The Programmer Entrepreneur Dilemma - <AUTHOR> http://kickme444.com/the-programmer-entrepreneur-dilemma

<comment><USER3> Interesting post. I've been thinking lately about the relationship between the drive to create and the drive to master new technologies. I think all programmers experience both types of motivation, but in different proportions. The risk that Dan describes here is a real one - you can become so enthralled with creating apps that you lose your focus on mastering technologies. The opposite extreme can happen as well - you become a master craftsman, but you lose your interest in imagining and creating new apps. The latter is probably more employable, though the new "developer driven culture" I've been reading about lately seems to put a premium on the former.

At the extremes, you do meet some interesting characters (and some hair raising examples of over and under-use of technology). Some people are so antsy to create an app that they just can't stop to learn good practices. These folks learn just enough to implement in the moment, and it's hard for them to pull themselves away. Expect embedded sql in PHP to grow to thousands of pages. Then you get the people who are so interested in a new technology that they almost don't care how or where they're using it. Expect GWT and Guice to render simplest of web forms. The place where these two extremes clash the most is testing. App creator doesn't slow down long enough to write tests. Craftsman says that if it isn't tested, it's broken.

I have to admit that I lean toward the "create now!" side, though I am motivated through a combination of love of craft and personal shame to put some time into good design and testing ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> You're going to hit diminishing marginal returns on learning new programming languages. Learning entirely new skills is probably far more valuable at kickme444's level. The situation can probably be framed as an exploration- exploitation tradeoff, in which getting more depth of programming knowledge is exploitation and picking up new skills is exploration. Though exploration is typically blind; in this case, kickme444 is experiencing direct demand for his new people/product skills. So I guess my two cents is that he's making the right move.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm currently reading Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston (<http://www.foundersatwork.com/>), and one of the stories seems to apply to your dilemma.

If you have the chance I would suggest taking a look at chapter 3 which discusses Steve Wozniak's early days with Apple. He talks about his hesitation to leave HP where he was an engineer. At the same time, Jobs was pushing him to come over and work on their new venture full time. It wasn't until Wozniak realized (through a conversation with a friend) that he could move to Apple and continue to be an engineer did he agree to make the move. In the end, Woz knew he loved being an engineer, and he didn't think that the time and effort it would take to run/manage a company was something he would enjoy (in fact, he knew he would not like it).

It sounds like you love learning new programming languages, something that is not afforded you in your current venture's structure. Maybe you should consider bringing in a partner to help you manage the business while focus on programming. Or maybe you should hire a programmer to handle the routine stuff for your site. Either option could free-up a considerable amount of time that would allow you to again spend some time each week learning something new.

I'm not sure if that is an option, but it is something to work towards maybe.

<comment><USER6> Hey, thank you so much for that link, I just bought the book. I think I would pursue redditgifts as more of a business if there were a business cofounder involved with me. As it is right now, the fundraising and monetization world is not something I feel very good at, though I am trying to learn about it time permitting. My main goal as it is is to just make redditgifts as cool and big as I can. We're growing at a very fast pace and I'm excited about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've found that I keep coming across tradeoffs like this, though mine are more pronounced. My whole life I've been obsessed with music, I'm quite a good musician personally (studied it at University) and still really enjoy it. The problem is that I'm also really into business and startups and, through the former, have become quite obsessed with learning as much about web development as I possibly can. This has eaten up a whole bunch of my time and taken me away from my work as a musician and a recording engineer. I'm still trying to balance the two, and then within the startup side, balance being a dev and a business guy.

It's certainly not the easiest thing in the world, especially when my artistic passion is not so related to my startups - though some of the skills transfer. In the end I'm just trying to make sure that I allocate at least a few solid hours each week to just playing/writing and enjoying music. It feels like a relationship to be honest, but I guess this is what most artist's have felt at some point when they realised that they were also good at and interested in something that would help them earn money.

Are there any other HNer's who are artists (of any form) and running startups? How do you guys balance your time?

</comment><comment><USER8> I have the opposite problem. There's always a new programming technique I could apply to make my product give users a better experience. It's hard for me to act according the the idea that a good product is only one ingredient in a successful business, even though I know it's true. Programmers want to program.

</comment><comment><USER9> All of the non-tech readers are drooling, thinking

'Oh, don't worry about learning all of that business strategy, customer acquisition and marketing stuff, you can take on a friendly MBA to help you out with it!'

How do I know that they're thinking this? Hmmm.....

</comment><comment><USER10> It depends on what you want out of Redditgifts. If it is a "project" then you can continue to hack around with new technologies but if you want to make a business out of it then probably you should use the tools which you have already mastered (in your case python). Creating a business itself is so demanding that shifting your focus on "newer" technologies (e.g. node.js) will make it twice as difficult. One approach which you can take is to use the technology which you know well to create critical business components and for housekeeping (metrics, analysis etc.) use the bleeding edge of technology.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think as a programmer (employed or freelance) you have to improve skillsets in two areas: technical and business. Technical is what you focused on mostly, now it's time to brush up your skills as a business-dude. By starting your own project, venture, startup you will eventually learn first-hand what your current and future employer expects/values of you.

Running my own (bootstrapped) start-up helped me a lot in becoming a better freelancer (and probably employee) - I do freelancing for some beer-money. Once you pay somebody to do something for you, you see the little and big things that an employer values. You also realize that your code is essentially just another part of your company, that has to make money. You will also see if it really matters if the project is written in python or in clojure/scala/node.js.

</comment><comment><USER12> My problem seems to be the opposite. I spend any free (non-family) time working or tinkering on side projects so I don't get to learn new things like Objective-C or Ruby. Things that I have been interested in for awhile.

If I could get a paying gig on a new technology then I would be golden :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I have spent about the same time honing my skills in this field, but rarely have I had a clear direction. I've rather just done stuff that I found interesting, which may or may not be directly applicable. Not really related to you main point, but I'm intrigued by the seemingly very different approaches we have.

In my experience, programming is only partly about computers and much more about the reality that you try to model with them. Understanding this reality requires knowledge that people will usually not label as "computer skills". So don't be afraid of picking up some knowledge about how businesses work - <USER2> will certainly make you a better programmer.

<comment><USER6> It is interesting. For the first few years My education was very unstructured, I'd learn new stuff as I found out about it. I think after 3 or 4 years I started to get into the habit of reflecting and defining learning goals the day after new years. I really enjoyed this, it's about the only new years resolution I've ever been able to stick with.

Last year I did this and bought my books and then never read them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is fantastic to learn, but at some point it is also time to do.

</comment><comment><USER15> > but I worked off hours learning new technologies and programming languages

I don't count that as work. It's rather recreational.

<comment><USER16> It is definitely work. You may /enjoy/ the work, but you are still working. It is essentially night school without the drudgery and slow pace of actual night school. Not to mention you can learn what you want when you want it.</comment></comment>


Cryptokitties Raises $12M from USV, Andereessen Horowitz - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/cryptokitties-raises-12-million-from-andreessen-horowitz-2018-3 <comment><USER2> If this didn't convince you that VCs are, in fact, not smarter than you, nothing will.

I actually had a bit of respect for a16z before this. Well, not anymore.

"The Hard Thing About Hard Things" \- the hard thing is going to be listening to a word you say after you invested USD$12m into _Cryptokitties_

</comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR

Can't read this. It's behind a paywall.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? I see the entire article. Here are key points:

 _The funding is led by Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures and Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz.

Cryptokitties launched in November 2017 as a project inside of Axiom Zen, a Vancouver-based studio. With its series A, Cryptokitties will spin off into its own company.

Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of both Axiom Zen and Cryptokitties, said he has about 20 employees focusing on the kitties and plans to use the funds to grow his team, including by adding roles for artists and content creators._

Edit: I received paywall after refreshing window. Article goes on to say most expensive cats are listed around $55m</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why Erlang never got the mainstream status? - <AUTHOR>

Erlang is a twenty-five-year-old programming language that has yet to  win a popularity contest but has won many a hearts with its ability to  do things just right. Erlang has got almost everything right -  concurrency, functional programming, Garbage Collection, Network I/O,  etc. Still, Erlang never got the mainstream popularity and widespread  acceptance it always deserved. I wonder what might be the reasons <comment><USER2> Some reasons I can think of:

1\. Writing C extensions is a horrible experience. Also, they have to manually yield priority so if they crash, the whole BEAM crash so the whole "fault tolerance" propaganda becomes a lie.

2\. Erlang doesn't cooperate well with it's environment. Starting, supervising and communicating with external processes correctly is tough in any language but harder in Erlang.

3\. BEAM:s memory usage is hard to predict, so running multiple vm:s on the same system can easily run you out of memory.

4\. It's hard to run Erlang code as standalone scripts. Points 2-4 address the same issue which is that basically that Erlang's environment is a walled garden.

5\. While Erlang is open source, it's mostly run by a group of developers at Ericsson and doesn't have much of a community. For example, it doesn't have a public bug tracker (maybe that have changed).

6\. It's syntax is, objectively, butt-ugly.

7\. Maybe most important: It is not a good fit for about 99% of all programming problems which are mostly sequential and doesn't benefit at all from rock-solid (Erlang) process communication.</comment>


The Orbit of the Moon around the Sun is Convex - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/convex.html

<comment><USER2> The author also seems to have an interesting course on astronomy and culture:

 _We will look at questions like: How is the date of Chinese New Year determined? Why do the Muslim and Chinese months start on different days? Will the Moon ever look like it does on the Singapore flag? What date of the year is the earliest sunrise in Singapore? How did ancient sailors navigate?_

<http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/teaching/heavenly.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> The key to really getting this for me was:

 _You may also want to remember that it is the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system that moves in an ellipse around the Sun, and that the orbits of both the Earth and the Moon are perturbations of this ellipse._

</comment><comment><USER4> what about other planets & satellites in our solar system??

</comment><comment><USER5> this is something i need a video to understand properly

<comment><USER2> Not a video, but a helpful image:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Moon_traj...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Moon_trajectory1.svg)

<comment><USER6> mm... nope. that didn't help

<comment><USER7> between the quote below from the article and the excellent picture above, you should be able to see it....Try again, cuz it's really interesting.

"Imagine you're driving on a circular race track. You overtake a car on the right, and immediately slow down and go into the left lane. When the other car passes you, you speed up and overtake on the right again. You will then be making circles around the other car, but when seen from above, both of you are driving forward all the time and your path will be convex."

<comment><USER8> When I first saw the article on reddit, I tried to see if I could figure it out myself, by trying to imagine motion of moon and Earth. But I couldn't.

Then I went to the article and was skimming through it. Just gave up when I hit this imagine "race track" thing. Was too lazy at that point in time.

However the wikipedia picture did it in seconds. I didn't even have to read the above quote :) Just proves that "a picture is worth a thousand words"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I faked my way into the Mac App Store, and how you can too - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nickbona/how-i-faked-my-way-into-the-mac-app-store-and-how-you-can-too-7d6caa7ccac1

<comment><USER2> -1 for making a post sound like a security flaw just to get people to read it.</comment>


CallJoy – A cloud-based phone agent for small businesses - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/technology/area-120/calljoy-small-business-phone-technology/ <comment><USER2> >Then, when the phone rings, the automated CallJoy agent answers, greets callers with a custom message and provides basic business information (like hours of operation).

Just what the world needs. More jabber before I can speak to a human. No, I don't want your hours of operation, unless you are closed. If you are open then I want (a) a human to answer; or (b) a message that says "Happy and Healthy Foods Here. Sorry we are on the phone at the moment. We estimate a wait time of 3 minutes. Please hold on, or press 1 to leave us a message."

Usually the amount of robo-chatter I get is so excessive that I have tuned out anyway.

<comment><USER3> I mean, I _do_ want hours of operation in one specific case—to know whether those hours have changed (i.e. are shorter) given that it's currently a holiday. Your regular hours probably show up when Googling your business name, but any holiday-specific hours won't.

Sadly, you probably won't update your IVR system with your holiday hours either. You _always_ end up having to talk to a real person to find out. It's kind of ridiculous.

<comment><USER4> > Your regular hours probably show up when Googling your business name, but > any holiday-specific hours won't.

they often do. Google is quite insistent on getting businesses to update their holiday hours for any common holidays, and when you look up business hours on a holiday you see the result of this - many businesses do update their holiday hours, and the business listing tells you whether the business owner has confirmed that the hours are correct for the holiday, or they have not updated the page for the holiday.

<comment><USER5> They do but it's worse than useless. For every time they have accurate holiday hours, they 10 times show me a bullshit warning that the hours may vary due to the holidays when a) I already know that and b) the business is open regular hours on some religious holiday that I don't observe.

<comment><USER6> You're mad that an interface shows a warning when the data isn't known to be accurate? What do you propose would be better?

<comment><USER5> simplicity would be better IMO. open source would be better. not changing up an app I already like would be better.

In many ways Gopher was better than the web, because a gopher client could make more decisions about how to present the data than the web, for which the presentation is mostly prescribed by the content provider.

<comment><USER4> what are you talking about? how does gopher or open source have any relation to the hours of operation that a business lists on their google maps page?

<comment><USER5> It's about how the page is being overly helpful instead of giving me just the information I asked for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google, renowned experts in dodging expenses like customer support, release a customer service tool for other businesses to use that they will subsequently shut down to save money.

</comment><comment><USER8> "My team within Area 120, Google's workshop for experimental projects, conducted testing and found that small businesses receive an average of 13 phone calls every day."

That's really not many phone calls. I'm not surprised they had to try and scale it up to suggest it's a big issue.

<comment><USER9> I have a refinement to suggest if someone is looking for a business.

How many contractors (lawn, roof, carpenter, whatever) have you ever dealt with that are wizards at what they do but don't have the cycles to return a phone call or keep you updated on your appointment to save their life? If you're lucky, their spouse/nephew/etc is a part time coordinator? Maybe they call you back at the end of the week when they do all their calls? Ick.

These guys need someone to keep track of their schedules and appointments and keep customers well communicated. THAT'S IT.

I've abandoned so many engagements because of not doing this one thing.

<comment><USER3> That's usually called an agent.

Honestly, I'm surprised "agents for sharing-economy freelancers" hasn't taken off yet.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that essentially the role that all the apps powering the "sharing economy" are providing?

<comment><USER10> Right, but I think the idea would be something where the person providing the actual useful service enlists the help of the app/agent and is in control of the relationship, rather than the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We at Ozonetel have been in the cloud business phone system business for sometime now. A couple of quick observations:

1\. Surprisingly, the Calljoy website does not have a call in number or a demo number. This is supposed to be a disruptive technology, put a demo number that people can call in and test.

2\. The Google brand is not there anywhere on the Calljoy website(except at the very bottom).

3\. Rather than release a free beta product, which is the norm, Google has launched a paid commercial product.

4\. Haven't tested the call quality yet. I think they maybe launching this on the Google voice platform.

5\. Not sure why it should be a separate product, would have made more sense as a Gsuite add on.

6\. Businesses need support. The success of this product will depend on the 24/7 support that Google can provide to business owners.

<comment><USER12> Re part 6, surely there's some irony in providing customer support for a product that avoids providing actual customer support by making me listen to robots for its best guess of what I'm looking for.

<comment><USER11> True that :)

The death of the phone call has been heralded for many years now. I am guessing it's gonna stick on for some more time, at least for business use cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do we intentionally not summarise things? I'm not quite sure of the norm. Here's an early paragraph that seems useful:

With CallJoy, small businesses have access to the same customer service options that have historically only been available to larger corporations. If you're associated with small business using CallJoy, here's how it works: After a quick setup, you'll receive a local phone number. CallJoy will immediately begin blocking unwanted spam calls so you receive the calls that matter—the ones from customers. Then, when the phone rings, the automated CallJoy agent answers, greets callers with a custom message and provides basic business information (like hours of operation).

<comment><USER14> i do appreciate seeing tldrs in the comments, thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I see a lot of folks focusing on the negatives (because it's from Google) but my experience is small businesses are AWFUL at answering the phone. My barber for example has no online booking, and rarely answers the phone. I stopped going to him even if he's by far the best in the area, having a service like this will definitely make small businesses more reachable.

<comment><USER16> My barber doesn't have online booking or phone booking. You walk in and take a seat, or wait in the line if it's busy.

I asked him why not. He told me that he used to take bookings, and stopped for a few reasons:

1\. A lot of people book appointments and don't show up, or show up late, causing him down time and reduces his income. If a regular client shows up late for his 30 minute appointment does he make another customer - also booked - wait?

2\. He can cut some people's hair in 15 minutes while others it might take 40. By having booking it limits this flexibility. He can also charge more or less depending on how long it takes.

3\. Walk ins are self regulating. People know when it's likely to be busy and when it's likely to be quieter. If they don't mind waiting they come at a busy time. If they want to be in and out quickly they go off peak.

<comment><USER17> As a counterpoint, this is only a problem for barbershops that aren't very busy. The barber I used to go to is insanely busy. No matter when you show up the wait is at least 30 min, usually 1-2 hours.

I switched to a place that's more expensive but has appointments. Not wasting 1-2h is worth an extra $10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Although I run a software company - not a traditional, "small business," \- phone spam is such a gigantic annoyance on our office line that I stopped listing the number. Yet sometimes people find us who are legitimate. I look forward to having Google screen the calls and provide some basic information to people who are calling for some higher purpose like to obtain pricing information.

<comment><USER19> "Screening" potential customers is a notoriously bad idea. Spam calls are their own animal but you don't want to pre-qualify or screen people who might become customers because you really don't know anything about them or the business value they might represent.

<comment><USER20> You're screening calls, not potential customers. Presumably, interested parties still get through, while people who just want some tidbit don't.

<comment><USER19> So there's a robot who can tell before it answers the phone if the person is a potential customer or not? Cool! :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When people ask for startup ideas they shout just clone new google services and then once it is cancelled you will get many more users .

Maybe even competing with them would work.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure GrubHub, delivery.com, and all of the other takeout startups are already working to clone this technology. Once an established partner of these small businesses can do the job, this will be sold for spare parts.

It makes me wonder why Google didn't just offer this as a service to other SaaS startups. Don't they have some type of cloud platform for that? /s

<comment><USER11> It is surprising why Google just didn't offer this as a service. You could already build something like this using platforms like Twilio, KOOKOO __(in India) etc. We at Ozonetel, already provide a business phone service similar to this for our customers using Google speech as one speech engine, though spam detection is not yet inbuilt. After looking at the launch, I just quickly put together a bot page if someone wants to try it out,[https://ering.me/ozonetel/spa/](https://ering.me/ozonetel/spa/)

Note __:I am a co founder of KOOKOO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Or how to give small upstarting companies the same tedious automated phone robots of big corporations.

Never forget: when being a startup having a "talk directly to someone important" spirit is a big plus and a usp big corporations can never have.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just what consumers have been clamoring to do: talk to more customer service robots.

<comment><USER25> A feature that I've yet seen implemented: white-listing numbers to bypass the robot

<comment><USER26> Bank of America seems to do this somewhat.

If I call from the phone that's connected to my Bank of America account, I can access my account with just a four-digit number. If I call from another phone, I have to go through the full user verification.

<comment><USER27> Can it tell the difference between calling from your phone as opposed to calling from your Amazon Alexa device if you have one? I mean how does it handle spoofing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > If the customer calling would like to complete a task which can be done > online, like place a to-go order or book an appointment, CallJoy's virtual > agent will send the customer an SMS text message containing a URL.

I don't think many people who call, with the intent to talk to a human, want to be directed to a website. I'm sure this will appeal to the businesses though.

</comment><comment><USER29> I understand the feeling of people about not wanting this. So far, calling meant you _really_ wanted to speak to an human.

But let's be honest : this is an awesome opportunity to gather more data and to get closer to more natural human interface with computers, through voices and conversation.

I support this initiative.

</comment><comment><USER30> This sounds like a variation of hell for specialist retail. You want the sale and that call from the customer making an enquiry is your chance to make sure you are going to be ready for them. You want to have them arrive to ask for you by name to continue the sale.

Small businesses, e.g. the hair salon, should have a student or someone on the desk who can take the calls so the working staff don't have to.

There are ways to be succinct on the phone and to wind things up without wasting customer time.

I don't believe Google have a clue about customer service and I don't believe any ultra clever AI robot solution can help. Nobody phones up their local supermarket to 'see if they are open' or if the 'stock tinned peas'. In specialist retail you want to take the call and convert it into a sale. I don't believe this product really helps with that.

I also am aware that 98.3% of customers have Googled a business before they step inside the store (in the realm of specialist retail or services). So you really want to markup your web homepage with the required JSON-LD for the opening hours, address details and other basics that would be a meaningless interruption. In that way people don't even have to call. If people are calling up about these things, e.g. holiday opening hours, it is not a phone solution that is needed, it is basic information on the website.

We have created these amazing ways for people to contact us, with it people create more remarkable ways of hiding. Not answering the phone, not answering emails is the norm, businesses should not be hiding this way out of courtesy.

</comment><comment><USER31> You know what word doesn't exist in this, that really confuses me is missing? Duplex.

They've got this super advanced human-like AI feature for making voice calls... and they're introducing a rudimentary automated call system like every other company out there. (With the added part that Google records all of the voice data for themselves, of course.)

<comment><USER32> I'd imagine they probably want to collect a good sample of data from their prospective customers to ensure it works across a broad range of businesses before going fully automated.

They could do this by going round loads of small businesses and asking for call recordings to test against, but launching with a manual offering first to collect the data seems so much easier.

<comment><USER31> Possibly, but this is also coming from that Area 120 internal startup incubator... rather than the team behind Duplex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So if one part of Google is working on the automation of making the calls [1] and another part of Google is automating the answering of calls, does that mean that Google will be on the phone with itself all day?

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/google- du...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/google-duplex- assistant-phone-calls-robot-human)

</comment><comment><USER34> So they say that they will be blocking unwanted calls. Google is eating our mail[0], and now they will eat our calls too? Thinking again, I guess it's not a huge deal as average person won't (and can't) be operating their own phone service anytime soon.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19756125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19756125)

</comment><comment><USER35> "After a quick setup, you'll receive a local phone number. CallJoy will immediately begin blocking unwanted spam calls so you receive the calls that matter—the ones from customers"

Would really like to know how they implement the spam call blocking. Spam calls especially to businesses are a huge problem in the United States and anyone who solves that problem will make billions.

<comment><USER36> Listen to a couple seconds of audio, compare to known spam calls (they just have a database of billions at this point), profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The name seems kind of odd for a google product.

The anti-spam feature and voice analytics sound cool. I'm curious how they decide what's spam though - I know there's a few services that claim to do this, but since a lot of times local numbers are the ones being spoofed, can they guarantee a legitimate call won't be filtered out?

<comment><USER38> I think the difference is, CallJoy will listen to your calls and transcribe them as part of its features. So they can do pattern matching in the actual content of the call (similar to the way an email spam filter works) rather than relying on metadata alone.

<comment><USER37> That probably works if there's anything to transcribe, although the goal of the robocallers is probably to get transferred to a human being as soon as possible (i.e. pressing 0, or just doing nothing and waiting for the call to be transferred to a human, which I see happening a lot on my own small business phone system). Unfortunately those are also behaviors that legitimate callers might exhibit.

I'm guessing google is reasonably happy with how it works though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The world does not need another service where people are expected to talk to (argue with?) robots.

In all the time that I worked at IBM, a company that certainly could have implemented automated call responses, we never did. When customers called IBM, a human answered the phone. Always.

<comment><USER26> Good point. If I'm going to bother to call, the company should be bothered to answer.

I hate talking to people on the phone, but it's unavoidable. So if I call someone, it really takes a bit of mental effort. Plus, I don't work in a place where it's customary for people to just make personal phone calls in the office. Doing so would be very conspicuous and uncomfortable.

(Disclaimer: Currently sipping from an IBM coffee mug.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> How come this looks like a completely separate product with no Google branding? Why is this not part of G Suite or GCP? People like single, simple pricing models, not an additional bill.

</comment><comment><USER39> Excited to see if it gains traction. I've been waiting for Google to release a product like this after they released their Duplex demo last year.

</comment><comment><USER40> Interested in trying this but given Google's history of launching and subsequently shutting down non-core businesses I'm very hesitant.

</comment><comment><USER41> Number of Call Center workers in the US: 3 million

Guess at average salary: $25000?

That's a $75bn market eventually if Google keeps improving this technology, just in the US.

Buy GOOG.

<comment><USER42> Is the size of a market only defined by how much the workers are payed in that market?

<comment><USER41> Just trying to give people a potential amount Google could be making from this type of technology as it improves. I just found it interesting when I did that maths, maybe the market is bigger or smaller - what do you think?

<comment><USER7> I think there are two problems with this:

1) call centers already have software to record calls and quantify results

2) Google have only ever provided the minimum support mandated by consumer protection laws, none at all wherever they're not compelled to provide it, it's a huge leap to go from that to improving call centers...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Interesting that Google isn't mentioned in the name of the product or anywhere in the ad. That seems like a break from tradition.

</comment><comment><USER44> "for a flat monthly fee of $39" I would expect a lower price from google... But it seems free or cheap services era from google is finished. They now started to aggressively monetize. This movement started with google maps pricing increase...

<comment><USER25> > But it seems free or cheap services era from google is finished. They now > started to aggressively monetize.

Or in other words, behave like a rational business. I would also say that the era where the user IS the product is (hopefully) coming to an end, and this is how Google moves forward in that world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> How does this fit into Google's broader strategy? ie. why is this a thing?

<comment><USER46> Training their AI to understand human conversation (see Google Duplex). Press fastforward a couple of years and you have a system that can automate call centers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have never understood what the point of having an automated phone line is in today's world. If I call a number, I expect to speak to a human. Otherwise I'm always going to your website anyways.

</comment><comment><USER48> Shuttered in 3,2,1.

Seriously, this has the revenue potential of a nice SaaS app. Not bad, but not Google level. There is no way Google doesn't close this business, probably in less than a year.

<comment><USER49> It's not about revenue, it's about data:

> Whether the customer speaks with you, talks to an employee, or just > interacts directly with the CallJoy agent, the call will be recorded and > transcribed for quality purposes.

This is a play to get the content of conversations between customers and small businesses.

<comment><USER50> This also integrates small businesses with an ordering API.

Imagine if Google Maps (inc. via Search/Assistant) could replace all the industry specific apps like UberEats/Grubhub... there's an app for that [https://developers.google.com/maps- booking/](https://developers.google.com/maps-booking/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> >Then, when the phone rings, the automated CallJoy agent answers, greets callers with a custom message and provides basic business information (like hours of operation). \--

>If the customer calling would like to complete a task which can be done online, like place a to-go order or book an appointment, CallJoy's virtual agent will send the customer an SMS text message containing a URL.

That sounds kinda handy.

Side note: That damn status bar that falls from the top on the blog is a pain, if you read anywhere near the top of your screen it falls down to cover the text.

</comment><comment><USER25> So even more numbers that we can all immediately start pressing "0" the second the line picks up.

</comment><comment><USER52> "For all the ways technology has improved your life, please press one…"

</comment><comment><USER53> So, is this like Google voice but more for small businesses?

</comment><comment><USER54> Which telecom providers are they using under the hood?

</comment><comment><USER55> Google should include this kind of projects under the Google Cloud Platform. Google has too many products, and they can't integrate well with each other because of this.

<comment><USER19> The real reason Google's products don't work very well is that they are an _advertising_ business. They make upwards of 94% of their revenue from advertising -- not technology, not software, and certainly not customer service, an area in which they are severely lacking.

The idea of Google defining customer service standards represents a step backwards, not forward.

<comment><USER20> FWIW, when I've been buying ads, Google not only has customer service, the customer service is damn good. I guess that's why it's called _customer_ service.

<comment><USER56> Hardware support has also been amazing over the years, as far back as the original Nexus 7 (2012) to replacing a broken Nexus 5X in Ireland last year. Probably the best customer service I've encountered from any company that I can think of.

<comment><USER19> I've had a Google-branded phone since the original Nexus and I used to agree with you, but their support on the Pixel 2's extended warranty (which they offered because of early problems) has been a game of passing the buck with Verizon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Google needs to print expiry dates on its products before launching.</comment>


Chrome is still king of the web browsers, beating Firefox Quantum - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/11/15/google-chrome-vs-firefox-quantum/#FLo1zzc8_aq7 <comment><USER2> > Chrome is still king of the web browsers, beating Firefox Quantum

That's one editorialized title. Hell, even the Mashable's title is less antagonistic. Can we title this thread with the actual title of the article?

<comment><USER3> Please do this.

(1) Current title does not reflect article

(2) Current title uses logic that can only be written by someone with an agenda. Quantum has been out for less than a week and it's suppose to supplant Chrome's huge market share in that time???

<comment><USER4> > uses logic that can only be written by someone with an agenda

Absolutely agree!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how they compared the performance of the two browsers on five whole websites (Chrome was faster at displaying three, Firefox two). Some very comprehensive testing.

<comment><USER6> At least they didn't make their test suite a representative example of online apps including email, document editing, spreadsheet, mapping and social media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> *in pure speed

However, when looking for a web browser, speed is only one characteristic among many, and imho Firefox is close enough to Chrome on this for speed to be ignored

On the other hand, Firefox is built by mozilla instead of Google, which leads me to trust Firefox way more than Chrome about privacy issues, and keeping consumer interest at heart above all

To me, this is worth way more than a couple of micro seconds on a chart

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok, so how's the memory usage compare when I have 50-60 tabs open until I take time to go through and grab what I needed from them?

What's the comparison look like when I open (of course) the daily comics in the morning by Ctrl-clicking on the appropriate bookmarks folder to open all of them at once? I've watched that one bring misconfigured routers to their knees.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not all of the performance improvements for FF got into version 57, expect 59 to deliver another substantial performance increase. Also I wonder if an improved Firefox has a chance of replacing the use of Webkit in other browsers, like Opera or Safari?

</comment><comment><USER9> Do Firefox collect everything and manipulate search results?

<comment><USER10> Firefox does have telemetry, but it can be disabled [1][2].

Not sure what you mean by manipulating search results, is this not Google Search _instead_ of the web browser?

[1]: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry) [2]: [https://telemetry.mozilla.org/](https://telemetry.mozilla.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Half the tests run here are JavaScript, which Quantum doesn't affect; it's not surprising that the results are consistent with previous versions of Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER12> It will be interesting to watch these two products evolve in parallel. I suspect that user experience will be the main differentiator.

<comment> nevi-me I'm wondering if Google has plans to address the RAM issue. Small benchmarks are fine in isolation, but pain points are the RAM used by Chrome, which eventually renders it slow with many open tabs.

Is V8 the culprit? node.js doesn't indicate that to be the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Spoiler: Performance is about even with Chrome being slightly faster on some sites and Firefox being faster on others.</comment>


How to Optimize Images on Your Magento Website? - <AUTHOR> https://imagekit.io/blog/optimize-images-on-magento-using-imagekit/ <comment><USER2> Which transformations does it provide? Will it improve the image quality?</comment>


A new Live Fourier Transform demonstration (2014) [video] - arseny-n https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiKrrGR57aI <comment> arseny-n Link to the orignial blogpost: [https://lookingatnothing.com/index.php/archives/991](https://lookingatnothing.com/index.php/archives/991)</comment>


Show HN: Heya – A Campaign Mailer for Rails - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/honeybadger-io/heya <comment><AUTHOR> We got tired of paying Intercom and others a fortune to send customer lifecycle emails; we built Heya to send them ourselves.

Heya let's you send segmented drip email campaigns similar to Intercom or Customer.io, but directly from Rails.

Main benefits:

\- Open source

\- Self hosted

\- It's easier to integrate, since it runs on top of your existing user database

\- Much cheaper ($99/year atm)

\- It's just Rails!</comment>


FCC votes to begin working toward 5G wireless networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/14/12183146/fcc-5g-wireless-spectrum-frontiers-vote-approved <comment><USER2> >This proceeding also opens up the door for much higher speed Wi-Fi. Although that, likewise, will require technical advancements before it can be put to use.

Can anyone expand on where this is coming from? It's tacked on at the end without any sources or further explanation.

<comment><USER3> Older generations used fixed radio parameters and spectrum blocks. 5G plans using any spectrum and any access technology that delivers best service.

5G is planned to have support for radio access infrastructure sharing, ultra- dense radio networking with self-backhauling, device-to-device connections etc.

Note that 5G is currently in a concept level. There is lots fo 5G research, prototyping and trials. Standardization process starts soon.</comment></comment>


A Python module for parallel optimization of expensive black-box functions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paulknysh/blackbox <comment><USER2> See also OpenMDAO and hyperopt.</comment>


If you're stuck because of "best practices" throw them away - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/802496645778800640 <comment><USER2> This. Once you accept any advice as universal and/or infallible, you're on your way to cargo cult.</comment>


Ubuntu One Music Store enters public beta, Canonical calls for more testers - <AUTHOR> http://www.last100.com/2010/03/23/ubuntu-one-music-store-goes-into-public-beta-canonical-calls-for-more-testers/ <comment><USER2> If Apple purposely makes it difficult for this to work with the IPhone then it's clear to me they are no different then Microsoft.</comment>


CDC data suggests COVID-19 deaths much higher than reported - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-death-toll-total.html <comment><USER2> People forget that every year around 60 million people die worldwide as the normal course of things. Death is a fact of life. Like stupid chickens, people panic when they hear that a few thousand people are sick or have died. This whole shut down of the world economy is ludicrous. It's exposing the fallacy of the over-protective nanny-state. It's just another excuse to pay out trillions to their cronies and further enslave the world. People are being fooled by the numbers because they can't grasp how many humans actually exist on the planet. So what if 200,000 people have died out of 7.7 billion (.003%). Net ~85 million more will have been added this year.

<comment><USER3> > So what if 200,000 people have died out of 7.7 billion (.003%). Net ~85 > million more will have been added this year.

If the rest of the world listened to you we'd have 150-300 million deaths over about 6 months, not 200,000. Fortunately people like you are a small minority.

<comment><USER2> That's a lie that you've been told. More will die from shutdown-induced famine etc than the cronyvirus. To see real numbers look at Brazil, look at Sweden. Not so bad.</comment></comment></comment>


A Double Eclipse of the Sun - <AUTHOR> http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150322.html

<comment><USER2> It might be better to use the permalink to the particular APOD entry in question: [http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150322.html](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150322.html)

<comment><USER3> The ISS looks like a wing of TIE fighters...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do yourself a favor and take a look at the photographer website - [http://www.astrophoto.fr](http://www.astrophoto.fr)

The pictures of the Shuttle docking with the ISS are just amazing.

<comment><USER5> Whoa. And a picture of an astronaut on a space walk, taken from the ground.

<comment><USER6> Do take a look at the stereo pairs of the ISS too: [http://www.astrophoto.fr/ISS_ATV5.html](http://www.astrophoto.fr/ISS_ATV5.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Capture setup looks similar to this (from photographer's website): capture setup: [http://www.astrophoto.fr/ISS_ATV5_passage_telescope.jpg](http://www.astrophoto.fr/ISS_ATV5_passage_telescope.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER8> I made a script to set the wallpaper on Windows to the image on the webpage. github : [https://github.com/siddhartpai/astroPicWindowsWallpaper](https://github.com/siddhartpai/astroPicWindowsWallpaper)

Cheers

</comment><comment><USER9> Are those tie fighters?

<comment><USER10> "These aren't the tie fighters you're looking for."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, thats a beautiful picture! I really appreciate the work of these people, who are going the extra mile to get these pictures.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whoa, amazing</comment>


Surf industry paradox: Surfing, by its nature, contradicts basic capitalism - <AUTHOR> https://beachgrit.com/2020/02/the-surf-industry-paradox-surfing-by-its-very-nature-inherently-contradicts-basic-capitalism/ <comment><USER2> The article touches on the answer, briefly, about halfway down: The Surf Industry isn't about Surfing.

Most of the things that the big Surf brands make are not useful for the actual act of Surfing. Even boardshorts from the major boardshort companies, about half their range can't be worn surfing. They're made from non-stretch fabric and intended to be worn around on the street.

Google up a "surf shop" in a big coastal town, pick the biggest, most obvious one, and chances are you wouldn't be able to equip yourself to go surfing with the things you can buy there. It'll be wall to wall boardshorts and hoodies, with a hundred pairs of sunglasses along the wall and maybe half a dozen shiny new boards stood up in a corner for decorative purposes. Observe the looks the staff will give each other if you try to ring one of those up.

If you want to go surfing, you need to find the little hole-in-the wall shop off the beach a ways, which will be stuffed full of wetsuits and boards, to the point where you can hardly walk around without knocking half the store down. They'll also have a few hundred pairs of boardshorts there, but surprisingly these ones will all have stretchy fabric and crotches that don't tear apart if you sink to your knees.

The Big Surf Brands know that most of their business comes from selling sunglasses and flip flops to people who want to look like surfers. And they're doing fine.

<comment><USER3> It's more nefarious and subtle than that.

The trick is that you first get popular among actual surfers. That's a tiny population, the population doesn't like to spend money, it takes expensive R&D, expensive materials, difficult manual assembly for the abusive and difficult environment: not a lot of profit or market cap there.

But the dark pattern that the 'surf industry' have discovered and exploited, is that you then silently pivot to the market of people who wished they looked cool like surfers. That's a much bigger population, they have more money, and they don't care about the materials or performance of the gear.

Starting out as an actual surf business is optional, but encouraged, as it will help you market the story that you make cool surf gear. Skip that step if people will come into your department store anyways, just make the logo look similar to a prominent manufacturer. Similar tactics can be employed effectively in selling just about anything: SUVs and sports cars, ski gear, health food, artistic furniture...

<comment><USER4> How is this a dark pattern? The people buying the goods are happy with the exchange, and it's not like they don't know they're posers buying into the culture.

<comment><USER5> Even that is a little harsh. Board shorts work just fine in the pool or hot tub or anywhere else you might go swimming. They're comfortable and fast drying and come in all kinds of colors and designs. Just because they were initially created for one purpose and people have realized they have a wider use, I don't see why that makes you a poser if you wear them.

It just seems like a perfectly normal way that clothing trends evolve. Are you a poser if you wear Northface or Patagonia gear in the city, since it's made for roughing it in the outdoors?

<comment><USER6> I tend to take these brands at face value. If North Face tells me their gear is for adventurers climbing K2, I'm certainly not going to wear that to the office. For many years Apple presented it as the purview of the cool and creative - as I'm neither, I assumed their products were for someone else.

<comment><USER7> Advertising may not tell the complete story about how a product can be used effectively in practice.

Once I worked in an office that was absurdly cold but North Face gear kept me warm and comfortable. Many people, cool or otherwise, find Apple devices to be usable and reliable for very ordinary activities like sending email, writing documents, or making phone calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most of the best boards don't come off factory presses instead they are built by someone with great passion in a small warehouse or garage. These guys are happy just getting by and sharing the stoke with customers they know. Moreover, once you become addicted to surfing that's all one cares about. True surfers don't care about the hype around the latest thing, once you buy your board and a wetsuit all you care about is getting that glide. If I didn't have a family to support I'd make the yearly circuit from Sri Lanka, Peru, etc and just live on the beach for less than $10 a day and would be perfectly satisfied. I feel sorry for my office mates who don't have any hobbies or escapes and instead are focused on the next bonus or promotion either for their egos or so they can buy more stuff. I just want more time off to travel with my family and surf. After 3 startups and 23 years in tech and many, many 12 hour days I can tell you the whole system is empty. Despite recognition or financial success there's nothing in the system that brings true long term happiness, but the natural meditation when waiting on the wave or for the next set does.

<comment><USER9> Everyone knows that, but everyone, like you I suspect, is playing the game to optimize their children's (or family's) position in the social order.

Desire to secure their future resource/financial security really throws a wrench in "letting it all go".

<comment><USER10> In the social order of surfers, optimization is living at the waves so the kids can surf with mom and pop. And with grandma and grandpa when there are grandkids. Locals are always the top of every surfing pecking order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Surfers, for the most part, don't need more stuff, don't want more surfers, don't care about grabbing attention, etc."

This is actually completely true. I'm friends with a guy who owns a surf shop in one of the highest grossing areas for surfing equipment/clothing in southern california, his biggest gripe with the industry is that surfers spend no money. They won't pay for parking, won't pay for surf apps, won't buy a new board unless they have to, don't really buy the clothes, etc. It's part of the culture.

Edit:

To add to his perspective, it's not about getting wealthy from surfing. The guy has been surfing his whole life, is a lifelong lifeguard, surfs 20 foot waves.

He just wishes the industry could grow and innovate, but instead sees it stagnate. Sure the vibe and love for surfing is there, but I think he is frustrated that there is no wealth in the industry to foster further growth and investment.

But then again, the way I see it is surfing as a sport is extremely limited, you can only do it on coasts, and only some coasts are actually consistently good for it.

<comment><USER12> No one wants to pay for parking.

Surf apps suck, they're generally asking around $10 a month, and they do little more than provide prettified weather buoy data.

_Decent_ wetsuits are in the $300 - $500 range, new board $600 - $1000. I think it's pretty capitalist to let some kook buy it new and then snag it from them off craigslist for %30 - %50 of retail.

<comment><USER13> Free, privacy-preserving alternative to surf app:

[https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=SGX&issuedby=S...](https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=SGX&issuedby=SGX&product=SRF&format=CI&version=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The climbing apparel industry is the same way. Patagonia, North Face, Black Diamond and Arcteryx all began as brands that catered specifically to the needs of climbers and alpinists, but now sell primarily to yuppies.

It used to be that if you were wearing Canada Goose, it was because you were on some kind of expedition to the Arctic. Then movie directors decided Canada Goose was the way to go to stay cozy while on an outdoor movie set. I think it was Sundance 2007 and all of the sudden all the cool kids had Canada Goose parkas.

Now middle class people wear Canada Goose parkas to signal to others their propensity for getting ripped off.

<comment><USER15> > Patagonia, North Face, Black Diamond and Arcteryx all began as brands that > catered specifically to the needs of climbers and alpinists, but now sell > primarily to yuppies.

They may sell a subset of their product to yuppies, but you can still outfit yourself for just about any outdoor pursuit with these companies and trust the gear they sell. TNF and BD tents are still high quality, TNF and BD and Patagonia jackets can be used on any trip. And Arcteryx is some of the highest quality cold weather clothing in the world. I would probably only prefer Western Mountaineering or Hilleberg to a combination of products from these 4 manufacturers. BD probably makes more money on selling headlamps to anglers and hunters than they do on yuppies buying climbing pants.

The brands are nowhere near the lowend lifestyle fashion grab-bags that Oakley, Hurley, Quiksilver or O'Neill are...

<comment><USER16> > They may sell a subset of their product to yuppies

I think you have this backwards. They make their profit off the yuppies buying the latest product year after year. The hardcore users aren't buying new tents, jackets, snow pants, etc every year.

<comment><USER14> Hardcore users can actually burn through their gear pretty fast. A $600 gore- tex shell will last a long time so long as you aren't climbing mountains in it every weekend.

<comment><USER17> An arcteryx shell should last nearly your entire life with proper maintenance - if you're doing an activity that would damage it you're using the wrong gear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The Hurley debacle is getting most of the press these days

>...And, of course, we all know about Hurley by now

No I don't. I even had to search myself and still don't know. Just tell the reader, we don't all follow surfer/skate news.

What happened to Hurley? They closing shop?

<comment><USER19> Originally owned by a "core" surfer, Bob Hurley, but was later sold to Nike. They still got a pass with some surfers because they made decent wetsuits and sponsored top surfers. Nike sold off the brand very recently and started cutting staff and sponsorships. The rumor is they'll now start schilling their stuff in low budget retailers. Surfers have quickly jumped ship now that any semblance of being a "real" surf brand is gone.

<comment><USER20> Now? I've been seeing Hurley, Billabong, etc. clothes in downmarket retailers like Ross and TJ Maxx for at least a decade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is consistent with most lifestyle brands. Look at rock climbing. The people who spend their lives free climbing don't spend $300 on a hoodie and even if they did, there are diminishingly few of them to sustain a luxury company. Every autumn people in cities dress like they've just stepped off a horse or are on their way to a grouse shoot without the land, means, or skill to do either. Dressing like a rock star doesn't make you one, but that never stopped anyone from paying $200 for a pair of jeans.

It's not capitalism, it's something else. On the consumer side, it's "mimetic desire," which is a whole complex thing.

On the creative side, when you love something, how do you find a way to make enough money at it that you can do it as a way of life? Then once you do, how do you compete with well capitalized people whose interests aren't divided and who specialize in selling empty symbols to rubes? (answer: teaching, performance, and elite competition)

When you are actually good at something, you don't buy symbolic things to represent it because representing it is hollow and absurd. It's not a paradox of capitalism at all. When you are actually good at something you love, you are above the fray. Paradoxes and criticisms are the noisy artifacts of people reconciling symbols, and not meaningful to people who are engaged in the moment.

So, I'd say there is no surf industry, just an industry that sells surf symbols, and to surfers its failure is necessarily meaningless.

<comment><USER22> > Dressing like a rock star doesn't make you one, but that never stopped > anyone from paying $200 for a pair of jeans.

Ironic, given the original utterly utilitarian origin of jeans.

<comment><USER23> And civilian khaki's were probably to pose and steal valor from the military. Almost everything style wise is deep with symbolism that sometimes loses touch with any original meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As Louis Rossmann would say:

 _Don 't worry, Gov "King" Cuomo will require a surfing license very soon, that is unless he doesn't outlaw it like e-bikes first._

</comment><comment><USER25> Highly recommend the book "Let My People Go Surfing:The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual" by Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia and the precursor to Black Diamond (he spun BD out and sold it to his employees after losing a frivolous lawsuit).

The man is a legend in the climbing community, and wrote a whole book on balancing professional vs enthusiast gear while following his own moral compass.

It's a fascinating and worthwhile read for anyone who wants to find your own internal balance on being true to yourself and your values, while dealing with the realities of running a business. The discussions on what do we owe ourselves and others is a refreshing take on what it means to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER26> Personally, I only buy clothes etc that I need. Skateboarding and surfing has had a major positive influence on my life so I tend to buy from brands that sponsor and support riders that I like. I don't buy lots anyway though.

</comment><comment><USER27> Uhm, what, those brands actually made surfing clothes?

I honestly thought those brands made cool looking extremely casual clothes! Obviously, styles change and things go out of fashion.

Heck, I still own a pair of Volcom board shorts I accidentally bought 15 years ago because I thought they were a cool-looking bathing suit. I even wore them the one time I went surfing in Hawaii. I don't wear them often, because they don't have pockets, but when the occasion calls for them, (like spring skiing,) I love them.

<comment><USER28> I don't think of board shorts as surf clothes, they are fast drying swim trunks you can wear around town. Great for all water sports, I usually wear mine under my wetsuit.

Billabong also makes a line of khaki shorts (walk shorts I think they're called) with the same material that are amazing for hot and humid tropical weather. Dry super quickly if they get wet, very light, and slightly stretchy.

<comment><USER29> Board shorts are too loose and long to wear comfortably under a properly fitted wetsuit. They get all bunched up.

<comment><USER28> You're right, when I need it fitted nicely I will wear Speedos under the board shorts for that. 90% of the time I'm scuba diving and have tech shorts that go over the wetsuit, so bunching around the legs doesn't matter much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not a contradiction. Voluntary exchange is central to Capitalism. Option to resist excessive marketing is within the framework. It's a cultural thing which some sub-cultures are better at then others.

</comment><comment> m-watson I don't think it solves everything but it is why I like the concept of B-Corps. I think the growth at all costs concept is at odds often with other important factors but we can adjust. I think B-Corps are a good start at re- aligning our evolving needs and our existing systems.

</comment><comment><USER31> Well I can just disagree. I'm surfer, 20 years surfing, and it's just as any other sport. The image of the free surfer, almost hippie, has 0 to do with the reality, if you are over 30s. Grow up!

</comment><comment><USER32> This is just the end result of demanding quarterly growth out of everything.

Start with a brand that has "cool" factor, milk it for all its worth, obliterate the brand, and walk away with your CEO bonuses.

</comment><comment><USER33> > Believe it or not, there was once a day when Quik just made great > boardshorts, O'Neill made great wetsuits, Oakley made the sunnies, etc. > Soon, however, it seemed like all brands were in literally every category, > unfortunately, not always doing that with much quality.

I wonder if this is a natural consequence of the drive for "growth"–whether that be in terms of more profit, more features, or anything else. You see it in the big tech companies, which have a tendency to expand into areas like social media, cloud, and self-driving cars, regardless of their original product line. Programming languages, where as a language ecosystem ages, it grows to acquire the features of every other language. Niche communities and countercultures online and off get diluted into meaninglessness once they catch on with too many people. Memes degrade. Information entropy increases monotonically.

I'm reminded of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called "God's Grandeur".

      The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
        It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
        It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
      Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
      Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
        And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
        And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
      Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

      And for all this, nature is never spent;
        There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
      And though the last lights off the black West went
        Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
      Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
        World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Because for all this tendency towards monoculture, there is just as much evidence all around us of humanity's seemingly limitless capacity for reinvention and creation. Maybe decay is necessary in order to clear the way for what's to come. Maybe we should celebrate it!

<comment><USER19> For the record, O'Neill still makes great wetsuits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The article conflates capitalism with consumer materialism.

</comment><comment><USER35> No it doesn't. Surfing had it's boom and bust and now is a normal sport/hobby like skiing or everything else.

In the future one could also argue: tech industry contradicts basic capitalism: nowadays anybody has a smartphone, the phones cannot get any better, and everyone takes care of their smartphone because they don't want to pay alot money for a new one.

<comment><USER36> Yeah I'm decidedly confused about the author's conception of surfing. They seem to be under an impression that the sport/hobby has inherent philosophical values.

<comment><USER37> I think that's a common conception of many surfers. Surfing is somewhat entrenched in philosophy. Surfers have philosophical concepts of individualism, territory, ecology, morality, and existential concepts surrounding their place in nature and what is truly important in life to be happy.

Surfers can be considered to live their life like any spiritual individual. Their _god_ is the ocean, their pursuit is happiness in the moment recognizing risk and danger is a necessary component for a full life.

<comment><USER36> I wonder how that came about, and how a culture like that could have come to persist into the 2020s?

My initial thought is to the limited range to actually peruse the sport, leading to a closer knit culture. It's coastal dependent and coast culture always has a distinct identity in my experience, more so than Mountain culture in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is. Capitalism is not an entity that has its own free will and desires. Capitalism is a projection of what people want. If surfers want what they want, then that is capitalism for them.

<comment><USER22> There are many books that would dispute your second sentence.

I'll just note that what most people consider capitalism really consists of three components:

1) "free markets" in which what is sold and for how much is not (heavily) regulated 2) an entrepeneurial environment in which starting (and stopping) commercial enterprises is relatively easy and happens often 3) preferentially biasing the distribution of the rewards of commercial enterprises towards those who invest capital, rather than those who invest labor or IP.

There's no rule that says you couldn't have a system with just 1 or 2 of those 3. Either way, they interact to create a social system which does indeed tend to drive a society in certain directions, and inhibit its ability to move in others.

<comment><USER38> It's true, but still the driving force is a common denominator of "what people want".

<comment><USER22> Not, the driving force is what people with disposable income are prepared to pay for. That's very different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [a] industry paradox.[a], by its nature, contradicts basic capitalism.

Replace a with basically anything people do.

</comment><comment><USER40> Like, totally, bro. Capitalism is just how the man gets us down.

The bigger lesson: Humans don't desire consumerist society.

<comment><USER41> >The bigger lesson: Humans don't desire consumerist society.

How exactly is this the case? By all metrics, humans love consumerism and it, or rather capitalism, allow us to enjoy an exceedingly high quality of life.

<comment><USER42> Profit seeking corporations love consumerism, most humans are fine with a safe warm place to live and enough food to raise a family.

Convincing them to voluntarily transfer their wealth to someone else is the goal of consumerism, hence the ridiculous money spend on propaganda convincing people they need more things than they want.

<comment><USER43> The revolutions of 1989 would tend to argue against that. Leaders in East Germany and the like thought that giving people subsidized food, housing (and alcohol) would be enough to make them content. Some of it was, yes, about not having democracy, but a lot of it was being upset that they didn't have the consumer goods they knew people in the West had access to.

<comment><USER44> Hmm. I live and work in the bit of Berlin that used to be DDR (aber ich bin Ausländer).

The museums around here insist the two big problems were the secret police and the fact that production wasn't very well matched to demand. Even if you ignore the literal Stasi, I think you may be understating the impact of the shops running out of various foods from time to time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What happened when Amazon moved into your business? - <AUTHOR> Without going too much into my own product. I have recently found out after watching the AWS conference that I am now directly competing against an Amazon product... I am looking for stories of how your company reacted and maybe the successes or failures... <comment><USER2> I work for an competitor to an AWS product. We've grown rapidly over the past ~7 years in a generally competitive (lots of startups, some really old tough incumbent companies). Without revealing too much on our end, here's some lessons learned:

* AWS is bad at customer service, even for their large or premium customers. If you position yourself, and _seriously_ invest in making your company's culture rooted in exceptional customer service, that's a foothold.

* Don't compete on price. This is hard for most tech startups, as pricing is a very difficult thing to do properly, but resist the urge to drop price to compete. You'll never have the scale, the supply chain masterminds, or the financial modeling to compete with AWS on price, so position yourself as a premium or luxury offering and don't be afraid to price accordingly. If you do the first step properly (a deeply rooted culture of service) you'll be able to justify the price.

* AWS has great uptime, but often the actual operating performance of their service isn't that great, especially when you push the products beyond the 80% use case. They know that for the majority of their customer base, best-in-class performance isn't actually business critical (despite how flashy it sounds). However, there is absolutely a market for people who truly need best in class performance, or product flexibility, or some other best-in-class trait (latency, interaction design, etc.). Find who these people are, and optimize for that ruthlessly. This focus, in combination with the culture of exceptional service and positioning your brand as a premium provider, puts you into a completely different market space than AWS.

<comment><USER3> Really? I've had better customer experience with AWS than Azure or GCE... Even their SDK devs are responsive, I raised a bug for the SDK for their queues and went to bed, woke up and they had published a new SDK with the fix after 7 hours of raising the ticket...

There is a lot to dislike about AWS but from my experience customer server isn't one of them...

<comment><USER4> What was your experience like on Azure and GCE?

Azure had me on the phone within minutes of filing critical issues. Their engineering department provided updates all night.

Amazon issue resolution could be summarized as "won't fix" or "someday/maybe". Their API inconsistencies might be considered a poor developer experience [0].

It's great you like AWS. I do too for some use cases! I disagree their customer service is "better" though.

[0] [http://apievangelist.com/2017/01/05/what-i-learned- crafting-...](http://apievangelist.com/2017/01/05/what-i-learned-crafting-api- definitions-for-66-of-the-amazon-web-services/)

<comment><USER5> We had an instance crash (first time), once we were bestowed the honor of submitting a ticket after an hours of downtime (to which the clock only started an hour after the instance went offline, we were able to solve the issue ourselves, and closed the ticket an hour after submitting it... to which a couple of days later we received a response asking about the issue.

<comment><USER3> Ah I had that experience on Azure. With aws we have paid support so when we have issues and raise critical tickets they respond in ~20m but azure. When they were still doing sql server as a service I lost access to my database. Support told me there was no problem. The azure insiders forum said others were having issues. The support wouldn't even acknowledge I couldn't access the database. 2 days later I finally got access again randomly. I never got a response to why this happened. I'm just Glad this was a non production application for some contract work but they ended up wanting to go aws over the experience.

I Guess at the end of the day we all experience different levels of support from all these providers.

<comment><USER6> I got some support from Azure a few months ago asking about DTU spikes, more of a shot in the dark than hoping for a good answer, but got an extremely good, knowledgeable woman go through it with me within a day. We only spend a few thousand a year at the moment.

I may hate their admin interface, but their support was top notch in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wasnt the owner of the business but I worked for an "email infrastructure" company (think Sendgrid but not US based). When amazon launched its SES offer, things started to get pretty grim.

\- Their infrastructure was better (stable)

\- Their price was much, much lower (pricing)

\- They are Amazon and they're global. (company image & trustworthiness)

Going to meetups and developer conferences people would always ask "why not use SES haha it's a no brainer" Pricing yourself in between Mailchimp and SES was a good fight and ultimately it did help convert a lot of "Mailchimp" affectionados.

Luckily getting emails delivered in the inbox of your customers is a bit like dark-magic - there are a lot of factors that a regular joe wouldn't consider, and because email marketing is still one of the best channels with the highest ROI ever - companies really care about setting up their email campaigns with companies that know all of the tricks and rules to optimize campaigns and ensure maximum open and ctr rates. Another thing: Data protection laws in US and EU are different, the company had the advantage of having datacenters exclusively for EU customers (where more rigid rules were applied) and then all the others...

The business focused on creating frictionless experience with stellar customer support (24/7) and also worked a lot on its dev-first marketing approach (im talking about developer experience, plugins, wrappers, integrations etc). One of the advantages of owning your own infrastructure and whole stack is that you can build and configure your product to fit every client's need. Something that Amazon has never managed to deliver out of the box - especially because email is a tool used by developers and marketers at the same time. It's really hard to make marketers happy!

The business is still around today, I learned a lot but I ultimately moved on because like I told my friends "email isn't sexy" Email is painful, email is great.

<comment><USER8> This is a great example of excellent product strategy, these are all points AWS are unlikely to compete on. Great to hear that they're still in business

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a different business, but Instacart recently had to deal with Amazon offering home grocery delivery. According to [0] it's working out because every other grocery chain realized they needed same-day home delivery in order to not get killed by Amazon, and they mostly went with Instacart.

By analogy, your strategy could be to provide the service for every other cloud provider. They watched the AWS conference too, and don't want to be left behind on any features.

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/11/08/amazon- who...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/11/08/amazon-whole-foods- deal-future-of-instacart-grocery-delivery/#758d3a076d5a)

</comment><comment><USER10> Every company I know of that this happened to, and I know of at least five personally and others via 2nd hand, disappeared within six months.

One of them went on to start a new company and was acquired by Facebook for a whole lot of money.

But overall the outlook isn't great, and here's why. Amazon is great at the "80% solution". If you're already in AWS, and they have something that does most of what you want, it's way easier to use that than try and integrate with someone else.

So if what you're doing is only in AWS and isn't _significantly_ better than what they offer, the news isn't good.

I'm sorry this happened to you. :(

<comment><USER11> It's the old "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". Why would I choose a slightly better product from an unknown company? If it was the wrong decision it calls my competence into question. If I choose AWS and it was the wrong solution, no one will bat an eye because they would have made the same choice.

<comment><USER12> You'd have to weigh or SWOT your decision, using a better product from an unknown company that might offer more or from a trusted company (AWS) that offers less. Especially if, the unknown company is offering something the trusted company isn't

<comment><USER13> The thing about "nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM" is that going with an unknown alternative is a risk to you personally and most of the benefits go to the company. When you over-spend on a well-known brand, the company suffers the costs and they barely even notice. The only time they care is if something goes wrong, and then they want to know why you chose an unknown brand.

<comment><USER12> Say something went wrong, and the company is questioning why you went for an unknown brand. My answer to that would be they offered more value than the trusted brand, also I would have notified necessary stakeholders before making that decision of using services provided by the unknown brand.

<comment><USER13> Or you could save yourself the risk and all the hassle, and just go with the well-known brand. It's not necessarily what you _should_ do, but it is what often happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I work for Booking.com. Amazon entered the hotel reservation business in early 2015 with Amazon Destinations, and then inexplicably shut it down a few months later[1].

At the time there was the expectation that they'd drop commissions to the floor and compete on ultra-thin margins, and there's certainly a lot of room for that in the travel industry.

But they didn't, and then just left within a few months. Weird.

1\. [https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/14/amazon-shuts-down-its- hote...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/14/amazon-shuts-down-its-hotel- booking-site-amazon-destinations/)

<comment><USER12> Pretty sure they did a lot of market research before calling shutting down, most companies make decisions that's align with their goal/aim.

<comment><USER15> So you're thought is that the market research they had three months prior to shutting down was significantly different than what they had three months later? I'm pretty sure you're not pretty sure of anything here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We have a personal experience to share. Posting from a throwaway account for obvious reasons. We have a product in aws marketplace with decent traction. We have also gone jointly with aws for some big opportunities in government space. They have started thier own competing product in the same space and started sabotaging our joint opportunities with large customers. AWS marketplace is a big idea engine for them to identify profitable opportunities and copy the products ruthlessly. Our stomach twiches as they copy every one of our features including the UI.

It is unfair for startups but i guess that is business. I think dropbox moved away from them for right reasons.

Think twice before listing your products in aws marketplace. You will be thier next victim if you become profitable. AWS for startups is the biggest joke of our time.

<comment> martin-adams I've heard stories of this happening on the retail side. They monitor what products third parties are selling well, then start selling it directly themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Don't despair. Despite common perception, most AWS products are half-baked and clunky. (I don't have much experience with other Amazon products.) A while ago when GCP appeared in the scene, the team I was in performed a series of tests to evaluate it. In all our tests, GCP came out ahead of AWS. On top of that, their documentation and UI was better and prices were lower. That's part of how Google managed to get a foothold in the cloud services space.

AWS premium support doesn't help much when you are fighting fire because the first line support staff is clueless. It will take you days to reach a person who can actually help you.

IMHO, if you are offering a standalone product, you can always do better than Amazon (AWS). Whether you can beat them depends on variables other than the quality of your product.

<comment><USER18> I worked for a company that was in 50K/ month spend in AWS there is basically 0 service. Now I work for a company with serious monthly spend in millions we pretty much can get access to competent eng. immediately.

<comment><USER19> It's all about who your TAM is. A good TAM will have your back from the jump. A bad one...not so much.

<comment><USER20> TAM == Total Addressable Market

<comment><USER19> TAMs are technical account managers. You get them with the enterprise support that you should be buying if your livelihood depends on AWS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Somewhat of a counterpoint, though with a huge caveat because I was just a grunt:

I used to work at Etsy, and Amazon launched a competing product in 2015. Cue the frenzy about Etsy's imminent doom. Hasn't happened yet.

Etsy's gone through troubles, obviously, but while I was there at least the general feeling/consensus was that Shopify is by far a bigger threat than Amazon. It's incredibly unclear, at best, whether Amazon has siphoned off any appreciable part of Etsy's market.

Different products and spaces, obviously, but just a reminder that Amazon doesn't get it right 100% of the time (see also: fire phone).

Also worth noting that SES hasn't put Mailgun/etc. out of business completely (though that's a bit of a stretch of a comparison, I'll admit).

<comment><USER22> Etsy's biggest threat seems to be themselves really (which pushes people to things like Shopify).

Also not surprised that Amazon hasn't made much of a dent for them: Amazon site isn't all that good for actual browsing _and_ tries to diminish seller identity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've never been hit by it personally, but I know two people from different companies that found themselves in the same situation.

The first went through the stages of grief, and "acceptance" meant shutting down. The second company had the option to pivot and focus on a specific feature that AWS lacked, but the company decided against that plan. According to my friend over there, management is still in denial over the severity of the threat. He's looking for other work, and so are most of his co-workers.

Unfortunately, this is not good news. On the plus side, you're cognisant of what you're facing, which means you can start looking for ways to pivot. Failing that, you can decide to bail before things become critical.

I'm really sorry to hear you're in this situation. For what it's worth, you're in good company.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's really only one AWS product you wouldn't want to compete with, and that's EC2 (and possibly S3). Mostly every other AWS product you can build a better or more niche alternative at a higher price point and still get business.

<comment><USER25> I admittedly haven't looked into this as in depth as I would like to, but I recall being surprised by Digital Ocean's "Droplets" (similar to Amazon EC2) being far cheaper[0]

[0]: [https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/)

<comment><USER19> DigitalOcean is not comparable to EC2 unless you are literally-literally only using compute. The second you want a network that is private to you or any sort of hosted solutions for stuff like SQL databases, DigitalOcean folds.

I use AWS despite the (moderate, and with reserved instances largely nonexistent) premium on compute because of everything else that's right there.

<comment><USER26> > The second you want a network that is private to you or any sort of hosted > solutions for stuff like SQL databases, DigitalOcean folds.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

<comment><USER19> EC2 has VPC, a software-defined networking solution with route tables, subnetting, ACLs, the nice abstraction of security groups, and (importantly) the ability to peer separate VPCs, across multiple accounts.

DigitalOcean does not have VPC; they've had a backplane of "private network IPs" isolated merely to _all DigitalOcean customers_. This month they instead _changed their underlying system behavior_ (WTF) to isolate their private IPs to your account. So they also just broke that for their customers. On top of that--can you firewall/segment off that private network to certain machines? Nah. Can you talk to other customers' machines over this private network. Nah. It's a bad, partial solution for limited use cases.

AWS also has a managed solution for MariaDB, MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and MS SQL. DigitalOcean has an emoji shrug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This question could be much wider in scope than AWS, so I'm surprised we don't have a wider variety of responses that touch upon everyday B2C ... bookstores (vs the original Amazon), shoe stores (vs zappos), home services (vs Amazon's task rabbit like service) etc. (Yes, I know this is hackernews!)

For my contribution, we're working on something where we expect AMZN to go far deeper into in the not so distant future: furniture. We're "safe" now because AMZN doesn't let you touch, feel and smell their offerings. That clearly could change if they continue to expand their physical retail footprint.

AMZN's impact on us: TBD. We think they may disappoint a lot of consumers. We focus on vintage and artisan furniture to cater to those that will want more variety and character.

[https://attic.city](https://attic.city)

<comment><USER28> AMZN in IKEA space, that would be an interesting battle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> AWS launched mobile analytics a few years back: [https://aws.amazon.com/mobileanalytics/](https://aws.amazon.com/mobileanalytics/). I've literally never heard of a customer even considering it, despite the fact that their free tier could accommodate 99% of companies. If you're not selling a commodity, don't be too worried unless AWS considers it a core part of their strategy.

</comment><comment><USER30> I worked as a strategy guy in the same space as AWS. In my opinion, you don't. You look at what they are doing in the market, and you decide how you fit in around them, there is typically a pretty decent business there, AWS is a great for wake building, developer first is key. :)

</comment><comment><USER31> When Amazon launched their Cloudwatch reports, I saw a definite downward trend in S3stat signups, and even lost several customers since their thing duplicated most of my functionality at the time.

It took a couple years to recover. Mostly through improving my product, but also from people realizing that Cloudwatch is kinda a pain to use and doesn't give the best reports.

Better still, Amazon never iterates on things, so their product today is the same one they introduced half a dozen years ago.

S3stat is doing better than ever today.

<comment><USER32> im getting NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID Subject: www.s3stat.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think most readers here would enjoy the book, "Small Giants"[0]. I also like the concept of, "1,000 True Fans"[1]. I'm aiming for both my self, personally.

[0]: [http://www.smallgiantsbook.com/](http://www.smallgiantsbook.com/) [1]: [http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true- fans/](http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/)

</comment><comment><USER34> I consult or have consulted multiple tech startups that suddenly found themselves competing against an AWS service like CloudWatch, Glue, Sagemaker, and so on.

In every one of those cases, nothing bad happened. Here's why:

\- These AWS products are more like single-purpose utilities than complete solutions. They cover just the basic use cases. If your competing product is also single-purpose then yes, you should be worried. But if you're selling a platform, suite, or an enterprise product (like the companies I work with), then you're probably fine.

\- These products are meant to plug into a developer's workflow, like one piece of a larger puzzle. That means requiring technical expertise. If your product is used by both practitioners and managers then you're fine.

\- AWS tools are for AWS users. Does your product support Google Cloud and/or Azure?

\- AWS products are provided "as is." Most users will have little to no input into the product roadmap and have little hope for getting their feature requests fulfilled. As a (presumably) smaller company, your agility and ability to implement customer feedback is an advantage.

There's more to say on this but the tl;dr is don't worry. For every utility product AWS offers, there are dozens of alternative solutions that are thriving.

Edit to clarify my statement and to reconcile with the other stories where companies _were_ pushed out of the market by AWS: If you're selling _infrastructure_ such as email servers, data storage of any kind, etc, then yes you should be worried if AWS moves in. Doesn't mean AWS will win by default (see: Snowflake vs Redshift), but the amount of resources Amazon puts behind those things is significantly greater than their add-on solutions. With that said, even a company the size of Amazon can't grab an entire market immediately; there's plenty of business to be won by both sides if you play things right... That's what makes it fun!

<comment><USER35> To support your argument, cloudwatch is not a product.

It's just a bunch of API to retrieve AWS metrics. It is integrated into third party products that do amazing things with it and other sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Direct to China sales increased, without clear guidance to consumers on the resulting decrease in shipping times and actual support. I can't tell yet the market effect. That is, if end buyers like the lower prices enough to offset the lower level of support, refunds, tech support, etc.

Chinese sellers actively avoid personalized support, refunds and compensation. But they sell at much lower initial pricing. It's hard to tell, for now, what the buyers value.

</comment><comment><USER37> We have a product in analytics space and our target customer audience was companies that want to develop an analytics solution on top of AWS. We're not actually a direct competitor to AWS but it turns out to be that way.

At first, we thought that it's a win-win-win situation for AWS, AWS customers to use our product and us because I know a lot of AWS customers who try to build in-house solution on AWS and then switched to either third-party solution or another cloud provider since they couldn't design the right system for high data volume on AWS. It's mainly because data engineers are one of the most expensive engineers and there're not enough sophisticated data engineers in the market. We provided (this was the promise) the right (scalable, cheap enough and flexible) solution from day 1 so that they don't have to build a data engineering team.

It didn't work because AWS advertises its products as dead-easy to maintain and easy to start working with. Let's take Redshift as an example; it's easy to create a Redshift cluster with 3 clicks but that doesn't make you experienced in distributed systems. Often the companies start using Redshift and as their data grows the price gets expensive exponentially. They hire data engineers at that point and try to switch to another solution or try to make it scalable but switching to a completely different architecture (our solution) is also not easy at this point because of switching costs. Essentially our product became a competitor of AWS from customer's perspective even though we're complementary.

Even though we have customers and a profitable company I don't think that we could find the product market fit with that product so now we're pivoting to something else and the new target is more niche.

</comment><comment><USER38> Amazon entered our business (B2B) not too long ago. Not yet in our country, but we were watching closely. They tried to go very large from the very beginning while we had started from zero 8 years ago and still are a small company.

We are still here, doing well and growing. Amazon just recently announced the shutdown of their service.

Steady yet healthy growth and happy customers won't let them kill you overnight.

<comment><USER33> I think you'd enjoy the book, "Small Gaints"

<comment><USER38> You are right, I think I would. Ordered it just now – not on Amazon ;)

<comment><USER33> Haha! Good call. I actually almost sent you an Amazon link to it but thought that too ironic ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't have a personal story, but I wrote an article about AWS competing with its own customers a while back: [https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-startups- conflict.html](https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/aws-startups-conflict.html)

...and I've heard rumors off-the-record that I wish I could share right now. It's a serious concern for anyone making devtools.

</comment><comment><USER40> You should check out RedisLabs and read about their story. I'm not affiliated, but I always thought it was amazing how successful they are given that AWS has redis ElastiCache.

</comment><comment><USER41> If you stay on your toes and keep growing they will buy you. Then they will slowly chip away at it until they can delete it and replace it. CreateSpace vs KindleDirect being a prime example.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does Amazon use tenant metrics in order to set product strategy (decide which AWS customers to attack)?

</comment><comment><USER43> I have mixed feelings when reading these stories. I believe that a lot of competition and innovation is needed in our industry and whenever I see a service throw in the towel because of AWS, I cant help but feel that my future is threatened.

From my perspective, it's the smaller companies that pose the biggest threat to AWS/Amazon because they are able to satisfy their customer's needs far better and faster.

<comment><USER44> I remember in the first decade of this century and everyone was afraid of Wal Mart killing small business (and in some ways it did)- but now look at Wal- Mart...

I don't like Amazon on a philosophical basis- the same reason I don't like Wal-Mart, and Amazon is just the Wal-Mart of everything. Hopefully someone comes to their senses and breaks up companies who are able to use profits from various subsidiaries to undercut competitors in others.</comment></comment>


Earth life 'may have come from Mars' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23872765

<comment><USER2> > Life may have started on Mars before arriving on Earth, a major scientific > conference has heard.

Umm, I and others were saying this 17 years ago:

[http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/mars.html](http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/mars.html)

So, definitely a fast-breaking story.</comment>