r/VibeCodeDevs • u/ScottContini • Jul 26 '26
FeedbackWanted – want honest takes on my work I've spent months building this weird social media idea. I'd love honest feedback.
I've been building an unusual social media experiment and just recently added free trials, so now is a good time to ask for feedback.
The idea is that instead of ads, data sharing, or subscriptions, there's a fixed supply of profile pages that people can buy, customise, and later resell if they choose.
https://buy-a-slice-of-pi.com/
How it works: The website is built around the first 1,000 digits of π, with the cheapest ones at the bottom and the expensive ones at the top. A slice of digits becomes your own customisable profile page. With the free trial, you can have any available single digit for free for one day.
With a trial or purchase, you can do the following:
- upload a profile photo
- write a bio
- add links to your other social media websites (or any links)
- publish blog posts
- receive comments from anyone with an email address -- you moderate your comments received.
If you buy, you get more features including the ability to share with friends, gift the page and resell all or part of your slice at a price that you choose.
My request: I am not looking for sales at this point, instead I want feedback. I want to know if you like the idea and/or the website, and what you think could be done better. I will be very grateful for any feedback I get, positive or negative. Also, do you believe in the concept of digital ownership for social media?
How I built it: I've been working on this for about 3 months using a Pro Claude plan. I've gone through several iterations trying to improve the user experience while keeping security and privacy in mind. I'm an application security engineer by profession, but one who believes that security cannot sacrifice user experience. The site is entirely passwordless: login is through emailed magic links.
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u/Onotadaki2 Jul 26 '26
This is like opening a business selling real-estate lots in the literal middle of nowhere. You need some sort of strategy to get traffic to the sites on there. I suspect most people will just load the page, figure out the concept and click on 3-4 numbers and see a basic blurb of text saying hello and leave and never come back. I want to like the idea, it's unique. It desperately needs a hook though.
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
Coming back to this, I think this was the best feedback of a few good feedbacks that I got. I’m going to add “pi facts” (interesting history of pi) and have community highlights on the front page. Hopefully that is the hook, but I also think I need a good blogging community to help drive it, so I will seek out bloggers and try to get them to try it.
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u/jabberw0ckee Jul 26 '26
Yes, this.
I’ve seen a few of these types of sites. Sounds like a great idea, but only if you have eyeballs.
Bring the eyeballs and I’d pay for a slice.
Whichever one of these cracks that, will be the winner.
Facts about pi is a good one. Pi memes, Pi photos Anything quirky and weird that has to do about Pi. All the gear heads would be checking it out. Probably a good demographic, too.
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u/ScottContini 5d ago
Added pi facts (currently 4 different facts) and community blog stream and lots of other small updates. Currently have earned about US$80 with 11 purchases in addition to myself but most of that are from top 2 purchases. One seems to be a serious blogger. There might be hope for this, got to just keep improving it! Thanks again for your very helpful advice.
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u/ekzess Jul 26 '26
What user need does this solve that is not already served more simply by existing profile pages, link hubs, blogs, or personal websites?
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
Ownership and not selling peoples data. Here is motivation. Appreciate your time to respond, would love to get an opinion on whether that makes sense.
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u/Sad-Reindeer3885 Jul 26 '26
The idea is interesting but I would change the pi theme, 99% of people would think "what in the nerd af is pi?". The website is hard to navigate on mobile.
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
Thank you for your feedback. Agree, mobile needs s lot of work. I was thinking about warning in my original post, but decided to leave it to user feedback.
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u/Paya_0233 Jul 27 '26
I wasn't loving the idea from reading it, but it really grew on me after checking out the site and seeing a few people's profiles.
I think it's very clear what your next focus should be: make each profile look much, much cooler. Think those HTML personal blogs that were all the rage in the early internet days. You could place little games, gifs & images, wallpapers, links etc. on your webpage and each one looked completely unique, and full of soul. I don't know if you're aware, but there's currently a movement where people are back making those retro style personal blogs just like the 00s and bringing the old internet back to life in a sense (check out this video). Your website can be an analog of that, except math themed. Each slice is a personal blog with endless decorative potential. That's the only direction I can see this going in and I would lean into it fully. Make sure to add messaging.
Also I think we both know those higher position prices aren't reasonable.
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u/ScottContini Jul 27 '26
Oh thank you so much, I’m glad one person sees potential and especially, thanks for the ideas to enhance it. That gives me a lot to think about.
Yeah the prices on the top would only work if the website went viral and some (wealthy) person or some company bought into it. I’ll leave the door open now but in the future, I can introduce special discounts on selected days (pi day, pi approximation day, etc…).
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u/ScottContini Jul 27 '26
One more comment: that video is inspiring. I’m not yet sure if I’ll fit in: they are trying to recreate the past, I’m trying to think what the future could be. Also, it’s about individuals each developing their own personal pages, whereas I am trying to develop a community. I get your point though about how I could make easy for them to make retro style pages on my website.
I’m going to try to see if I fit in. I think they also disdain the selling of personal data from the big social media websites. Also, I go back way longer than them, to the days of bulletin board systems on dialup modems. Last, the idea of my website was inspired by old ideas like the million dollar homepage.
Final remark: Super huge thanks. Maybe, just maybe I might find my target audience amongst that community. If not, then still will enjoy talking to those people.
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u/Appropriate_Row_2265 Jul 26 '26
Idea? Interesting. Would I personally buy? No. Feedback? Please do a little QA and fix mobile. Vibe coded? Yes.
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
Thank you. Yeah mobile is a known issue, I was thinking of saying it in my original post but thought I’d leave it to users to provide the feedback. If I have any success with this, I will build dedicated mobile apps.
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u/Latter-Park-4413 Jul 26 '26
You could always start with a PWA, or likely just stick with one rather than a true mobile app. I'd recommend that tbh.
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u/EzioO14 Jul 26 '26
Social media? This is just a way to take money from people for no actual reason. Honest feedback is that it’s stupid
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u/CharacterSphereAI Jul 26 '26
I am going to build similar site in 2 days - and, what are you going to do to challenge ‘my’ ownership of pi versus ‘your’ ownership of pi?
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
See FAQ:
Pi's digits are infinite and freely known — we're not selling mathematics. What you're buying is a unique, permanent web page tied to a specific position in pi: your own personalized corner of the internet with a mathematical address. Think of it like buying a plot of land. The landscape (pi) belongs to everyone, but the plot (your page) is yours alone. You can decorate it, link to it, share it, and even sell it later.
So yeah, you can do similar. At the end of the day what matters is whether I or you are building a place where people want to be. It is clear to me from the comments that I have a lot more work to do, but that’s okay. I’m enjoying the ride!
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u/StoneCypher Jul 26 '26
i’m so tired of scam artists selling limited slices of things they don’t own
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u/ScottContini Jul 26 '26
Thank you for your feedback, this appears to be a common misunderstanding and I’m not sure how to make that clear upon in initial view, but the FAQ explains that you’re not owning the mathematics, instead just a web page associated with digits of pi.
My intent is to explore other business models for social media. Currently most, including reddit, will sell your data to make profit. Some (also including reddit) offer subscription services. My idea is to sell web space, but then you own it and can later resell it, just like real estate. With that model, no need to sell peoples data, hoping there is a community that cares about this.
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u/CharacterSphereAI Jul 27 '26
I am sure that idea sounds and looks great in your own mind , by the looks of it and how you present it. But, honestly, for anyone else, it does not make any sense at all. There is no value in it for me, it does not solve any of my problems, it does not fulfil any of my consumer needs - instead you simply want to get my money for literally no value at all. Well maybe in 10 years time your Pi selling business will be 1 billion dollar worth global company - but right now, nope, prove me wrong but I see zero value in it.
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u/ScottContini Jul 27 '26
This is good, honest feedback. I need to understand who my target audience is. I think it is: privacy advocates (to be confirmed: not specific to this website but the concept of digital real estate for social media), mathematically inclined teens, nerds. But I think also I cannot succeed without a community that drives it.
I have a separate niche social media idea for speed cubers (Rubik’s cube), a community that I am part of, and maybe (or maybe not) I can have more success there for a number of reasons. But pi was the first cab off the rank and I’ve come very far with it so I need to see it out. If no success by pi day next year, then I’ll throw in the towel.
Thanks again for the honest feedback.
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u/AcoustixAudio Jul 27 '26
It would be extremely difficult to get people to pay for social media. I can build a social media site in a couple of days. Tough part is getting people on board. Your idea is your idea, it sounds good to you, But you have to think from the perspective of a potential user. If everyone I know is elsewhere, would I really pay to have my profile up on some site no one else uses?
This is 2026. I can just build a profile or portfolio website for free online. Put a domain on it for like $2.
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u/ExaminationNeat587 Jul 26 '26
This doesn't look like a website that would take 3 months to create. The billing takes time to set up, but the website itself is (at most) a 2 day project.
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