A few days ago, we made our app free for 48 hours.
But instead of asking for upvotes, reviews, or promo codes,
we simply invited people to say “thank you” if they grabbed it.
We weren’t expecting much.
Two days later, our Reddit notifications turned into a flood of kindness:
around 500 people wrote “thank you.”
Not just clicked something — they took a moment to type it.
Watching that unfold felt surprisingly warm.
We’ve always believed the world would be better with more “thank you.”
It makes the person who says it feel grounded and appreciative,
and it makes the person receiving it feel recognised.
Without planning it, we ended up contributing to that idea —
creating a tiny pocket of the internet where gratitude grew on its own.
And what surprised us even more:
we tried the same gesture with our other apps…
and the same thing happened.
More thank-yous. More kindness. The same warm loop repeating.
Along the way, people also shared valuable feedback about the apps —
things they liked, things to improve, little insights we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
The gratitude opened up conversations instead of just transactions.
And the funny part:
On these posts we actually received more “thank you” comments than upvotes.
People felt more encouraged to write gratitude than to tap the arrow.
If you build things, you can try this too.
Make your work free for a moment and ask for nothing but a sincere “thank you.”
It’ll feel good to your users.
And honestly, it’ll feel good to you too.
A kinder internet starts with small gestures like this.
Thank you for reading.
Links to the posts:
https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/s/RXrj2FWWO5
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeKit/s/WBdqtswdhd
https://www.reddit.com/r/iosapps/s/795QL3aVma
