Source: The New York Times
Carrier Pigeon and Roost represent a concrete rejection of real-time communication norms. Users are paying for and adopting apps that deliberately delay message delivery by hours or days, turning friction into a feature. This is functional pushback against attention economics, not nostalgia or indie aesthetics. A viable market segment exists for users willing to trade responsiveness for psychological relief. The 75K and 650K user bases show this is not marginal. Platforms built on notification urgency now face competition from apps monetizing the opposite.