this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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what. Why does a thing that inserts typos into your email need a monthly subscription that costs as much as other services that have far higher costs? What's changing about typos month-to-month that people need to always be on the latest version?
Harvard startup bros have learned anything with cultural relevance and good branding can make money, even if the service doesn’t meaningfully improve your life
idk that somehow makes it even funnier to me.
Because it’s a service using cloud AI. Processing text uses tokens, tokens cost money, hence the subscription fee.
It’s a dumb app - deliberately so - but it costs money to run and a one-off payment won’t cut it if people start using it to modify hundreds or thousands of emails.
does it need to use AI though?
That's a good point.
Imagine just a script that randomly replacing various homophones like their, they're and there.
Or has a percentage chance of swapping two letters because you types too fast.
Or just a table of common misspellings would be enough.
i was also thinking of replacing letters with ones close on the keyboard or removing letters
If it really needs AI, something this basic should be able to use a tiny AI model that can run locally. Google are working on building small models into Chrome for example (https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/built-in). It really doesn't need a huge model.
Several mobile apps bundle an AI model with them. Samsung phones do a bunch of AI things on-device, including object and face recognition in the Gallery app for photos. There's no reason an extension couldn't do that.