Why Simple Lister?
Simple Lister aims to fix this by offering a more transparent and fair approach for product launches. Here’s how we do it:
• No favoritism: Every product gets an equal chance, and we don’t play favorites.
• Daily Underdog Feature: Each day, we highlight one underdog product to give them extra visibility and support.
• No hidden fees: There are no surprise costs. We have a simple submission fee, and that’s it—no pay-to-play or hidden charges.
Also we have a long to do list to do better.
Why does this matter?
After launching on Product Hunt ourselves, we realized how tough it is for smaller creators to get any attention unless they’re featured. Simple Lister is here to champion those indie products that deserve to be seen by a wider audience.
The platform is new and evolving, and I’m constantly working to make it better. If you’ve got feedback or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Thanks for your support, and I’d be happy if you submit your products!
> Daily Underdog Feature: Each day, we highlight one underdog product to give them extra visibility and support.
Aren’t these contradictory statements?
If you let people pay to be featured, you'll always end up favouring those who pay. And if you didn't favour those who pay, why would people pay in the first place?
This is the big problem with all recommendation sites: The easiest way to monetize them is by charging vendors for visibility; so sooner or later all recommendation sites start recommending the most profitable products. High quality fair priced products don't have a chance, since they will always be outbid by someone who makes a cheaper product or charges more.
I think the author implemented a tasteful and respectful solution. Other sites inject sponsors atop search results, every nth result, block parts of pages, force extra navs to link-spammed pages to get the product site, or sends sponsors to the top of rankings regardless of votes. You never have to glance at that portion if you're not interested, and can find it if you are. It's good design and advertises to the user in a respectful and convenient way imo. This is a small fixture that's static, and not even in the common paths followed by users ("F" eye track)
@Author: Perhaps a voting freeze during the sponsored period or a vote expiration (votes older than a certain amount of time fall off the total or such) would address the visibility = rank boost concern. Two random examples for moderating it with zero future thought there, but I think you get the idea.
If you want to make a "fair" recommendation site, you need to find some other way to monetize. One possibility would be to charge potential customers. I believe there are people out there who want fair recommendations, I'm just have no idea how to get them to pay.
PH does a great job of putting filters in place to ensure only the 'best' (whether by polish, value prop, or combo of both) products end up making it to the top. It really forces makers to put their absolute best foot forward when launching.
Nothing to do with polish
One thing it was difficult is that it wasn't clear what fields in the form had an error. So I didn't know what to modify to make the submit button clickable. It actually took me a bit to realize there might be something wrong in one of the inputs.
Thanks!!!
Also, my product does not take 150 characters to describe.
I’d strongly recommend having your own community for something like this rather than relying on another platform.
If you intend to replace PH someday that is going to be a prerequisite. It’s going to take time to build, so I’d start asap rather than sending people to X.
- We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. Any changes will be effective immediately upon posting the revised Terms. Your continued use of Simple Lister following any changes constitutes acceptance of the new Terms.”
I myself am opposed to it too, and I believe the more people stand up to it, the merrier.
Do you mind sharing a bit about the amount of daily traffic you get? Or plans for growing the platform? It would help people understand if/when it's worth paying to get listed. Thanks!
I've submitted my app Overlayed, let's see how it goes!
* bot prevention
* same user creating multiple accounts (so now you need some IP tracking or reputation system maybe)
Which is why I think sign in with Google is okay to start with for indie devs.
It's understandable if you as a user don't like it though but shouldn't be a criteria to dismiss Show HN imo
Not until the service gets popular. And having sign in with google as the only option may work against that outcome.