We're still at a very early stage. We tried to approach it in a way to see if people would show any interest in case there's the outlook of a finished product, not only a "This Could Be". We're sorry for the confusion this caused and hope to make up for it when we launch.
Re: free download, we will release most of our technological stack that will be running on your mail-stack if you pay us. So eventually you actually could (and hopefully will, if you can) setup the same thing we're offering yourself. But in case you don't want to have the hassle seeting it up AND keeping it up2date and managed, you will have the option to pay us for that part. It will still run on a dedicated VM (or maybe physical HW) that's dedicated for you and that you can take and move anytime you want (we will not ever lock you in, i can promise that right here and now)
If you are at an early stage and using other software that is at an early stage, then say so completely up front the way Mailpile does.
As a sibling comment stated, you've completely diluted the value of Show HN by throwing up a link to something you cannot even show.
If you want to gauge interest, then do it the way everyone else does--put up clear, unmistakable language that says you're at an early stage, in development, not ready to really take anybody at all on, and have a single email signup for receiving future info and/or early invite access.
That is how you make things clear. Here, you just farmed an email address in what, for me, amounts to a dishonest transaction by not having anything at all to provide me as part of the exchange at this time.
Don't apologize for "confusion" that was intentionally created. There is practically no chance you could have developed this site and not discussed how it was going to leave people with all these call-to-actions that had zero action behind them.
Potential users shouldn't have to figure this out for themselves.
EDIT:
Seriously, "in case there's an outlook of a finished product"? Good grief. If you're just launching trial balloons, respect interested users and HN enough to state that explicitly.
This is a joke.
You received a signup for an address from @restorethe4th.com. Please remove it from your email list.
Comments
We're still at a very early stage. We tried to approach it in a way to see if people would show any interest in case there's the outlook of a finished product, not only a "This Could Be". We're sorry for the confusion this caused and hope to make up for it when we launch.
Re: free download, we will release most of our technological stack that will be running on your mail-stack if you pay us. So eventually you actually could (and hopefully will, if you can) setup the same thing we're offering yourself. But in case you don't want to have the hassle seeting it up AND keeping it up2date and managed, you will have the option to pay us for that part. It will still run on a dedicated VM (or maybe physical HW) that's dedicated for you and that you can take and move anytime you want (we will not ever lock you in, i can promise that right here and now)
That is not a good enough excuse.
If you are at an early stage and using other software that is at an early stage, then say so completely up front the way Mailpile does.
As a sibling comment stated, you've completely diluted the value of Show HN by throwing up a link to something you cannot even show.
If you want to gauge interest, then do it the way everyone else does--put up clear, unmistakable language that says you're at an early stage, in development, not ready to really take anybody at all on, and have a single email signup for receiving future info and/or early invite access.
That is how you make things clear. Here, you just farmed an email address in what, for me, amounts to a dishonest transaction by not having anything at all to provide me as part of the exchange at this time.
Don't apologize for "confusion" that was intentionally created. There is practically no chance you could have developed this site and not discussed how it was going to leave people with all these call-to-actions that had zero action behind them.
Potential users shouldn't have to figure this out for themselves.
EDIT:
Seriously, "in case there's an outlook of a finished product"? Good grief. If you're just launching trial balloons, respect interested users and HN enough to state that explicitly.
This is a joke.
You received a signup for an address from @restorethe4th.com. Please remove it from your email list.
We removed your email from the list and changed the wording of the buttons to make it clearer that this is WIP.
How is it any clearer? The first button says "Download for free" and the second button after entering your email says "Request Server".
The first button should say "tell me when this becomes available" and the second should say "register my interest" or something similar.