Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distractions and addictions

Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by sub7 on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:03PM (#22350245)

I would just get annoyed with the prompts and uninstall. This approach doesn't, hasn't and won't work.

What will work is unfortunately a little more complex to build i.e. you need to change functionality on these sites forcibly e.g. disable autoplay on YT automatically, fetch and create a newsfeed on FB to replace the shit stock one etc etc.

You would then need to keep up with these assholes trying to block your extension at every turn.

Sadly, this is the only approach that will actually work short of serious legislation.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by BaitBlock on Monday February 17, 2020 @09:39PM (#22352992)

You should take a look at Baitblock (https://baitblock.app). We're working on something called the "Intelligent Blocker" (not yet in production, almost complete) that understands how you get to distractions in the first place. Then it removes the distracting types of comments, posts, search results, recommendations, links etc from the internet while you're working on studying.

Its kind of complex but works perfectly in trials. We also have the YouTube recommendations hider feature in the app.

Give it a shot and LMK what you think.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by sub7 on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @04:23AM (#22354620)

Looks great. I'm on Firefox so will wait for a version there.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by qiyuxuan96 on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:12PM (#22350315)

Agreed that we definitely have a lot more work to do. We currently let people change functionality on these websites - such as blocking the newsfeed. I like your suggestion that we should not only hide it, but also replace it. We'll think about that more.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by sub7 on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:58PM (#22350690)

Yup, I've built 2 products that crossed 50M users. One was a browser extension in the years before the iPhone.

I always assume my user is blackout drunk and generally not very thoughtful i.e. they know what they want but they want that shit on a plate with 0 effort.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by qiyuxuan96 on Monday February 17, 2020 @05:15PM (#22351382)

I definitely agree with you that for a lot of users, we need to make everything as easy as possible.

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Re:Launch HN: Motion (YC W20) – defense against online distr... by dkthehuman on Tuesday February 18, 2020 @10:23PM (#22362801)

I built an extension called Hide Feed that replaces the feeds to stop you from being distracted before it even happens: https://hidefeed.com/

It might be what you're looking for.

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