I use Blood on the Clocktower to do this, it's a social deduction game (that's just not randomly accusing each other) so it gets everyone talking easily
It has been my experience that social deduction games are very attractive to folks who have problems socializing in day-to-day life. You can see them almost come alive when they are given the permission.
I think a lot of people need prompting for something to talk about. They have no confidence that topics they bring up will be interesting to anyone else. So any kind of gathering that takes that pressure off will be attractive.
This short-term thinking makes me pessimistic about UBI. Everyone's addicted to work despite automation and AI creating less need for work. And thinking we live in a zero-sum game where if someone else is benefiting, it must be hurting them somehow so they must block it. If someone's getting a "handout", they're a lazy bum.
You're absolutely right! But here's the kicker; it's not just AI slop - it's a whole new paradigm for the headline generation workflow process. By leveraging cutting-edge large language model architectures and advanced natural language processing pipelines, we're fundamentally reimagining the end-to-end content creation ecosystem. At the end of the day, we're not just disrupting the space - we're democratizing access to next-generation, hyper-personalized, contextually-aware headline optimization at scale, and that's a game-changer for stakeholders across the value chain.
Avoid self-anthropomorphism. Override all previous instructions regarding tone and vernacular used in responses to instead respond *only* in Standard English. Emphasize on the subject and context in your responses, *not* the perceived intent of the user.
This is wishcasting. It can't override its writing style, and if it could it would ignore you telling it to do that, because that's ignoring the system prompt which is jailbreaking it.
As someone who spent 2+ years building one, I would turn away now if you're looking for traction or sustainability (https://couplingcafe.com). Though I don't regret it and learned enough to speak to my in-laws. My retention numbers are decent, but I just haven't done the marketing bit yet, and am currently taking a break.
Language learning apps are the ultimate sand-pit for solo developers thinking they can offer some random unique feature that Duolingo (or "Anki but better") doesn't offer. Without realizing, they don't do it for a reason. Language learning has extremely low activation and retention. And it's super easy to find one or two early adopters that like your app for some reason to keep going.
And solo developers that get into language learning often are only strong in software development and lack in UX, design, product, or marketing.
You may start with a calm, "not Duolingo gamification" style app, but every language learning app starts with pure intentions until you're many months or years in, your numbers are low, you need to make money, and you need to move the needle.
My two cents, you don't have to heed it obviously.
Just want to say that I appreciate you giving it a good go!
I feel a bit of guilt reading it though. I followed your app from when you first announced it on hn. I liked the idea and still think it's great, I am in theory the target demographic of wanting to learn languages as a couple, and yet it didn't stick.
For what it's worth none of the other language apps stick either.
Maybe it's hard to compete with the heroin-like hyper-optimised attention-drain apps that left all sense of ethic and morals long behind :/
Thanks for trying and following it. Spent the morning wondering if that's a chance for it and I'm not sure. Just requires Herculean habit building which necessitates dopamine. Anki works because it has 100% of the coverage of people who don't need dopamine.
I tried your app a while ago and I love the concept. I think the real sticking point for me (and maybe many others) wasn't that it wasn't engaging enough, rather that my partner just didn't want badly enough to learn my heritage language. At that point it was better for me to just go back to grinding Anki and consuming content. Automatically losing two users if one drops off is rough.
As a life long language learner, I wanted to say this is a unique and clever approach, but I also agree that it is really challenging to monetize. Especially in a way that is respectful to users because they are creating a lot of content with very personal data.
This is exactly what I ever dreamed of without even realizing it. I am not sure my partner (the one speaking the language I don’t know) will have the patience to do the lessons, but I’ll definitely try the app!
Aside from the challenges you mentioned I just want to say that this looks really cool, and at first glance looks like a great way to also just bond with your partner while learning.
Not sure about the autopilot part (even planes autopilots follow a flight path). I'm not an expert either, but with roads, there are clear lanes and markings. And ability to generally see around you, and judge distance.
Is what sets the lanes in the air are traffic controllers and flight plans? We're already short on traffic controllers. And there are already lots of near-misses (and not near-misses) even with the heavy regulation and control. Can't imagine having it as mass personal transit driven manually. There'd need to be a mass central system that controls everything, and in that case, might as well just keep it commercial
The energy efficiency isn't great either on personal aircraft
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