Meaningful/Most similar recommendations? Example: Social-Fixer(, Youtube Enhancer, Simplify, ...)

[ImprovedTube]

Just like us, Social Fixer (for Facebook) helps to tidy in many ways. Developed by @matt-kruse.

+The fact that every user on Facebook has a wealth of unused data allows powerful features,
such as 'Un-friend Notification'. (While this can be sad to notice quietly, it can also be great in various moments. For example a 'false-match' of this are friends who disable their Facebook temporarily. For example in depressed phases. So it must be nice for some people to have a notification for that. Even 100,000s of users are a few in percent. (While 99.x% of people accept facebook's unpersonal/one-fit-all way.) So potentially such code could fix society more literally than the name 'Social Fixer' might be meant? )

• Would/n't it be great for once, to show Social-Fixer, to ImprovedTube Users? - Assumably half of all users would enjoy both extensions? (those who use both Youtube & Facebook in the Browser) (- Yet most people in the world heard of neither Extension. Both aren't popular enough to have many users in common already.)

  • What do you think, @matt-kruse? Hypothetically we could increase Social Fixer users by **% and won't complain if ImprovedTube would 'get back less in return'. (Even both could be measured through unique links)

• Social Fixer started in 2009. ImprovedTube started in 2012.
  Same as their alternatives 'Youtube enhancer' and 'F.B. purity'.
  It could make sense to inform about these alternatives too, besides the preexisting intersection of users might be a bit more there. And it would be less expected ('unnecessary or 'confusing. And some 'competitiors' wouldn't agree. Yet there is far more more work in each niche than is done. I.e. such 'competitiors' could actually understand themselves team/cut their future ToDo lists in halves. But that will be another post/discussion.)

[ImprovedTube]

• Example 2: Simplify, which simplifies Gmail layout & adds options like reverse sorting order of conversation threads (=Newest first) and minimizing email signatures.
  Developed by @leggett, who was a lead designer of Gmail before (2008-2012) & 'Gmail Inbox'.

  • Besides by now Simplify is paid-only. @leggett: Assume we could refer you some good users (slowly/modestly), who would otherwise never notice. Would you consider to make an ImprovedTube discount Coupon + extra plan for them with zero support included?/billed extra. And forward the base payments, for our developement? (That would be asked a lot! - Yet you would be heroic, since we still work for free and should multiply the amount of Feature requests done.)

[leggett]

Howdy! Owner of simpl.fyi here. Is this a request for cross-promotion? Or maybe even trying to build an umbrella paid plan that covers multiple extensions?

[leggett]

Cross promotions:

• I'm uncomfortable recommending things I don't use and know super well. Ironically, despite building extensions that modify popular sites, this is the first I've heard of both these extensions (both of which have more users than I do). But I haven't really gone looking for them. I typically just make an extension when I want to modify a site (how I got into this).
• If I did recommend something, it would probably be on my website or on Twitter and not in Simplify Gmail. I'm not sure how much impact that will have. Unless...
• I do have plans to build Simplify for other products (including YouTube and Facebook). I would be open to recommending extensions like ImprovedTube or Social Fixer in these extensions for people looking for something more or different. But I'm months from launching those.
• Other Simplify extensions will not likely be as extensive as Simplify Gmail or your extensions (from what I can tell after glancing at the CWS listings). So I doubt I'll be much competition... maybe more like a source of ideas you can copy if you like them. :)

Umbrella paid plans

• Turning a free extension into a paid one has been a massive effort. A lot more than I expected. I'm sure it is in part to how I am doing it. But everything from setting up a business, dealing with sales tax and international VAT, authenticating, pricing, etc. Massive effort.
• When I started the conversation with my customers about moving to a paid model, my original plan was one subscription to cover all extensions. There was a lot of pushback from people that didn't want to pay more for stuff they didn't feel they wanted or needed. So I dropped the price and made the subscription for just Gmail.
• I am undecided if the other extensions will be free or not. I lean towards free or a patreon/donation type model as I expect they will be far easier to maintain than Simplify Gmail.
• So I'm not jumping up and down about an umbrella plan. But I'm open to suggestions.

[ImprovedTube]

Howdy! Owner of simpl.fyi here. Is this a request for cross-promotion?

hi @leggett!🌞 Yes, alternative title: 'what do you guys(users) think about the top few most perfectly/conceptually related projects?/''cousins(pendants for another context/website). - Promoting them well would just depend on telling that they exist. (not depending on much visual campaign nor our approval/authority).
and be more interesting/meaningful than mentioning alternatives (no intersection of features. less intersection of user-base).
So this is asking our users about linking these Projects, and what else might exist?
And this inherently becomes asking for cross-promotion when asking developers.

+I attempted to lay out what else could be done by any two projects, in our two organizational states 'paid' vs. 'free/unfunded'. Maybe ImprovedTube would link to Simpl.fyi already, if both were free. (not requiring cross promotion). But when paid, It would be great/fair if the free/unfunded project would get all profit, that it would cause, as long as it is financially weak and could multiply its development. ( Such could be motivated/tracked through an optional link/coupon shared only with the users of the free project and a difference in plan, with clear advantages & disadvantages (discount/donation vs. no support or a missing pro-feature, yet of course, it would be harder to guess how many, who might not want to know paid/Poor countries could be skipped unless price was dynamic like Spotify's ~$1.5 to $12).

Or maybe even trying to build an umbrella paid plan that covers multiple extensions?

Yay (not yet/doesn't apply to free projects). You are right, I'm into teaming / 'synergy'.
It seems it would be good and in consensus with the world, if our products had millions of users. Why dont they? - And funding/securing work on all future Github issues better, shouldnt even require as many users as we have.
Another scenario: Imagine you'd accept a crypto token, called "code for charity". Sellable for $ and accepted by poor developers to solve github issues. Those users would require a high discount defined by an auction/voting among them or by amount of your code and users. Yet the tokens would be deflationary and hard to buy a lot.

Just read your second answer. You are fast! 👍

massive effort

Curious about your experience, was the ChromeWebstore counter 80000 last year?

recommending things I don't use ... the first I've heard of both these extensions

sure! unless knowing already / informing about facts. Maybe the first time i noticed Simplify was by an advanced github search to see if any repo had more CSS than ImprovedTube. (excluding frameworks). Makers arent their most common users often. Yet it is good to be informed, even developing for oneself, to feel productive? all (code) effort deserves to be unique? (Don't want to reinvent wheels. When something is already done by somebody, there tends to be something better to do. And so many things done by 0 people for years.)
I was impressed by the amount of work/design done here ( https://github.com/raingart/Nova-YouTube-extension) but sorry it didn't find many users/contributors (similar to our project, yet started 2019).

I do have plans to build Simplify for other products (including YouTube and Facebook).

how long is your list of ideas for Facebook, Youtube (and more?)
/ How many of them do you expect to find in our open Issues?

[leggett]

One idea: a referral fee.
I do have plans to build a referral credit system. If someone signs up with a referral code, both parties (the new customer and the one who referred them) get 10%. The new customer gets that 10% off and the referrer gets the exact same amount as a credit towards their own subscription. I would be open to paying that credit in cash instead of a credit but I would need to look into the legal & financial implications.

[ImprovedTube]

happy sunday, ah, assumed recent decrease in users was from 'paid' only, as an inevitable trade-off.
yes, meant extension aren't popular enough / as they'd deserve (except honey/adblock/grammarly)
good luck! I would assume above 5% within USA/rich places. (And most users, if there was an automatic micro payment solution🤔)

Maybe most serious extension developers are 'traumatic about accidental permission dialogues! :)
did you try Chrome Webstores's testing feature to roll out an update to a few percent of people only? (this usually updated everybody anyways, which is why we upload another testing Version)

[leggett]

I have a second version with ~400 people on it that I use for testing (canary.simpl.fyi). And I use Chrome's slow rollout option (which does seem to work for me... I've had the new version with the subscription requirement locked at 20% for over a week and while it trickles out to some it definitely hasn't gone out to all). But I didn't use or know about Chrome's % release back in February unfortunately. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[matt-kruse]

Hi Guys! Creator of Social Fixer here. Is this a public conversation? I am more likely to be transparent in a private conversation.
I like what you guys are talking about, though. I'm interested. I have quite extensive experience in this space and a roadmap for my next big steps. Would like to discuss more.

[matt-kruse]

I am very very cautious of doing anything that might be considered spammy or promotional. The whole goal of my extension is to improve social media by removing ads, distractions, etc. I cannot become the thing that I propose to fix! So I would be willing to proceed, but only in a way that closely guards the privacy of my users and does not impose advertising or promotional manipulation on them.

[leggett]

I believe this is public. Happy to move to a private forum. Email works fine for me -- hi@simpl.fyi

[ImprovedTube]

hi @matt-kruse :) nice to meet you guys!

I'm interested ... extensive experience

awesome! i might not have chosen good words yet, the math just looks like:
Highest potential correlation/meaningful congruence of our user-bases, yet current intersection: Still low.
+Potential sum of users of our extensions in some years: Several times more.
+Browser Extensions as a whole deserve more attention (?)

• We have control to do what our users like. What makes the average advertisment annoying is, that it often is so bad, that it is very rarely clicked / waste of time. We can design all our internal & external links to be meaningful == clicked often enough to be worth the pixels/positions/colors they take. Part of our time-/distraction-(/privacy-)aware users take the time to look through our features repeatedly, before they find more to use and like to checkout external links

• potential user-exchange currently:

  • a small/appreciatable/meaningfully-placed permanent link/button, informing about each other's existence, which is more relevant as a whole, than some internal features, might result in +200 installs/day but only +10% users after a year (once the info/knowledge is received, the amount of clicks will decrease, so that the size could decrease further into a small icon at the same position)
  • (optionally accelerated/specified through a bigger notice/serious review along with own release notes or so.)

public

yes, can't be private in public github repo i think. you can edit. projects@improvedtube.com

This thread was read by 6 people yet, most of whom intend to represent users well / sensitively and will voice any doubt afaik. (='definition of public Git beyond code'?). Might be good if any newer/smaller extension's developer, that i didnt hear of feels invited to join this thread too.

• Related extensions(generally): Chrome shows related extensions in the bottom with simple relation, missing some strong relation like our extension's purpose. It is flooded by fake-extensions part of the time. (+Mozilla's catalogue was easy to sort/navigate originally, however now mostly showing their top100 recommendations, that are partly dated (and we arent part of them even though we could). And they could make a Top500. Maybe we should make that list. There could be a simple user-exchange ad for extensions, for example 200x100 pixel always in the bottom, fitting several related names. Added through manual review and universal requirments (minimum 4.x star ratings, 'offline/private, minium stars/contributors on github or no commercial ads.