<story><title>Show HN: Muse – Tool for Thought on iPad</title><url>https://launch-preview.museapp.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adamwiggins</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s fair, and we&amp;#x27;re considering ways to make it possible to try the app without an email.&lt;p&gt;However I&amp;#x27;m curious: do you apply this same criteria when trying software like Notion, Figma, or Google Docs? I assume you have different criteria based on whether the software is downloaded to your local device or not, but would love to understand why that&amp;#x27;s so.</text></item><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>If the app stores all my data locally, why does it require an email? It doesn&amp;#x27;t even say &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; an email is required, just an annoying &amp;quot;Enter your email to get started&amp;quot; with no option to skip.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand why apps have gotten so hostile towards curious users.&lt;p&gt;For me, that&amp;#x27;s a hard &lt;i&gt;Nope&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rkagerer</author><text>Google keeps my docs on the cloud so it&amp;#x27;s obvious why I need to authenticate.&lt;p&gt;Wholly local desktop or tablet apps have no business asking for my email because they have no credible need for it.  Authentication is borne by other elements (the OS, my physical security, etc).&lt;p&gt;As soon as an email dialog pops up, it breaks my mental model of &amp;quot;local software&amp;quot; and I worry about what the software is doing under the hood.  Especially if it doesn&amp;#x27;t come with any rationale about why it&amp;#x27;s asking me for it.  e.g. Will I get more spam (and yes, the quarterly message you send me about product updates &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; spam in my book unless I explicitly asked for it - you&amp;#x27;re not as important as you think you are), does it phone home, what other telemetry is being siphoned off, etc?  It&amp;#x27;s a red flag that smells wrong, and signals the software isn&amp;#x27;t behaving according to my expectations.&lt;p&gt;How would you feel if you walked up to a car that asked you to punch in your email address before you could open the door to take it for a test drive?</text></comment>
<story><title>Show HN: Muse – Tool for Thought on iPad</title><url>https://launch-preview.museapp.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>adamwiggins</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s fair, and we&amp;#x27;re considering ways to make it possible to try the app without an email.&lt;p&gt;However I&amp;#x27;m curious: do you apply this same criteria when trying software like Notion, Figma, or Google Docs? I assume you have different criteria based on whether the software is downloaded to your local device or not, but would love to understand why that&amp;#x27;s so.</text></item><item><author>ogre_codes</author><text>If the app stores all my data locally, why does it require an email? It doesn&amp;#x27;t even say &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; an email is required, just an annoying &amp;quot;Enter your email to get started&amp;quot; with no option to skip.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand why apps have gotten so hostile towards curious users.&lt;p&gt;For me, that&amp;#x27;s a hard &lt;i&gt;Nope&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ogre_codes</author><text>&amp;gt; However I&amp;#x27;m curious: do you apply this same criteria when trying software like Notion, Figma, or Google Docs?&lt;p&gt;Above you mentioned your preference for keeping data local to the device. That is one of the big motivators for even downloading the app. I don&amp;#x27;t use Notion or Figma, and prefer Pages or Numbers to Google Docs when possible, so yes I do apply the same criteria.&lt;p&gt;Even though I avoid it when possible, I can at least understand why a tool like Google Docs which is cloud first or collaborative by nature requires an account. Why a local-first app requires an email is a complete mystery to me. What&amp;#x27;s the benefit to me as a user? If you don&amp;#x27;t make that case, I assume it&amp;#x27;s for marketing and pass on it.</text></comment>