Cool idea! It sounds like you're offering it for free, with the option for a donation. How are you going to deal with the influx of what I imagine will be hundreds of free requests? Won't that get pretty expensive fast?

The pessimist in me says this is the regular old "If it's free, then you're the product" situation.

This seems like a clever way to collect valid mailing addresses. People are also likely to include personal information in their praise messages, which could be valuable data.

Their Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy state they reserve the right to share collected information with service providers, business partners, and affiliates. They can use your data for "other purposes" including "data analysis" and "identifying trends." They can share your information with "business partners to offer you certain products, services or promotions."

The terms look like boilerplate that only addresses "your" data--not the information you enter about the target. If they end up selling the addresses/names/activities of unwilling participants, their "don't sue us" clause from the video may not hold up in court.*

*ianal

Aren’t there data dumps freely available online with contact information for pretty much anyone? In that context, why would the data from this small project have any monetary value?

It wouldn't. This site just has a strong bias towards reactionary yum yuckers.

OP here - There will be a lot we won’t be able to get to Hahahh but we want to try and send out as many as we can!

Well that's super lame.

A USPS Forever Stamp is $0.73. Unless yall are rolling in VC funds or a lot of extra cash, a few hundred or even thousand orders is going to nuke the entire idea.

Are you still going to harvest and use all of the collected data of people who never got anything mailed?

I think the rules are you have to put a Show HN: in the title when you self post

I don’t think that’s a rule, but it does give you a better chance of being noticed because it goes on the show list.

They're also downranked a little, IIRC.

Show HNs aren't downranked.

Oh, thanks for the clarification! No idea why I thought that...

Yes, but, they admit they’re not lawyers :’ )