About How You Say

Why we exist

Back in the ‘10s, there was a really good website called SVPPLY, where you could share and discover things that you liked. It was nice and minimal and noise free. Then Microsoft bought it, only to go and shut it all down. And nothing ever really came along to replace it. We created How You Say to fill that gap.

How You Say is a social platform for discovering and sharing products that you like. It does nothing else. No ads, no influencers, no bots, no misinformation. So it is also a reaction against how the Internet is getting increasingly enshittified. It doesn’t have to be this way. Nobody needs to rely on tech giants to provide a public space.

How You Say is built and run independently. We're not backed by venture capital. We're not planning an exit. We're just people who wanted a good product-discovery app, so we made one.

How it works

Post things you like.
Paste a product link. Done. No captions, no hashtags, no engagement farming.

Like things to save them.
When you like something, you have saved it. It shows up on your profile. Your profile is your taste—everything you've posted and everything you've endorsed.

Follow people, not algorithms.
You see posts from people you follow. We also show you things from people with similar taste—if you and someone else like a lot of the same things, you'll probably like what they find next.

Say "not for me."
See something that's not your style? Tell us. It trains your recommendations. This is private—it doesn't affect anyone else, doesn't downvote anything, just quietly improves your feed.

Discover new things!
Get great and inspiring recos.

It costs $5

How You Say costs $5 per year. 😀 We want zero bots and junk accounts,  so it can’t be entirely free. Server hosting used to be very expensive, but it’s not anymore. So we’re able to charge a ludicrously low yearly fee.

We don't ask for your name, your phone number, your address, or anything else. We don't need it and you shouldn't have to give it.

What we don't do

No ads. Ever.
We will never show you sponsored content, promoted posts, or "suggested" products someone paid to put in front of you. Your feed is made of things real people actually like.

No tracking.
We don't sell your data. We don't build a profile on you to sell to advertisers. We don't follow you around the internet. We store what we need to make the app work, and nothing else.

No bots.
The $5/year fee isn't about getting rich. It's a fence. Bots and spammers don't pay money. People who actually want to be here pay $5. That's the filter.

No algorithmic manipulation.
Our recommendation engine tries to show you things you'll like, based on your taste. It does not try to make you angry, or envious, or addicted. We don't optimize for "engagement" or "time on app." We optimize for discovery.

No enshittification.
We're not going to take VC money, juice growth at all costs, flip to an ad model, and squeeze you for profit. We charge a sustainable price, keep costs low, and stay small on purpose. This is a no-nonsense website that we want to use for ourselves.

What we believe

Your attention is yours. We want to help you find good things, and then get out of your way.

Good communities are small. We'd rather have 5,000 people who care than 5 million who scroll past. The paywall keeps it intimate.

Constraints create quality. No comments means no arguments. No DMs means no creeps. No text posts means no hot takes. The things you can't do are features, not missing features.

Software can stay good. The pattern where apps start useful and decay into ad-delivery machines is not inevitable. It's a choice.