Verifier: Weed out disposable, non-existent domains or invalid emails.

As a user, I love disposable emails because they protect me from spam. Most product creators and companies nowadays get your email to try their best to get you to buy something, and for some reason they think that bombarding you with emails is the way to do that. I understand that there are legitimate companies out there that do not spam their users, but even then they probably must send product updates, or maybe a few onboarding emails. What if I just want to try something out, and there is no way to see it in action without giving my email? There is very often the case.

Report

6yr ago

Anna Filou

@owenfar1 True, but I think the whole situation can easily be avoided by offering a demo with the user can try without signing up. That way they will only sign up if they like the product, and if they like the product they will want to get updates and they will give you their real email. Besides, anyone can make a secondary email account that they only use to sign up for services that they don’t really care about.

Report

6yr ago

Marco Rodrigues

@owenfar1 @anna_0x What about products that aren't demo-able(?) like let's say a loan or some other product that is a direct buy.

Report

6yr ago

Anna Filou

@owenfar1 @sparxslx well yeah, in that case of course a demo isn’t possible. But a quick try isn’t either. You either do it or you don’t. There’s no incentive to sign up with a fake email. In your example, if I want to loan, I want to loan. If I sign up with a fake email, I’m not helping myself. We are talking about SaaS applications here. For example, a cloud invoicing software. Let’s say that I wanna see if it works well for me but there is no demo and in case I don’t like it I don’t want them to spam me forever. I will sign up with a fake email, Try the software and if I don’t like it I will just never login again. If I do like it, I will make a second account with my real email. The thing is, I wouldn’t have to do all of that if I had been able to play around with a demo before signing up. This is a real example by the way. I’ve tried out a lot of cloud invoicing applications by using this method because there was no other way.

Report

6yr ago

Marco Rodrigues

@anna_0x I agree with you, SaaS Platforms should provide a demo or trial period to allow potential customers to try the software to see if it fits their needs. I only bring up the loan example because I've found its common for customer to use fake information in order to get a quote online while shopping around. This leads to in accurate quotes and no way to reach out to see if they can be helped further. its a bit of a lose/lose.

Report

6yr ago

Anna Filou

@sparxslx true, in such cases I think the user should give their real email and only apply if interested 👍🏻

Report

6yr ago

Meet Chopra

NotePlanApp

Maker

After releasing a few products, I got many users with email that was disposable or invalid. Also, a fellow indie maker @ftxrc shared about the spamming issue on his platform MakerLog. One of the solutions I came up with an easy way to weed out such spammers from communities and products was, to validate disposable or non-existent emails. And here it is. 🎉🎉🎉

Report

6yr ago