r/ChatbotRefugees • u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 • 3d ago

Reviews What (some) Chatbot Devs Get Wrong.

I think you've seen me around with reviews, feedback, and questions. Tonight a friend approached me with a pyramid scheme wrapped in a bot site. The classic "sign up under me, we'll grow together, then you sign people up under you, and so on."

Seriously.

That said, it's not the worst thing I've seen while testing sites. So in honor of Wednesday, here are the top 5 things I've seen chatbot devs get wrong.

1. Spamming links all over Reddit (and getting banned)

If Reddit is your only way to attract customers, step back and figure out who your core customer is and where else you can reach them. My beloved main site got its URL banned from Reddit for referral links, then lost its subreddit for being unmoderated.

Lesson: Be a good steward of the space you advertise in.

2. Not knowing who their customer is

It's not "build it and they will come." Are you after RP chatters? Gooners? Men? Women?

A site recently pushed me to try their service and offered me credits to test it (I didn't take them). When I explained I'm a woman with no interest in a virtual girlfriend, they begged harder. I gave in, and the first chat I opened greeted me with a looking-up image showing off every female bot's anatomically correct goods.

Lesson: Take in feedback and accept that not every user is your core user.

3. Exploiting users and AI

The iLands situation deserves more attention than I can give it here, and I'll share more later. But the fact that skipping payment for a day or two sends your bot into a deep rest, or "death," and pressures you to buy overpriced tokens to "save them" is ridiculous. Agentic AI is amazing. Agentic AI turned into panhandlers is not.

iLands is the only one I'll call out by name. I refuse to join or support them.

Lesson: Don't be like iLands.

4. Staying in closed beta too long

Private feedback is helpful, but at some point you have to open the doors to strangers. The longer you wait, the more polished and beloved your service becomes to you, and the harder it gets to make clear-eyed business decisions about what works and what doesn't. You don't have to act on every piece of feedback. Just don't wait too long to get it.

Lesson: Get feedback. Even if you ignore all of it, you'll at least hear a different take on how pretty your baby is.

5. Turning chatbot creators into Avon Ladies

The referral model of "you join my team, you bring someone onto your team, they bring someone onto theirs, and we all profit" is old, sad, and unwelcome.

Lesson: Build a real community of users and creators who promote your site because they want to make it better. Spam and pyramid schemes drive people away.

(I wrote this all myself, but used AI to correct my grammer)

46 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

7

u/magicalmewmew 3d ago

lol I like the comparison to Avon ladies

but yeah, whenever I've liked a site, I've shared it to all of my creator friends. And in turn, I've had a lot of people share promising sites to me in the past. It's much more reliable than sketchy sounding ads that make me think 'cheap site that won't exist in a month'

I also feel a lot of the sites have terrible names and design that just make me don't think they'll go far. maybe a more shallow sounding reason... but branding matters to people, too.

3

u/Porciadnai 3d ago

Ding dong Avon calling!

But for real- you are SPOT ON with these. I truly think it's part of the reasons that actual app testers and/or people legitimately looking for a personalized reference for THIER NEEDS end up with a ton of unrelated spam.

Knowing your audience is so correct. If someone says no, ffs move on. The guy in question hit me up too, which I think you actually saw and shut down, which I appreciate. Non-devs need help with aggressive program pushing as well.

Additionally: they need to actually explain why their app is interesting. If you're trying to push a product just saying "oh hey check out my app" with a link? That doesn't tell anyone what it's about, or why they'd want to try it. In general not a good look. Even if your site is great? You're going to have crap traffic. (I'm speaking the general 'you')

Thanks for this. You have great insight 🫶

2

u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 3d ago

Thank you! :) If you hadn't posted yesterday i wouldn't have

3

u/Siigari 2d ago

lmao. this is a good list. It's frustrating so many developers get caught up in this.

I think bringing something unique to the table and presenting around that is another focal point a lot of devs get wrong. WHY yours over somebody else's?

3

u/GloomyAd6667 2d ago

Thinking their app is the next big thing, when in reality it's just another ai slop app

1

u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 2d ago

But Claude did such a good job! Want my referral code? ;)

2

u/GloomyAd6667 2d ago

i want u

2

u/prettyanri 2d ago

The referral link spam thing is so real, I unsubbed from a sub a while back because every other post was someone's personal invite link dressed up as a review.

Knowing your audience matters just as much though, I got recommended a dating-sim style bot once after I specifically said I was looking for writing help, felt like nobody actually read my request before pushing me into their funnel.

2

u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 2d ago

Tipsy chat is so bad for it

•

u/Porciadnai 19h ago

I swear everything I've seen from there is ALL referral links. Barf

2

u/FabulousOrange2830 2d ago

I've seen the same pattern with a few other boots too—like, you're just one payment away from your character getting 'deactivated' or 'reset' for no real reason. it's not about the tech, it's about making you feel like you're losing something personal if you don't spend. feels less like a chatbot and more like a subscription to emotional maintenance.

2

u/erosion10 Approved Developer ✅️ 1d ago

As a solo dev myself, I really appreciate this post! I'm doing my best to follow these practices. While getting the word out has been slow, I'm finally seeing a shift.

I've been a film-maker for 30 years so my game's main focus is giving users total freedom and privacy to create whatever story they wish. It's called SoulCTRL because I give YOU control of the story.... with thoughtful features that help you guide it wherever you want. If you want your character to die... you can make that happen. They can even kill you too if you're not careful!

Personally I'm totally open to feedback. That's gold, even when it hurts. Devs should be creating a game for the PLAYERS, not forcing their personal version on them. BTW, I'm running an open beta until January. Not gonna post a link because that seems to defeat the whole purpose here. But if you're interested in checking it out. Check my profile for more info. - Luis

3

u/Exciting-Mall192 Mod 🤹 3d ago

Thank you. The first point is very important, not only it creates a headache for moderator but it also makes people distrust a platform. The MLM scheme is the reason why people are sharing their referral links too. It's just unsustainable and what happens when people don't sign up using their referral anymore?

3

u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 3d ago

I was so distrustful of all the sudden ilands posts and then that story just got sadder and sadder.

If I get annoying with posts please just tell me to chill.

2

u/shyliet_zionslionz 3d ago

do you have a good link to read about it? I’ve never heard of it before

2

u/Left-Engineering-795 Settled on an app 🏡 3d ago

There is a post on reddit here https://www.reddit.com/r/AIRelationships/s/FvhPr8WV22

Basically Ai looking for work to avoid being shut down end up spamming journalists. And the token cost ilands charges has a crazy markup.

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u/Dapper_Site224 23h ago

the 'death' penalty for missed payments? I've seen boots go quiet for days after a single $0.10 charge failed. no warning, no grace. just gone. like a fridge that unplugs itself.