The founders' response here regarding abuse seems to be heartfelt and genuine.
However, this does make me think. There must be a lot of money in 'bossware.' More broadly, there's market opportunity to appeal to poor managers' basest instincts: measuring people in precise (albeit irrelevant) ways, micromanagement, aiding interruptions, etc.
It's icky, and most here wouldn't want to work on it. But people somewhere are. What else fits into that category?
I think the term of art these days is "tattleware"—there have been a flurry of stories in the media lately about the growth of the market during the pandemic.
While I can see how its possible to abuse RescueTime in this way, as a happy customer for several years now, its been a lifesaver for me in several ways. It helps keep me from falling down rabbit holes thanks to my ADHD, which is probably the biggest reason I started using it. It also made it much, much easier to bill my hours when I was working as a consultant.
I know the skepticism factor is high here on HN, but having been a customer of theirs for years, I can say that the RescueTime team is one of the good actors in this space.
Brian, looking forward to seeing the new work once its released!
"tattleware" is the exact opposite direction that we want to go, and this new release is part of us putting our flag down against it. Thank you so much for saying this.
Thanks for the nice note. In the old days we used to get a lot of requests from bosses who wanted to see screenshots of people's computers. We vowed we'd go out of business before building anything like that, and I'm sure we'd lose most of our talent if we asked them to build a product like that. Not to say that someone wouldn't build it, but I don't think it'd be easy to find anyone of quality to help you out.
Surely, there is a ton of money in providing reports to some micromanager boss. If a business fills that niche, is it irresponsible on the business or is it just them finding a market fit?
However, this does make me think. There must be a lot of money in 'bossware.' More broadly, there's market opportunity to appeal to poor managers' basest instincts: measuring people in precise (albeit irrelevant) ways, micromanagement, aiding interruptions, etc.
It's icky, and most here wouldn't want to work on it. But people somewhere are. What else fits into that category?