Agreed. As someone in a place to make purchasing decisions, if I can just sign up and try something without having to "jump on a call" and sit through a demo, I'm more likely to do so. I'm more willing to meet afterwards if I like what I see.

As it happens, a while back I did exactly this for a company after reading a post about their launch on HN. In a later conversation with their CEO, I found out we were their first customer!