I used to love getting emails from people in response to things I’ve written online, blog posts or Hacker News comments, but in the last 2 years it’s changed from mostly signal to mostly noise. I’ve met people in real life as a result of these emails, I’ve hired people based on these emails, and I’ve learned cool things through these emails but today it’s almost all pitches. I (had Claude) look through all the emails I’ve gotten about my posts and comments since 2013 to check my gut feeling:
LLMs have made this much easier, they can write convincing emails personalized to a real comment I wrote on HN. What’s worse is that they are often very deceptive. They don’t come out and say they are pitching you something, they ask a question, posing as if they care about the answer. Something like:
Hi Josh, saw your HN comment about [thing you said]. [Compliment.] I’m curious, [open-ended question]?
If someone took the time to email me asking a question I almost always respond to it but I’m having to rethink that policy. It’s like having an amplification attack pointed at you, someone sends 2-3 sentences (sometimes more) with an open-ended question then I turn around and write 2-3+ paragraphs to answer the question, only to get a response that is pitching a product/service. Here are a few real pivots I’ve received:
- “That’s close to what I’m building…”
- “The tool I mentioned, [product], works from the other end…”
- “Worth saying this is what we build at [company], so I’m not a neutral party.”
- “Would you have 15 min next week?”
It saddens me that what was once a rare joy and way to meet interesting people is now being abused to send cold emails. Look, I get it, cold emails are a fact of life, I’ve sent them before as well, but the deceptive ones are where I draw the line. I would never waste someone’s time without being upfront about why I’m contacting them. Personally I find this “growth hacking” to be disgusting and I will never use a product advertised to me in this way.
Because these people are obscuring the real reason, it’s impossible to tell what is a real question and what is just a setup to pitch. I resent having to read every one of these emails as a potential pitch, but I also try not to assume the worst about everyone that reaches out. I wouldn’t want to snub someone because I thought they were going to pitch to me when they had a legitimate question or just wanted to talk. I’ve started sending short emails back and only if I don’t get a pitch back do I actually engage but I dislike feeling distrustful, treating people as guilty until proven innocent. I love talking about tech, I love talking to other people about cool things they are doing, I hate being advertised to and I hate it even more when it’s wrapped up in fake interest.
I know there is nothing HN can do about this, it’s not their fault, I publicly post my email address on my profile, that’s on me. In the past it’s led to serendipity, now it more often leads to frustration.
My comments used to introduce me to interesting people, now they’re mostly LLM context for a sales pitch, grist for the mill. The internet I pine for might not be coming back, but I can’t bring myself to take my email address down. I’ll keep separating the wheat from the chaff. But I’ll be grumpy about it.