to. Use cases like customer service or form-fill text backs would fit this. People are already getting SMS/RCS conversations in their iMessage inbox. We're simply making those conversations feel more human, conversational, and natural.

[xienze]

> We're simply making those conversations feel more human, conversational, and natural.

Explain what iMessage does to accomplish this goal that RCS can't.

[pxeboot]

> I like imessage because businesses cannot easily use it. The people who are most willing to pay for what you provide will do so because they can thereby annoy me in interfaces where other spammers cannot.

I strongly disagree. If I need to chat with a business, an airline for example, why would I want to use SMS instead of iMessage? It’s the same app, but being able to easily send screenshots or photos and know they were received would be a huge improvement.

[zerozerotwo]

There is already an Apple business api that allows validated businesses to talk to you over iMessage. It does require you to agree not to spam though (try Home Depot on iMessage to see)

[garygao]

Yes, this is what we believe! We just want to make existing conversations over SMS/RCS feel more natural and conversational!

[xienze]

> If I need to chat with a business, an airline for example, why would I want to use SMS instead of iMessage?

Why does it matter?

> but being able to easily send screenshots or photos and know they were received would be a huge improvement.

Have you heard of RCS?

[sparkling]

As someone who has never owned a iPhone... what is the appeal of using iMessage? What can iMessage do that SMS/RCS can not do? Apart from the fancy iPhone-to-Mac handoff features i've seen folks use ;)

[tardedmeme]

If this project causes people to stop trusting Apple platforms so much, that seems like a win/win?

[chatmasta]

iMessage has official business accounts. Although I’m not clear if that’s what this company is using.

[wilg]

Can’t be because business chat both sucks ass and uses grey bubbles.

[treme]

I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.

[mynameisvlad]

Being accepted into YC is not something that makes you or your idea invulnerable.

https://ycgraveyard.iamwillwang.com/

https://startups.rip/

[zitterbewegung]

This is true but the point of YC is when that they will fund things that can fail it’s why VC exists .

[ctoth]

Treme, on externalities:

> I think they should probably ignore you and continue working on it seeing as they got accepted into YC.

[rob]

YC seems a bit different from I remember it back in 2007 when I first joined. They're pushing things like "GStack" now.

https://youtu.be/wkv2ifxPpF8?si=OHXgW92T_aZUbwpA