Ask HN: Real human identity/uniqueness verification for boostrapped startup?
For an indie startup idea, to reduce some unusual abuse that I expect, I need a way to make it hard for abusers to create another account once banned.The process for doing this has to not be needlessly creepy or invasive.
But OK if people think "this is a little different...", in a non-negative way that prompts them to not just settle into default social media mode.
OK if it only works for people in the US, initially.
Initially, until the business takes off, it has to be either free, or near-free at a predictable flat rate.
A couple ideas:
* Credit Card -- Some credit card verification service, even if we don't initially charge money, or if most users go free-tier. Maybe a payment service will for free tell us that the user submitted a valid CC, and what the name on the card is. Or, less desireably, maybe we can charge a dollar or nickel to the card for signup fee, just to cover the verification (though the "whoa, this isn't totally free?!" reaction might cost us too many signups).
* Phone Number -- Phone number verification, with SMS/MMS. And some way of knowing whether it's a cellular plan, rather than something like Google Voice, and ideally getting the full name.
Knowing the real name on a CC or phone account would maybe help detect an abuser. Or maybe it tells us when we're dealing with a burner phone with no name on the account, and we can at least see how those work out, or if we have to handle burners differently.
I don't want people to have to get on camera, nor to have to send a photo of their ID.
If it matters, the site/app would otherwise be very privacy-respecting, including not collecting or retaining more data than necessary to operate the service, and not sharing/selling data with third parties except for this verification and payment (except when required by law). So maybe some assurance about that helps sell that we have to do the one-time verification, to make this a safer place.
Thoughts?