App.net State of the Union - <AUTHOR> http://blog.app.net/2014/05/06/app-net-state-of-the-union/ <comment><USER2> I found myself in the same exact position with Canvas/DrawQuest earlier this year. Everyone (including myself) was laid off a few months ago, but we'd hoped to keep the app running with the remaining revenue/cash-on-hand and volunteered time (cut short by a recent hack).

It sucks, but I think we'll see more of it in the coming months/year. A lot of the seed-funded apps/companies from the past few years simply won't represent later-stage venture opportunities, and may find themselves in a position where they can't raise additional capital but can keep the service afloat without the payroll overhead.

<comment><USER3> Kind of off topic but what keeps you from open sourcing it and hosting with some provider that loves be showed in the light of open source?

<comment><USER4> When people say "why not open source it", I begin to question something:

\- Are you saying, "why not pay yourself to spend many hours working your codebase into something that can be, at a minimum, copied down and installed successfully on hardware that you don't control" that doesn't violate any IP and only includes code you are legally permitted to open source

\- Or are you saying: "Just open up the repo as-is and see what happens!"

It seems the latter option (just dump everything) is the only feasible option for a business who cannot afford additional development, but is probably immoral and illegal (you likely don't have all the rights to ALL of the code).

The first option sounds great but if moot doesn't have money in the business to pay himself to do all of that work... are you suggesting he just volunteer a large amount of his personal time to do a bunch of free work for a failing business? I can understand why a developer would prefer to get paid for their effort (and the type of developer who wishes to work for free, by default, wouldn't be in this position and would have open sourced the project from the get go...)

<comment><USER5> For products in the hardware, gaming, platform, and OS space, I understand that a lot of code is often bought, licensed, or shared between companies in a manner that would prohibit open-sourcing the software without a time-consuming IP hunt.

However, I don't think I've ever worked at a web startup that didn't require all employee and contractor-contributed code be granted irrevocably and without limitation to the company, and the last few companies I've worked at have also required that all third-party dependencies be licensed in such a way that the company could use them in an unlimited commercial or non-commercial manner.

Everything I've worked on in the last 5+ years could, I think, be open-sourced with the flip of a switch without IP or legal issue provided the company decide to do so. In a few cases I know about, projects I worked on were open- sourced after I left without even notifying me.

Do I think it's a bit irritating and potentially somewhat immoral? Sure. I'd have liked knowing that my code was open-sourced retroactively, if for no other reason than to add it to my OSS resume.

But I've never worked in a web startup where my employer wasn't effectively free of IP-debt, or one where the "flip the switch and-open source it" method wasn't legally viable.

I think I agree with your point, though: "just open source it when it dies" is a naive argument that ignores how much work putting code out there can really be.

<comment><USER6> I think you are probably right but I am curious how many web startups you've worked for. This is something I always wonder when someone says "I've never worked for a company that does X"

<comment><USER5> Six.

That's a very solid general criticism of my "well X has been true for me" style of post. I'm not trying to imply that my experience is comprehensive by any means - it certainly isn't.

I did find it quite interesting that the concept of open-sourcing a web company's software was fraught with legal concerns, because to the best of my knowledge other people could freely open source my last six years of work output without a single IP qualm. I'm obviously not inclined to think that my experience has been entirely out-of-the-ordinary, although that absolutely may be the case.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. It wasn't really intended as a criticism, it's just something I wonder whenever I see posts of that form (and I often find myself writing posts of that form and then wonder how it'll be interpreted by the audience.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The bad news is that the renewal rate was not high enough for us to have sufficient budget for full-time employees. After carefully considering a few different options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried employees, including founders. Dalton and Bryan will continue to be responsible for the operation of App.net, but no longer as employees."

Did these guys burn through over $3 million in less than a year? They got $2.5 million in August 2013. ([http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/14/app-net-new- funding/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/14/app-net-new-funding/))

<comment><USER8> Interesting. The $2.5M that mcone mentioned was venture from Andreeson Horowitz, not subscription revenue. Also, according to CrunchBase [1], their parent company has raised $7M total. I wonder if this announcement means that the parent company is shutting down, or the employees of that company are no longer working on App.net in a full-time capacity.

[1] [http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/mixed-media- labs](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/mixed-media-labs)

<comment><USER9> The parent company is still there. It pretty much means, they're pivoting with all the money they raised.

<comment><USER9> I can confirm they did lay-off most of their staff though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They renewed me without any reminder. I had forgotten about the service. That's irksome. And I'm willing to bet a VERY LARGE number of the renewals were people just like me.

There is no business there, and worse, they auto-renewed people without a single reminder it was coming.

<comment><USER11> Same here. They did offer a refund in the email. My thoughts were that I like the idea and I didn't want to hit them with a refund. I switched off the auto- renew thinking I bet they'll send me an email to say my subscription is expiring and decide then if I want it again.

I'll bet 80% of subscribers have done likewise since the emails went out and next years update will be less rosy...

<comment><USER12> You had already turned off auto-renew, and they billed you anyway ?

<comment><USER13> As far as I understand, he turned off auto-renew after they charged him and expects to be sent an email once his account expires so that he can decide again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's frustrating news because the platform never actually got to the point where it could be used as back-end infrastructure in the manner of something like, say, Stripe. In other words, I couldn't built a website where users simply sign up/in, use the service, share content, etc., and not really be aware they're using App.net under the hood. I think App.net shot itself in the foot by being implemented more or less as a Twitter clone to start with. That meant that there was constantly a branding problem -- user wonders "Why am I on Website X and they're asking me to create an App.net account...what's that?!?!"

We still need a ubiquitous social/identity/billing platform that undergirds the web, yet can be used seamlessly by devs of any particular site without exposing the guts of said service. I'm waiting for someone to actually build that...waiting...waiting...

<comment><USER15> Check out [https://tent.io](https://tent.io) and [https://cupcake.io](https://cupcake.io). There's not much going on at the moment because everybody is waiting for the next version of the Tent protocol (0.4), which will be released in a few months.

I am also excited by [http://maidsafe.net](http://maidsafe.net) in the long term, because it replaces the web altogether.

<comment><USER16> Has tent fixed the massive issues with their protocol? When it first came out, I opened about 30 issues on the repository. They basically let them all get quiet and then closed them without comment. One or two had a bunch, though.

EDIT: turns out it was 18, not 30: [https://github.com/tent/tent.io/issues/created_by/steveklabn...](https://github.com/tent/tent.io/issues/created_by/steveklabnik?sort=updated&state=closed)

<comment><USER15> I think the major issue with Tent was that their development efforts had always been divided between two Tent servers. Tentd, the reference implementation used by self-hosters, and their proprietary multi-tenant server that powers [https://micro.cupcake.io](https://micro.cupcake.io). But in a blog post in November 2013 ([https://cupcake.io/blog/2013/new-tent- server](https://cupcake.io/blog/2013/new-tent-server)), they announced that they will stop the development of Tentd and open source their multi-tenant server. The development of [https://flynn.io](https://flynn.io) (another Cupcake project) will simplify the deployment of the multi-tenant server. The first preview release of Flynn was announced two weeks ago ([https://cupcake.io/blog/2014/flynn-preview- release](https://cupcake.io/blog/2014/flynn-preview-release)).

There hasn't been much updates on Tent since the last office hours in January ([https://tent.io/officehours/2014-01-28](https://tent.io/officehours/2014-01-28)), but Daniel said a few hours ago that they will announce May office hours in the next few days ([https://micro.cupcake.io/posts/https%3A%2F%2Fdaniel.cupcake....](https://micro.cupcake.io/posts/https%3A%2F%2Fdaniel.cupcake.is/KuoQbRIW- hiFKu0OH3WBTQ)).

I'm really excited for the new features in Tent 0.4 ([https://github.com/tent/tent.io/issues?labels=v0.4&page=1&so...](https://github.com/tent/tent.io/issues?labels=v0.4&page=1&sort=updated&state=open)) and I can't wait to self-host Tent on the new multi-tenant server!

<comment><USER17> Absolutely correct. We'll also release a protocol validator for 0.4 prior to the server refactor to help other folks implementing other servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm always think "rage" startups are the most risky. App.net was based on a super small but vocal group that hated advertising in their social apps. Dwolla is a payments based rage sort of startup born from a founder who hated paying 3% of his money to credit card fees. A very small, passionate, group can convince each other that there must be enough people like them or even similar enough to dramatically change their behavior (create a whole new payment flow, try and get important and interesting information through a new source) The problem is after that 5% of passionate users you just fall off a cliff in terms of how much effort then next 5% and ultimately 95% will do.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. Though it's easier to spot in retrospect. Crowds on the Internet can look larger than they seem.

<comment><USER20> It was kind of easy to spot at the time. App.net never really felt like it took off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been on HN for a long time. I've seen many app.net posts fly by. I've read the start of many articles, been to their home page and even read their "Learn more" page. _I still don 't understand what it is_. Is it something new, or just a Facebook clone? How is it different from Mozilla Persona or OAuth?

I am apparently, as a web developer, their target market. I think maybe their disdain for marketing has caused their marketing and communication to suffer.

<comment><USER22> You might call it a social backend. Imagine Twitter+Facebook+Dropbox but with all the UIs removed, so it's just a backend datastore with APIs. Then third parties write apps that provide different UIs on that data.

<comment><USER21> But isn't Twitter without a UI or userbase just basically a database, only controlled by a third party? What's the point of that? I already have MySQL and Postgres, and they are free and open source.

<comment><USER23> It's a massive social graph + infrastructure for subscribing to data sources (i.e. other users) and broadcasting messages from one source to all subscribers (including push).

And that's just Twitter. ADN includes a lot more than Twitter does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Talk about a buried lede.

They are profitable as long as they don't pay anyone a salary. That hardly counts as profitable. How can the service grow?

<comment><USER25> When I was bootstrapping my startup while working a day job, I used to wonder how to answer that question. My product was bringing in more money then the company's costs, so it felt "profitable", yet not enough to employ me full- time. Seems like there is a difference between that and something that is just plain unprofitable (where the burn rate will eventually cause the bank account to go to zero).

<comment><USER26> The software doesn't write and maintain itself. So if the revenue can't cover the expense to write/maintain the codebase (i.e., dev salaries), then the app isn't profitable because one of the major costs can't be met out of revenue at 100%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think there is a simple reason why app.net did not take off: There was no significant differentiation from twitter other than paid / no ads argument.

<comment><USER28> Half true: _alpha_ is the Twitter clone, but in theory, that's just one app of many built on the API. The many just never happened.

<comment><USER29> You could almost say the same thing about Twitter. Their web and mobile apps are just one of many apps built on their API.

<comment><USER30> Indeed many people including Dalton were saying that from 2007-2011ish when the Twitter API was wide open and speculation about it's potential as plumbing ran rampant. However over the last few years, it became increasing clear that the contingent of people inside Twitter who saw it as new and amazing plumbing for the next generation of applications were losing, and the contingent who saw Twitter as a media company selling advertising with a fully controller and branded user experience were the ones who won out.

Anyone building an app on top of Twitter for anything other than personal or experimental use is a fool. Unfortunately for anyone building on top of App.net, it doesn't have the users to make it broadly interesting or significantly profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This post is a stark reminder that startups are extremely challenging. There are many elements and, often times, a good bit of luck needed for big success, especially when you are doing something novel ([http://mariocaropreso.com/post/62811446044/nonlinearities- an...](http://mariocaropreso.com/post/62811446044/nonlinearities-and- success)).

Nassim Taleb talks about entrepreneurs as people who should be championed when they fail. They take on projects with very long odds. It is a tough life with little upside if you don't make it big. These entrepreneurs teach us a lot. We all get to learn from the path they traveled down. Dalton tried something new and it didn't work out as planned. Someone else will build on what he started and we'll all be better for it. Failure is part of our ecosystem. These situations are good reminders that those that make it big have learned from others and have often had a few lucky breaks to help them out.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think everyone remembers Alpha, the Twitter clone. But there was also Backer ([https://backer.app.net/](https://backer.app.net/)). I looked at it a few weeks ago and I didn't understand why there was no list of currently active Backers. Actually I always been very curious about the future of App.net, especially beside the Twitter clone as I never fully grasped what you could do with it "as a platform".

<comment><USER23> There's 3 Backers going on right now. A poster, a shirt, and an iOS app. They're listed on the page you linked to.

<comment><USER32> Oh thanks, I didn't understood it was the list itself. When I looked at that page before, I googled a bit to see past projects and it seemed the only one I could find was the one already on that page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Usually platforms built around some useful service or product.

For example Apple built a platform for iOS devices, Microsoft for Windows OS, Facebook Platform for Facebook social network, Amazon for AWS, Google for Android, ChromeOS and Cloud Platform, etc.

App.net did it in reverse, they built a platform and hoped that useful products and services will be built on it.

I think they had better chances if they were white-labeled Social PaaS/BaaS/mBaaS completely hidden from the end-users. App developers would be paying for the BaaS Platform, not their app's end-users.

<comment><USER34> The idea was to be Basically.. Parse, but where the users keep shared accounts across all apps and services.

The underlying idea is good but the executions and message were lost in TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE marketing. No one knew what it was other then, "that twitter knockoff site you have to pay for".

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I signed up for app.net when it first offered the paid option and was billed for the renewal, but honestly I haven't touched the site in a year. I just forgot to cancel my subscription. I really want to support it but I have no reason to engage with it.

I'm willing to support the company, so I can't understand why they don't pivot to something people are happy to pay for? I might even pay for a light social media dashboard. No reason to wind down in my opinion...

<comment><USER29> Not enough people willing to pay to pivot to something people are (possibly) happy to pay for. That's what App.net was. It had good signs of support at the start and they dove in head first -- I think a wise decision.

The odds were against them; as they are with all startups. This just happens to be _their_ day of reckoning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I feel as though App.net's day has come and gone sadly. I had high hopes for the platform, but I think it started off on the wrong foot, coming across as a clone of Twitter instead of what they really wanted to be. My understanding based on my Twitter feed alone is that many forgot to turn off auto-renew in their App.net accounts, many of the renewals were unintentional.

I think this could be the last year we see App.net as we all know it, unless they can pull off something magical. I personally think they should open source the code and pivot to a support model, try and move into the enterprise somehow, but that could all just be wishful thinking.

I alone wanted to see App.net succeed, but it just didn't get the traction it needed and the high price-point was a deterring factor for many developers to join. If they lowered the price to $50 or heck even $20 (which seems quite low) they would have had way more signups and I would have been more inclined to give it a longer chance/keep paying.

I always felt as though App.net was an RSS reader for consuming API's. A place where you could feed in your Facebook feed, Twitter, email and more. Sadly, the public mostly saw it as a paid Twitter alternative without the advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is one more indictment to the idea that you can build a profitable business on consumer apps without just slapping on ads and then the revenues are so low per user that unless you have millions of users, it's probably not going to support much of a business.

<comment><USER38> The problem with App.net was that it offered nothing new. It was an alternative to existing free, established products—Twitter (and, to an extent, Google+ and Facebook).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For me pieces of infrastructure like Twitter shouldn't be owned by for profit companies. A Twitter-like public forum ought to be the town square of the web, and it should run along the same lines as Wikipedia. The data should be ours to do as we please with, there should be no purchasing access through adverts. App.net, and the insanely confusing concept of the Alpha app within it, might not have been the right solution, but they were asking the right question.

<comment><USER40> We need protocols, not platforms. Unfortunately, it's 2014, and protocols are not sexy.

<comment><USER41> Unless you count the wave of innovation coming out of cryptocurrencies, which are really just protocols for managing a blockchain. A decentralised Twitter could theoretically be built with this model.

<comment><USER42> Isn't a decentralized twitter just email?

<comment><USER43> ...With the exception that everyone can read every emails (or is there a private tweet feature with twitter?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence I didn't renew my App.net subscription, there really was no value for me. Checking it along with Twitter got tiresome (I was hoping someone would integrate the two into a single client) and overall everyone I care to follow is on Twitter, it was difficult to get people interested and on the App.net bandwagon.

<comment><USER23> > I was hoping someone would integrate the two into a single client

My belief is that Twitter's rules prohibited doing precisely that. There are multiple developers that expressed an interest in creating a single app for viewing both, but never did so because Twitter would have revoked their API token.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I concur with the point that they did not differentiate enough with their free competitors.

I remember being thrilled when I read Dalton initial essay on the topic and did register an account but a free one.

One reason why they failed was to reduce the barriers of entry for new users. Joel had a article[1] on in Yr2000 on the levels Microsoft went to convert users from Lotus 123.

My guess is Dalton and Co failed to think on these lines

[1] [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html)

</comment><comment><USER45> ugh, tried to turn off auto-renewal only to find out you can't. Downgrading is the only option, and it is immediate rather than at the end of the period I already paid for. That's annoying.

</comment><comment><USER46> As a developer on the platform who relied on the developer incentive program this is extremely disappointing. Like many other developers using ADN as a backend I relied on that to make my application free and got a small amount of money each month if people voted for it with the program. It wasn't a significant amount of money but it was enough to pay for my developer membership. Now I imagine even fewer users will be on the service and I have very little incentive to keep improving the application.

<comment><USER12> What were you developing for them?

<comment><USER46> Just a small client for distraction free posting. [http://sailforapp.net/](http://sailforapp.net/)

<comment><USER12> How much did you earn or receive from App.net's developer program to create and maintain it? It's not a free app though right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It was a really hard business model to support and get to work. You are paying for the forward belief that the network itself will be strong enough to ultimately justify the costs, but over time if that belief isn't met (and it wasn't) then you will lose subscribers.

I give Dalton and Brian kudos for trying. Ultimately I think the lesson here is users simply aren't offended enough by ads that they would be willing to pay a subscription service to avoid them.

<comment><USER48> I believe that users are sufficiently offended by ads to pay to avoid them, but clearly and provably not the price that app.net charged.

I believe there's more to it than that, but the price being too high was a major contributor.

<comment><USER49> I'm not even sure the dollar price was the issue. But I would have to rebuild things like "people to follow", get used to the new interface, have the risk that the platform doesn't survive - a lot of implicit costs. What could be working is to offer a paid tier for an already existing service like Twitter - but unfortunately they have a strong incentive not to. Because it would mean that their ads would stop reaching the very people that the advertisers are interested in - the ones who are willing to spend money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> at the risk of being stupid, which I am, 'aint they beating the dead horse' i'd love someone to enlighten me, if it was really worth it and why?

They tried hard to build an 'elite' club of rich twitter users, and it wasn't clearly going to work. Because rich people can not listen to each other.

PS: i happen to be rich twitter user myself haha! i did pay them $29 and spent like a week there and quitted., because no one'd listen to me. ;)

<comment><USER51> I don't recall it being pitched as Twitter, or even Alpha at the time.

I had read a lot about what Dalton believed and agreed with him. My $29 seemed paltry in the long view if he would succeed.

I'm saddened by the current state of affairs. But I am glad I helped give him a shot at something I was unable or otherwise unwilling to attempt.

<comment><USER52> Perhaps its true purpose wasn't pitched strongly enough. My impression as a HN regular was that it was indeed just a paid twitter, and as such I paid it no mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really enjoyed ADN for quite a while. I do think though that recently there were some opportunities to make a shift to provide more visible and direct value for users if they clarified to the outside world they had many different uses.

I could've seen them go down more of a road like Zoho.

[https://www.zoho.com/](https://www.zoho.com/)

and really be outright focusing on an application or conduit infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER26> It makes no sense to say the renewal rate was high enough to remain profitable and self-sustaining, but you can't retain any of your employees. It sounds to me like they didn't have enough renewals to remain profitable and self- sustaining at their current burn rate, and decided to reduce the burn rate significantly in order to remain in existence. Overall, that's bad news, not good.

</comment><comment><USER53> As discussed more than 1 year ago ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4346303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4346303)), the (very) hard times they had signing people up, with constant posts on HN without much effect, should have been a strong indicator people didn't actually need this.

<comment><USER21> I think PG's comment in that same thread is spot on, now that I understand what app.net is: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4346470](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4346470)

<comment><USER54> that is not pg.

<comment><USER21> Oh. Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Sad news for App.net :( Unfortunately, I never understood what is/was the point App.net. Somebody did ask that once on Hacker News but the best answer was "it was kinda RSS feed but they now changed focus so they lost me".

<comment><USER23> Fundamentally, App.Net is a platform that provides a number of services, including Twitter-like one-to-many messaging, private one-to-one and one-to- many messaging (like Twitter DM on steroids), many-to-many messaging (like IRC chatrooms), file hosting, and some less-obvious features like messages generated by and for machine consumption (that are never seen by humans), etc.

These are the nuts and bolts that can be used to build a Twitter clone (which App.Net did and which is the primary "product" that most of their users used), a Dropplr clone, blogging a la Octopress, personal memory logs (like Ohai[1]), Photo story sharing apps like Sunlit[2], etc.

[1]: [http://ohaiapp.net](http://ohaiapp.net)

[2]: [http://sunlit.io](http://sunlit.io)

Heck, you could even use this to build a Chess app that lets you play remotely with other players, that automatically records every move ever made, and that lets you access your games and history from any device. Basically, anything that involves sending messages (of up to 2k, plus various bits of metadata) between two or more parties and persisting them could leverage App.Net to power itself.

Of course, that's part of the problem. They positioned themselves as a platform, which meant they didn't market themselves very well to end users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I signed up at the start, was excited for it.. but even after a few months all that was really going on there were people posting about how awesome we all were for being on app.net, nothing of substance

</comment><comment><USER57> The big lesson learned here: don't pay a high cost to only operate at the margin.

That's what App.net did --- they built out a complete product offering to only be marginally different from the alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER12> It was Andreessen Horowitz who put money into App.net right? They're investors in Facebook though, so isn't there a conflict of interest? Anyone know why they'd invest in App.net?

</comment><comment><USER58> Did this surprise anyone?

<comment><USER59> Not me. When even Leo Laporte abandons your service, you've truly failed to gain tractions.

[https://alpha.app.net/leolaporte](https://alpha.app.net/leolaporte)

<comment><USER60> Leo jumps on whatever is new and then as soon as his attention is distracted he moves on to something else. The list of things that he as said he "loved" and then never mentioned again would be endless...

<comment><USER59> I completely agree. However, he's still posting on Twitter every day, as far as I can tell. He regularly posts on Google+, even now. It says something if the social butterfly of the tech world has abandoned your service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> That's a very creative way of saying that you don't have a profitable service.

</comment><comment><USER62> They raised $800k! Come on?

</comment><comment><USER63> I give it 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER64> your code is shite... ever head of commenting?

</comment><comment><USER65> Remember rev="canonical"? It was to save us from the tyranny of bit.ly and co. Geeks rallied behind it.

Remember Open ID? It was to save us from the tyranny of Passport.NET and co. Geeks rallied behind it.

Remember Diaspora? It was to save us from the tyranny of Facebook. Geeks rallied behind it.

Remember App.net...?

The history of geeky "open" (or ad-free or whatever) alternatives to commercial social media services is littered with corpses. What geeks never learn is that social media services can't survive if the only appeal of the service is some righteous motivation that only they care about.

Sooner or later even geeks realize that using a "better" service to talk to nobody isn't very useful.

I know it seems easy to be Captain Obvious now that App.net is falling apart, but just you watch. Soon enough it'll happen again (and then again, and again).

<comment><USER66> And before App.net, there was Identi.ca.

What is disappointing about App.net was that it had the potential to be a set of pipes and a broader infrastructure rather than being simply yet another social network. And that's what my true hope for App.net was.

<comment><USER65> Marketing is a huge part of the success of a new paradigm. App.net was "marketed" with a practically blank home page ("one login many applications" \- _which_ applications?), and a nondescript niche Twitter clone on one of its subdomains.

It had no chance at all. Where was the evangelism? Where were the presentations, demos, and the _other_ useful apps built on this platform?

I'm a developer and I did hear about App.net when the buzz was at its peak. I remember going to their home page and wondering "wtf is this?", then checking alpha.app.net on a couple of occasions, finding nothing of interest and that's it.

That wonderful arrogance that the world will care about your project because you're somehow "right" has killed many tech efforts and will kill a lot to come yet.

<comment><USER67> This. So much of this.

I see real value in using App.net as an identity provider so that I'm not relying on something shaky like Twitter or Facebook but I can still get the benefits that come with an external provider (lower signup friction, 2-factor auth for users that want it, less overall damage if site is hacked). But (a) their marketing is so weird that I don't really know that I can do that, and (b) their onboarding for end users sucks, so I'm losing people telling them to sign up through them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Dalton is a big failure.. Again!</comment>


Linux Gaming Is on a Life-Support System Called Steam - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/19/linux-gaming-steam-valve-epic-games-store/ <comment><USER2> I was gaming on Linux before Steam, and it was way worse back then, but it was there, so that's what I used. Therefore I think it unreasonable to talk about "Life-Support". Gaming on Linux was alive, it was not good, but it was not dying, if anything, things have only gotten better along the way, both with steam and outside steam.. I remember back when I wrote SDL-Ball, as an alternative to DX-Ball for my dad back then, anything you wrote would get accepted into distros. It's not like that anymore, people have more coices now, there are pretty much more games available for linux than anyone with a job and/or family has time for, and that's great!</comment>


Villagers create 'living' bridges by training roots across a river - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035520/Meghalaya-villagers-create-living-bridges-training-roots-river.html#ixzz1XhuUTVff

<comment><USER2> The Atlas Obscura article that has a bit more information: <http://atlasobscura.com/place/root-bridges-cherrapungee>

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a similar bridge [1] in my parents' hometown (Man, Ivory Coast, West Africa). But over there, the legend says that it was created by spirits and that they come out at night to fix it. It's been there for decades.

[1] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/r_dorion/522774639/in/photostre...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/r_dorion/522774639/in/photostream/)</comment>


The Sierra Network - <AUTHOR> https://www.filfre.net/2018/02/the-sierra-network/ <comment><USER2> "In a 1990 address, Steve Jobs, a visionary who gets lots of credit for the many things he got right but little blame for the equal number of things he got wrong, said that the 1990s would be "the decade of interpersonal computing." When he said it, he was talking of small-scale connectivity via LANs, not the wide-scale connectivity that was already being enabled by services like CompuServe and Prodigy, much less the epoch-making invention that would be the World Wide Web. Ken Williams responded, rightly, that Jobs was "thinking too small. I agree that 'interpersonal computing' — the idea that the individual computer owner will soon find himself acting as part of a bigger connected computer community — is the next step in the evolution of personal computing. But I disagree with Jobs's vision of the company office as the birthplace of this technology.""

<comment><USER3> agree with you.. isn't this interpersonal computing part of the vision for The Decentralized Web and current decentralization efforts (or vice versa)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My sister and I were both big fans of Sierra. It's unfortunate that bad business deals and timing killed the company.

They were pioneers in many ways.

</comment><comment><USER5> > The typical pattern on CompuServe or America Online was for customers to > sign up with plenty of sober, practical reasons in mind or at least on the > tongue — online news, online stock-market quotes, etc. — and then get > inadvertently hooked on chat and games. The Sierra Network couldn't pull the > same bait and switch, for the simple reason that it lacked the same bait. To > sign up for The Sierra Network, you had to be willing to say up-front that > this was strictly an entertainment expense — strictly an indulgence, if you > will. For some reason, many potential subscribers — even the ones with > gigantic cable-television bills — seemed to find that a hard admission to > make.

Tax deductibility of CompuServe and even AOL (regardless of whether 95% of your time was in chat or games) was a huge factor. Not to mention it allowed selling it to one's spouse or parents as more legitimate.

</comment><comment><USER6> So many fond memories of TSN.

In 7th grade, trapped in the house during snowy winter nights, it became a real place to hang out. And unlike say, CompuServe, there were a lot of kids my age there.

Way ahead of its time.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I'd say there's nothing out there today (i'm aware of) that has as much personality and joy as TSN did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Boy did I love TSN. Still remember the music that played when you got to the main town screen.

Got in trouble once when the access number I chose wan't considered local. Phone bill was high that month!

</comment><comment><USER9> There was an open source project to run/emulate TSN/INN services. You could run the old software in Dosbox and connect to it. People rarely used it though, and people on the mailing list would try to start scheduling times for people to "meet" on the service just so it wasn't a ghost town.

</comment><comment><USER10> Did Halt and Catch Fire writers look to the history of Sierra On-Line when coming up with the idea for Mutiny in the show?

<comment><USER11> I always thought so while watching the show. I'm old enough that I had an account on TSN in the 90s (just the trial since I was a kid).

Side random story: Mackenzie Davis (Cameron Howe) from Halt and Catch Fire walked into my company, Loveseat.com, in LA a couple months ago. I spent about an hour playing furniture Tetris with her trying to figure out how to fit a day bed in her van. She's exactly like her character. I was star struck.</comment></comment>


Tor is supposed to hide you online. In this case, it did the opposite - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18/tor-is-supposed-to-hide-you-online-in-this-harvard-students-case-it-did-the-opposite/ <comment><USER2> It's not even close to "the opposite". If the kid had sent the email without Tor, they'd be instantly able to prove it was him.

With Tor, it could only be a suspicion. Not proof.

<comment> mike-cardwell Yeah. "Opposite" would be Tor outing you as the source of the bomb threat. In this case, it was simply ineffective because it was used incorrectly. Tor doesn't claim to hide the fact that you are using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It will be interesting to see this case go to court. Unless I'm not reading the article correctly, it sounds like all they have are (1) an email came through about a bomb threat and (2) that a student was using Tor at the time the email went through. It doesn't seem they actually have concrete proof that the email came from this particular student. Which, to me, sounds like circumstantial evidence.

<comment><USER4> He confessed. Even if he had not, I'm sure they could have run forensics on his laptop to find traces of the email. All they needed was probable cause to narrow the investigation, which they got.

You also seem to be under the impression that circumstantial evidence would not be enough to convict -- it often is, when combined with motive. I'm guessing the suspect had finals in those buildings that day, and was under considerable stress.</comment></comment>


DHH vs. Calacanis on This Week in Startups - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2219-jason-calacanis-vs-david-heinemeier-hansson-on-this-week-in-startups <comment><USER2> Best quote: "If you're not working on your best idea right now, you're doing it wrong." ~DHH

The difference is between "I want to build something great that makes the world better" and "I want to build something that makes money." And really, when comparing 37signals to Mahalo, the mentality the leadership has is what inspires the community opinion and quality of product coming from those companies.

Note: I don't mean this as a all-too-common-on-HN cheap shot against Jason Calacanis. My point is that when people talk about Calacanis' camp, they talk about the quality of the business. When people talk about 37Signals, they talk about the quality of the product. Neither is wrong - they're just different.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think both of them are making decent points. I don't understand the community's desire to have one of them win or "rip apart" the other. Seems just like a well balanced debate to me.

Calacanis seems focused on DHH's interest in having complete control over a smaller business with continuous revenue. He keeps pushing DHH with scenarios where DHH has a huge payday, DHH says he wouldn't do it and Calacanis acts surprised. I totally understand DHH's perspective. I can't imagine not working, that sounds so boring, so DHH has found what he loves to do and is doing it. Why is it surprising that you'd choose valuable, profitable and rewarding work over one big pile of cash?

<comment><USER4> You're making a false dichotomy; you can sell your business for a lot of money and still have valuable, profitable and rewarding work _plus_ a big pile of cash.

How many people acquire businesses just to push their founders out? Most aren't interested in that; they obviously respect or at least fear what the founder(s) were doing, or they wouldn't have bought their company. It's perfectly likely that DHH could keep on at 37signals after an acquisition.

However, in the case where the buyer just boarded the place up or pushed out the staff or whatever, who cares? DHH can go start 38signals and keep doing "valuable, profitable and rewarding" work.

Good work and good money aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER5> Most acquisitions fail. Most founders end up leaving the bigger company once their golden handcuffs are off. There's a reason for that. The company they loved working at changed to be undesirable once consumed by the incumbent.

A huge part of what I love about working at 37signals is freedom. Freedom to say what I want and swear when I will. Freedom to pick any course I see fit. Freedom to try crazy things. Invariably, those freedoms would be curbed if we were owned by some big company.

If the whole goal is to just sell the thing I already have and love to start exactly the same thing again, then it doesn't make any sense to me. Why not just earn my way to prosperity rather than depending on a single golden benefactor to anoint me wealth?

Jason and I are already at the point where we don't have to work, we choose to work. The joy I derive from working at 37signals much surpass the expected joy of being able to afford a private jet or any other 10-digit luxury.

<comment><USER6> "Most acquisitions fail. Most founders end up leaving the bigger company once their golden handcuffs are off."

I don't know about that. It's not necessarily a sign of failure when the founders leave, and it may actually be a good thing in the long run. You want the founders around long enough to ensure that the business you bought gets integrated into your operations and company culture, and once that is done the founders should be free to leave if they choose. It may be a less desirable situation for the founders, but that may be due more to them being founder types (plus suddenly having a lot of cash ) rather than employee types. The other approach is to buy the company but have the founders run it as they did before with little interference from the acquiring company (e.g. Berkshire Hathaway).

<comment><USER7> If your goal as a founder with an acquired business was to keep working at your baby, and being as happy with it as you were before, and you end up leaving, one can only assume that your goals were no longer being fulfilled -- ergo, failure.

That's why if I ever sell my business, _I_ won't be part of the package. I never want to work for anyone else, ever again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tho, I only watched 15 minutes 47-62, I did not find the interview very interesting. If anything it reflects the biases and cultures of the countries they were each raised in. The comment about having a steady job and income stream is exactly what you would hear from my father, who also bootstrapped his own construction consulting business in India from working during the evenings to owning it full time. America is a nation of excesses and trying to grow you wealth in excess of what you require is based in American cultural roots.

Digress: It is what makes American the richest nation in the world that cannot afford a health care policy for all its citizen while much poorer nations provide better health care for their citizens.

<comment><USER9> Yeah but I have the bad feeling that these glorious times are over - to me this is universal short sightedness. If the US want to stay #1 they need radical change especially in that regard. It might be hard to digest when you see the illusions fade and that party time is over but then again cutting back on a lot might lead to a much sturdier leadership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I loved the quote from David when he said selling to Fortune 500 companies takes "strippers and steaks."

Overall, great interview.

I'd love to see Jason C take on Jason Fried and DHH.

<comment><USER11> Actually, the way David wound up on the program was that I invited JasonF to be on and DHH happend to be in Los Angeles before JF.

What a great debate..... DHH was a fantastic guest who brought it in spades

<comment><USER12> you should definitely bring JasonF to your show too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Obviously DHH can't publicly say "sure we'd love to sell 37 signals for a nice profit." I don't see the profundity in latching on to this point. No customers of 37signals want to hear that it's being shopped around.

<comment><USER14> 37signals is not being shopped around because 37signals is not for sale.

<comment><USER13> My point is only that are many reasons a business owner would deny ever taking a buyout. True dedication to not selling is just one reason. To me, this make JC's torturing DHH's adversity to selling not that interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The no venture capital thing is getting to be a bit much for me. Some businesses and some situations require outside money, some don't.

In the hypothetical situation described where Basecamp grew as fast as Youtube or Facebook DHH says he wouldn't raise external financing. I call BS.

Businesses with recurring revenues and upfront capital costs that grow fast enough will need to raise money. You need to convert the future cash flows from those customers into cash now to pay for the capital assets to serve those customer today.

Sure, a single customer may net you $150 in a year and only require $15 in capital investment. Unfortunately you need to spend the 15 dollars on day one and you only make 12.50 on day one (month one). If your growing slowly you can self finance it off previous customers or a small founder investment.

If your growing Youtube fast you get fucked to the tune of that 2.50 shortfall x however many million users you just signed up. The only way to do it is leverage or vc. Take your pick, your raising money.

<comment><USER12> the point is, the Tube thing is still losing money and the F thing is making some intangible amount compared to investment it (the idea) got.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What a fantastic interview. Thank you guys! I'd love to see Paul Graham on the show.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great part about 'fire the workaholics' 'do less' @ 1:20 or so. Jason rips DHH to shreds.

<comment><USER14> What Jason C didn't mention was all the other people who'd been putting in 80 hour weeks that didn't make it. You think Google was the only one working long hours? Google had a better idea. They worked hard on their better idea, but it's the idea that won, not the hour count.

The tech graveyard is full of overworked, tired, run-down, exhausted people who put in more hours than their bodies could handle. I run into people all the time who are putting in ridiculous hours and getting no where.

Hours don't make it. Good choices, the right focus, and intelligent decisions over a long period of time make it.

Jason C's point about practice is absolutely right though. But practice doesn't equal long hours. Practice equals practice. 3 hours of focused practice on the right thing is far better than 6 hours of practicing the wrong thing. Practice quantity isn't the secret, it's practice quality.

Here's a related post I wrote on "Making money takes practice like playing the piano takes practice":

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes- pract...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1985-making-money-takes-practice- like-playing-the-piano-takes-practice)

<comment><USER18> That's interesting, because I remember David working like a dog on Rails both before and after it became popular while also working on your applications. Sounds workaholic to me, so why didn't you fire him?

<comment><USER19> Nope, he had only 10 hours a week to build it, and he made the Rails framework so he would be able to speed up development and meet the deadline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> DHH makes very good points about profit.

But he seems to imply that all other startups or majority of them do not get this basic point. He also thinks that 37 signals would be making the same kind of profits 20yrs later. These points do not fit in with how insightful and bang on he is with his business sense.

</comment><comment><USER21> What a great interview. I find myself going back and forth agreeing with both of them. Calacanis makes a reasonable argument. DHH says something crazy- sounding and unexpected. Then, DHH goes on to explain it in more detail and sounds perfectly reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure why JC keeps harping on the unique visitors number. More uniques = less commitment to the product. Unique visitors are people who search, click, leave. How are you going to build revenue off people who don't care about your product?

How long do those unique visitors visit? When I _accidentally_ click a mahalo link, my instant reaction is to hit the back button, yet, I'm one of those numbers he's using to justify his business model.

Unique visitors is essentially irrelevant. If a unique doesn't stick around long enough to see or click on an ad, what's it matter?

<comment><USER17> >> "Unique visitors are people who search, click, leave. "

You missed the vital ingredient ;)

      * search
      * click
      * don't find what they wanted
      * <B>Click on adverts</b>

<comment><USER22> Okay, that makes more sense, but it's not admirable in anyway and it's not something I would invest in. 37s has a tiny fraction of mahalo's uniques, but I can imagine it having more revenue and more potential.

<comment><USER17> I think it's a grey area :/ It's all about how much value/content you're adding, and whether those users would have been able to find those adverts without your help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Funny how Calacanis is analyzing DHH's psychological (e.g. is DHH afraid of money?) reasons for not wanting to sell 37signals implicitly assuming that it's stupid & insane.

<comment><USER17> not wanting to sell your business for _any_ price _does_ seem stupid and insane.

If someone offered $2bn, there's probably a lot of good you could do with that cash to make the world a better place.

But saying they'd never sell obviously fits with their PR of having contrarian viewpoints.

<comment><USER24> There are lots of things people won't do for any price. That doesn't make them stupid or insane.

I wouldn't separate from my wife for $2bn. I wouldn't cut off my fingers for $2bn. I wouldn't murder someone for $2bn. A religious person may not denounce God for $2bn.

Certain things are more valuable than money; but what those are differ from person to person. DHH seems to value his work at 37signals more than money, which seems to be working out great for him.

<comment><USER4> But the thing is that there'd be no material detriment in taking the deal. DHH would just have a ton of money, and he could keep working on Rails apps and whatever else to his heart's content.

The kind of emotional connection to what is ultimately a meaningless, lifeless brand where you refuse to sell for any amount of money is surely foolish.

<comment><USER5> Of course there's a detrimental effect of selling the company that I've invested the last decade into. The investment is much deeper than purely financial. It's the pride of getting there, the satisfaction of staying there, and the joy of coming to work with the best people I've ever worked with.

What a shallow perspective to think all this meaningless just for another zero or two on the bank account.

<comment><USER4> I guess I don't understand what you mean by "there". Selling the company would only cause further progress. Your employees don't have to stay there, and you don't have to quit. You can sell the company, keep doing the same things, either at 37Signals or some other place, and just be a lot richer at the same time.

I really am not seeing a detriment still. You just seem to value the brand 37Signals so much that you're not willing to let another control it. This is silly in my mind, because it's just a brand, and there's no reason to believe you'd lose a lot of control in a potential acquisition anyway, or that even if you did, you couldn't go and start something else and keeping develop Rails apps.

This all presumes a good deal. I'm not saying you should just sell to anybody, because you shouldn't, and I wouldn't. But it is a little overboard to claim that you'll never sell, not even for 10 or 20 times your annual revenue even if everything else about the deal was good.

I understand not wanting to let someone else run your product into the ground. I know how painful that is, because it's happened to me before. But not every potential buyer is like that.

<comment><USER25> No one is going to pay 10-20x to enjoy your business the way you do. Big multiples come with big intentions... usually to realize "untapped potential" or "synergize" your business into a greater whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> nice quote when they talk about Facebook

DHH: "... begging for advertising crumbs which these companies are essentially doing..."

Really odd perspective to have. Why is charging users directly any better? Online advertising expenditure is _slightly_ more than crumbs.

Also I'm pretty sure total advertising expenditure online is massively more than people paying for subscription/services online.

<comment><USER26> DHH has talked before about his opposition to ad-based businesses. It is bread crumbs on a per user basis. That means you need a huge number of eyeballs to profit. Building a system so large and popular that it gets that many users is difficult and there is a lottery factor.

On the moral side, people don't like advertising. That's the seamy underbelly of Google; they are constantly playing this game of how much advertising pain will people endure for their free services. You know, maybe stoplights could flash some adsense ads relevant to the types of passing vehicles to cover infrastructure costs. I don't want to live in adsense world.

<comment><USER17> It's a niche viewpoint. I do want to live in an adsense world, as do most users. They find adverts useful.

>> "DHH has talked before about his opposition to ad-based businesses. It is bread crumbs on a per user basis. That means you need a huge number of eyeballs to profit. Building a system so large and popular that it gets that many users is difficult and there is a lottery factor."

I think basically, it's 'harder'. It's a harder problem to solve. But really, you can setup a profitable website in the right niche earning good money from advertising easily without requiring large number of eyeballs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I loved the interview, and I agree with most of DHH's comments, but I think that being absolute on the correctness of a number of opinions (like, "all VC powered companies are flawed" etc) is fundamentally wrong, absoluteness is not the case when you talk about people and their actions.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great interview!

</comment><comment><USER29> What is interesting here between JC's style/outlook and DHH's style/outlook is:

1\. World recession is decreasing capital exits, investments, etc..DHH's outlook wins

2\. Increasing amount of college graduates have college loan debt loads..DHH's outlook again wins

3 SV in recent years has been more focused on get there fast(money) but screw the product quality or customer quality..

I see JC and DHH representing both what VC/angels have in the past make possible represented by JC as opposed to the new way DHH's.

I think in the long term, 10 years out, that VC/angels will be gravitating towards DHH's way rather than the old way that from 1980s until now led the VC industry.

<comment><USER30> I agree, that is well laid out. The VC sphere will start to rotate towards "real businesses", not companies that will 'hopefully' make money some day by turning a magic key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Good video indeed

</comment><comment><USER32> I expected them to be swinging for each other from the buildup this got!</comment>


Ask HN: How to approach enterprise prospects [COLD] - <AUTHOR>

anyone have any advice on approaching enterprise-level prospects relatively cold? - I'm in SF/LA for the next month and have an opportunity to do live demos with big agencies here, however, I have no "ins" to these firms. Especially the executive producers/account managers who aren't necessarily the most active in networking and tech but who ultimately are the decision makers.<p>In short, my startup (firstcutpro.com) built a collaborative video review tool for video professionals. Think pivotal tracker for video production. <comment><AUTHOR> hmmm so I've been looking into this more and more. I came across this post by steve blank and thought i'd add it to this discussion - [http://steveblank.com/2013/08/12/how-to-get-meetings-with- pe...](http://steveblank.com/2013/08/12/how-to-get-meetings-with-people-too- busy-to-see-you/)

essentially he states how he now filters his meeting requests to the ones where its a two way conversation versus just the "I'd like to grab coffee and pick your brain".

good stuff. I will definitely use this.</comment>


How To Design For One Billion Users - <AUTHOR> http://techcocktail.com/how-to-design-for-one-billion-users-2010-11 <comment><USER2> I've never even heard of these guys. Alexa says they're significantly outranked by Digg (#165 vs #125), which is absolutely nowhere near a billion users and would be really lucky to be 5% of that.

Unless they run a huge spam botnet, I can't see how they can have touched a billion people.

<comment><USER3> Alexa is probably very inaccurate for them because AddThis is a widget that wraps a number of social services into one little package. It's used on tons of websites.

The 1b may or may not include repeat visitors, they say both things on their website. Either way though, when you're integrated in other people's properties rather than trying to guide traffic to your own 1b gets a lot more possible - I'm almost up to 200m/month already.

<comment><USER4> the 1 billion number is de-duped 30-day viewers. the AddThis widget is seen billions of times each day on millions of domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I call bullshit. One BILLION unique users? Just a quick scrub on Google gives a bunch of sources saying that the total number of people on the Internet worldwide is between 1.4 and 2 billion. So AddThis is (or has been) used by up to 50% of ALL Internet users?! I don't think so.

<comment><USER4> As of last month, Comscore, who is in the business of measuring such things, puts AddThis at 57% of total world wide internet users (which they measure as 1.3 billion users). They put AddThis at 80% of total US internet users (which they measure as 212 million). Comscore's world wide penetration is not as deep historically as US, and is widely considered to undercount this #.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They make no mention of how they make any money. Any ideas on the business model that is paying for all this bandwidth etc?</comment>


Ask HN: what it's like to be a remote Web/iOS/Android freelancer? - <AUTHOR> I'm thinking of going into FIRE [1] in a couple of years. I can't imagine myself not doing any work at all though, so I'm considering remote web/iOS/Android freelancing? Personally, it would be ideal for me to take on a project for a limited period of time (ideally a month or two at most), bang it out and then relax for a while. Is anyone doing something like it? What is the market for remote freelancers from outside US (I'm in Europe)?<p>[1] https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/FIRE-Financial-Independence-Retire-Early <comment><USER2> I guess there is no way to answer this questions, as there are too many shades of freelancers. But, why would you want to work as a freelancer if you have financial independence? Customers aren't much better then a boss, sometimes they can be worse. Why don't you work on your own projects?

However: > What is the market for remote freelancers from outside US (I'm in Europe)

It is hard as you are in competition to the whole world and their salary levels. Without a good customer base or network you will struggle.

> ideally a month or two at most), bang it out and then relax for a while.

Forget this. You will be searching for customer, not the customers for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I'm thinking of going into FIRE in a couple of years.

> I can't imagine myself not doing any work at all though

Ahem. I would first make sure I agree with myself.</comment>


United Airlines Replaces Bonuses with a Lottery - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/17-united-airlines-employee-replies-to-uniteds-new-bonus-lottery.html <comment><USER2> This was done to try and boost morale and make United a more caring airline? It looks like an attendance and compliance program in disguise.

How could people at the top be so inept at such basic principles of human psychology? The only explanation is that Oscar Munoz is a complete sociopath and cares nothing about his employees, or company for that matter. Makes absolutely no sense at any level and will only lead to long term damage to the company.

The net effect is that those people who actually tried harder in their job because of the bonus will feel no such desire after the first few times they don't "win". Those that do win will know it was pure luck and nothing in their actions or performance contributed to the winning, so it won't change their performance either.

<comment><USER3> Moreover, it is a very dim-witted program. sub-2% chance of a reward? Take a sick day and lose elgibility? Welcome to an environment of malicious compliance, UA.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I didn't drill deep enough, but I didn't see the part where they tied it to sick leave. Wouldn't that be illegal?

<comment><USER3> From the article:

> in order to be eligible for the lottery, employees would have to have > perfect attendance during the time period. Employees took that to mean no > sick days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes this is dumb.

But how does the previous bonus based solely on company profit incentivize anyone? In the grand scheme of things, most individuals at a company have very little affect on the company profit and the affect of one person is so diffuse it's meaningless.

I've never worked for a company that emphasizes perfect attendance, but my wife has. Why would any company want to encourage any employee to come to work sick and maybe contagious? Especially when they are confined to small quarters like an airline?

<comment><USER6> > Why would any company want to encourage any employee to come to work sick > and maybe contagious?

I noticed such policies at some companies which had a very high sick leave percentage. Sometimes it's difficult to determine if someone is faking being sick. I guess one way of to try and solve that is giving people money. I hope nobody does this when the sick leave percentage is average due to mentioned working while sick is bad result.

<comment><USER5> I use to think why have sick leave at all and just give everyone a PTO bucket. Instead of having 10 sick days and 10 vacation days, split it and give everyone 15 days PTO. It would give people more flexibility and management would have to worry about if someone was _really_ sick.

But then there are still issues...

1\. People come in sick to save their PTO and spread what they have if it's contagious.

2\. It works well for most salaried employees. We can work from home, claim we are working even if we aren't being productive and catch up over the weekend or when we feel better (I don't see an ethical problem with that.) A lot of hourly jobs can't time or place shift like that.

3\. Salaried employees, usually don't have to call in sick for a sick child (we work from home), or for doctors appointments. We can usually make our time up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You've just got to shake your head and wonder if the "management" who thought this might be a good idea have ever met any actual human beings.

<comment><USER8> How's your fiction writing? I think you have the basis of a dystopia where AI replaces management and nobody notices they're robots until it's too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> More information on the policy:

[https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/united-airlines- employees...](https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/united-airlines-employees- were-shocked-to-learn-about-this-stunning-new-company- policy.html?utm_source=red)

TLDR:

> A new report says [United Airlines] plans to do away with quarterly employee > performance bonuses--and replace them instead with random drawings for > prizes like like cash, automobiles, and vacations.

\---

How will this encourage employees to perform admirably? After David Dao's beating and forced removal from a flight, this seems like quite a poor decision.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a super interesting piece of behavioral economics in action.

We know from Prize Linked Savings Accounts that people prefer a really small change of winning a lot to a really high chance of winning a little. [0] [1]

> The new program replaces that system with a lottery. If United meets its > goals, all employees would have a chance to win prizes, including Mercedes > automobiles and cash up to $100,000. About 1.6 percent of employees would > win something.

If I recall, there was a study that showed that people were happier when given a paid vacation than when given an equivalent bonus.

[0] [http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/08-061_17c22e...](http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/08-061_17c22e32-fe06-4b4a-8b5e-e09227fc8104.pdf)

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726811...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268114002194)

<comment><USER11> The replication crisis most associated with psychology also appears to extend to many behavioral economics results. There's good reason to be skeptical of many of these studies.

<comment><USER10> Can you talk more about that? Are you saying those studies haven't been replicated?

<comment><USER11> I don't know about those studies in particular but the general replication crisis [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) which is most widely discussed in psychology is also a concern in economics [https://theconversation.com/the-replication-crisis-has- engul...](https://theconversation.com/the-replication-crisis-has-engulfed- economics-49202)

Behavioral economics research in some respects has more in common with psychology research than other areas of economics. It is also associated with a particular ideological bent that seeks to undermine the traditional assumption in economics that people can be approximated as rational actors. While there is value in recognizing where that assumption can break down, behavioral economics is often used to justify policies or interventions that traditional economics would not recommend on the basis that people can't be trusted to act in their own best interests so their preferences should be ignored or overridden by benevolent experts who somehow are miraculously immune from the same failures of rationality that the rest of us proles are prone to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> $100,000 is way better than $1,500, right? Knowing the airline industry, this is a cost-cutting measure designed to try to trick you into thinking it's an improvement.

</comment><comment><USER13> The point of this is clearly to reduce their bonus expenditures. Doing so directly would be seen as an attack on the unions, so they pull this harebrained lotto system out of their hat and pretend they are trying to innovate.

When it fails in a year or two, they'll make a show of listening to their employees and bring back a bonus program similar to the old one but with significant cuts to the amounts and focus on attendance for qualification.

At least that's what it looks like to me.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not to mention a $100K bonus is enough for some people to quit, and take their lives elsewhere, so theoretically, there's probably a motive of attrition as a subtext to force out a cross section of expensive veteran employees.

Brain drain is a factor in this, but probably some brutal downsizing is in the picture, and on the table already. Hold on to your butts.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if United's president (Scott Kirby) would be OK with his own performance compensation being determined via a lottery system? You know, would he feel sufficiently incentivized by a 1.6% chance (say) of getting his millions in stock options?

</comment><comment><USER16> Dilbert IRL.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems tailored for social media. "look at me I won". A lot of things are going this route. dumb.

<comment><USER18> The execs probably hope to leverage irrationality around games of chance. This will provide net morale at a lower program cost. It's good that this innovation will be nipped in the bus before it spreads across corporate America.

<comment><USER19> This won't be the last time they try.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I wrote a book on GNU grep and ripgrep - <AUTHOR> I recently published my book on "GNU grep and ripgrep" and it is free to download through this weekend [1][2]
Code snippets, example files and sample chapters are available on GitHub [3]
The book uses plenty of examples to showcase features one by one. BRE/ERE/PCRE(2)/Rust regular expressions are also covered from scratch.
Hope you find the book useful. I would be grateful for your feedback and suggestions.
[1] https://gumroad.com/l/gnugrep_ripgrep
[2] https://leanpub.com/gnugrep_ripgrep
[3] https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_gnugrep_ripgrep <comment><USER2> good for you m8

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for checking it out, happy learning :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a startup school available? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a startup school available? <comment><USER2> There's Boston Startup School launching soon: <http://bostonstartupschool.com></comment>


High potency of a bivalent human VH domain in SARS-CoV-2 animal models - <AUTHOR> https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31148-X <comment><USER2> This works like convalescent plasma, but it is much more precise as to what it binds to.

That is, if you take plasma out of an intact human you will get antibodies to everything that human makes antibodies to. Normally this is OK, but if those antibodies target you you have a problem.</comment>


Ask HN: I need a serious critique of the UX of this hiring app? - <AUTHOR> The app is called nudj it's on the app store. We are encountering a few blocks in the funnel but can't identify if it's messaging, bad UX or just not good overall. Would love to get some genuine feedback. Thanks HN <comment><USER2> Tried to do a quick walkthrough of it, a couple of pointers: \- The first screen (phone number) is covered by a modal asking for notification permissions (you might want to move that later into the flow) I hit "Dont allow" and it took me to a page saying "Nudj doesn't have access to your contacts". I understand that this might be relevant at a later point but let the user see the app and register before asking for all these permissions. (I can't move forward from this page because the only option is hitting "Settings" and giving you access to my contacts). I quit the app at this point.

I restarted the app and decided to try with a fake UK number, and hit next once again, it asks for permission to access contacts. I hit don't allow and got stuck at the same settings page. At this point I would give up and leave (unless I see value in an app I wouldn't want to allow it to notify me or give it access to my contacts).

My two cents:

If the purpose is to share jobs etc , let me find something interesting (that I want to share with others) and when I click share ask for permission.

If I use the App a few times or if I specifically ask to be notified ask for "notifications" permission.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers! this is really helpful. If you were hiring you'd post a job and ask your contacts for recommendations and whoever was interested you'd launch a chat. Jobs are linked by numbers (think Whatsapp) which is why we ask for a number. so you get the right notifications. The ideal workflow is that you'd be invited by a hirer or referrer (who you know, they must have your number in order to ask you) to view an existing job. Which should be the incentive to continue. As you were trying out the UX with no context it's helpful to know what other's might be experiencing. We are exploring having the job first then going through a download/setup process.</comment></comment>