Feedback on idea: private email addresses
A lot of the time I have to write down my e-mail address, and lots of times I don't actually want to because I know I'll get lots of spam afterwards. Situations include:
- wifi in coffee shops/airports/etc
- e-books or whitepapers
- accounts I create for different services I want to try out, but definitely don't want their tips and tricks or newsletters showing up
- getting prices for things like car insurance
- and lots more, these are just on top of my head
Now I know there are lots of temporary email services out there. I find them full of ads or not very pleasant to use.
My idea is to build a temporary email services that is:
- available via phone app and browser extension to auto-fill a temp email when you need one
- free of ads
- safe. the temp email address will NEVER get used again (only by you if you choose to) so there won't be any fear of others using your email to 'recover' your accounts.
The questions are:
- Would you pay for such a thing?
- What's a reasonable free plan? I'm thinking limit the number of email addresses you can have and the number of emails you can receive per month.
- Do you find spam to be painful enough to use a temp mail service?
I love the idea and I've been using similar services dozens of times.
Unfortunately, the space is pretty saturated already and most of the services are free to use: https://www.google.com/search?q=disposable+email+address
I, personally, wouldn't pay as long as suitable free alternatives are available. (Plus, from a system administrator perspective, I know how to get myself a temporary email easily, but this obviously won't apply to the majority of the potential customers.)
I had this idea late last year cos of getting so much spam and luckily my friend told me don't build it but first try it out with email aliases. So I did that exact system pretty much and after a few months I stopped using it because I couldn't remember the email address to login to a service I needed and also I needed to reply to an email but couldn't. For lead magnets i've used 10minutemail for years. Who gives a shit if it has ads.
I guess these days... if it's something totally unimportant I will just give my old email address that's full of spam anyway. If it's something important I just give the real one and hit that unsubscribe button.
Thank you all for the comments. I’ve dropped the idea. You all had valid points:
Then I also looked at how I would use this. Yes, there were moments as I initially said that I would like a temp email but mostly I didn’t care to just put my ‘spam’ account. Never have I actually generated a temp email.
I wouldn't pay because I would need the temporary email address only for a minute. Downloading an ebook or registering for a product is not a lot of work. For this short time, I don't care about ads. I also appreciate these services have to be profitable so I understand why they use ads.
It's not a bad idea, but I don't see it working for a monthly fee. Ads seem the standard way to make money for these services.
To be honest, I would say no... Just because im already using services like ProtonMail... Plus most email services are currently free...
But maybe there is a market for this if the service is better and more easy to use...?!
This comment was deleted 8 years ago
Good point with the junk mail account.
Posted an update. Tl;dr is I’ve dropped the idea.