This isn't me being narrow-minded, it's simply a matter of waves being a limited resource. Sharing waves is fine for beginners surfing inside and heading directly towards shore. But when you're out back surfing green waves there's not that many waves to go around. It doesn't take many people to paddle out before your wave-count drops and you have to start competing for waves. It's just a lot less fun.

As regards knowing when the surf is good, I know by looking at weather forecast. When I first moved here I put in the time checking the forecast and checking what the actual waves are like for that swell, wind, period etc. I know what any of my regular spots will be like just by looking at the weather charts for the day. I don't need an app to tell me. Anyone who surfs a spot regularly will similarly be able to tell what it's like from checking the charts.

I think the market for this kind of app is really just beginning and occasional surfers. They will certainly be consumers for the app but they will probably not be much use in providing data for the app.

Just naming surf-spots on the internet is a sensitive subject so putting almost-live photo updates of spots will be even more so. Don't expect regular surfers to provide this information.

The only benefit I'd have for this is when the big report sites over-hype a bit of weekend swell and get it wrong... Hopefully reporting that it's worse than expected would keep folks from driving out from inland.

"This report is from 2 hrs ago, hopefully they've all gone in by now"

"I'm an agressive surfer, I'll get waves regardless of how many people are out there"

"I'll hit this at sunrise tomorrow"