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A comment on Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought was interesting. Parent comment

Re:Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought ... by jondubois on Sunday October 14, 2018 @04:37AM (#18211964)
Bump was such a silly idea. It's a miracle that they were able to get so many users. It's one of those ideas that sounds good at first glance but after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, you understand that it's actually a very bad idea. Maybe it picked up because of all the YC hype.

I don't see how the act of physically bumping phones together to share content adds any value at all.

It's disturbing that the founder would then go on and write an article about the whole experience. This represents everything that's wrong with startup accelerators.

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Re:Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought ... by mattmanser on Sunday October 14, 2018 @06:31AM (#18212253)
It took off because back then having an iPhone was an exclusive thing and Apple promoted it in one of their early app commercials. Being able to 'bump' was a mark of status and one which had a special "handshake".

Not sure why you're picking on the accelerators.

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Re:Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought ... by jondubois on Sunday October 14, 2018 @07:01AM (#18212337)
>> It took off because back then having an iPhone was an exclusive thing and Apple promoted it in one of their early app commercials.

I can guarantee 100% that if Bump was not associated with Y Combinator, they would not have been mentioned by Apple. It has more to do with business connections and network effects than actual usefulness to the consumer.

>> Not sure why you're picking on the accelerators.

Because often they create hype around products which aren't actually useful. In doing so, they take attention and funding away from other products that are actually useful.

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Re:Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought ... by goldfeld on Sunday October 14, 2018 @01:01PM (#18213838)
There's still credit for the app being a visual marketing gimmick which executives like, which doesn't transfer to usefulness.
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Re:Ten years ago today, I had the idea for an app I thought ... by lawnchair_larry on Sunday October 14, 2018 @02:11PM (#18214195)
Nobody would have considered “bumping” as a status signal then or now. And iPhones were anything but exclusive.
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