Webhooks Are Magic - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iron.io/2013/09/7-reasons-webhooks-are-magic.html

<comment><USER2> Thanks for summing up, concisely, why webhooks really aren't magic at all, in the fourth paragraph:

"All [webhooks] are is a promise by an application or API: "when this thing happens, I'll send this HTTP request with this data.""

It's nice to see that all the hype really just boils down to generalized pingbacks[1]. Now, having a standard is great -- I'm not entirely sure we _have_ a standard yet, though. It's more like a fancy name for pingbacks that aren't just for blog posts.

I'm also not entirely sure if I'd prefer webhooks for eg. processing emails. Emails are naturally "push" \-- they get pushed via SMTP. I know that people are scared of email/SMTP -- but it seems quite a lot easier to make sure you don't loose any "events" with SMTP than with HTTP(S).

What if your site is down for a few minutes, just as some service out there tries to "ping" you with a webhook? Email handles that.

I think what most people seem to mix up is that handling "real" email may be hard -- but looking for a well formed subject that exactly matches some regex, then parsing that, isn't that hard. Everything else you can either bounce (a little dangerous) or just drop (not quite as dangerous).

Mailing-lists work. What you need isn't much more complicated. Maybe allow for a mime-part with a json or xml, or some other well-formed body. Use gpg or smime to encrypt data, if you need something more than a short hash/token.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback)

<comment><USER3> Part of the problem has traditionally been that email servers haven't been as easy to "hack" as web servers have. That was a failing on the part of the developers of those servers.

Thankfully now you have things like Qpsmtpd, James, Lamson and Haraka which can do those things for you. But not many people install those servers. I'd love to see that change (for obvious reasons).

<comment><USER2> Partly. But you've been able to do the equivalent of:

        echo "|magic-program" > .forward

For a long, long time. Granted, it's a little unclear what happens if you manage to overload your server doing that, but in general MTAs are pretty good at taking care of your mail, either queueing and delivering, or giving up somewhat gracefully.

The trick is to make sure that the "magic-program" is simple and robust -- and that isn't quite as hard as most people think, if you don't require it to parse arbitrary emails -- just accept and parse clearly valid ones, and reject everything else.

Now, if you require to handle enough incoming requests that forking a process per mail is a problem ... you probably need to fix your architecture.

<comment><USER3> The fragility of parsing emails is a big problem though. But I agree that for the equivalent of webhooks it is the perfect platform, and simple scripts work. Except at scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm new to webhooks - I understand them conceptually, but is there a standard for authenticating the incoming notification? Take the Stripe example - how do you know that the HTTP POST is actually coming from Stripe? Do you use a shared-secret, or some other mechanism to verify the HTTP request is authentic?

<comment><USER5> There isn't a standard way of authenticating the incoming notification yet. I like how Mailgun is doing it, to verify the webhook is originating from Mailgun you need to:

      * Concatenate timestamp and token values.
      * Encode the resulting string with the HMAC algorithm (using your API Key as a key and SHA256 digest mode).
      * Compare the resulting hexdigest to the signature.
      * Optionally, you can check if the timestamp is not too far from the current time.

So, you essentially get 3 extra parameters from your webhook, `timestamp`, `token` and `signature`. Obviously, the API key is the shared secret here between your app and Mailgun.

<comment><USER6> Grooveshark does it as well.

[http://developers.grooveshark.com/docs/public_api/v3/](http://developers.grooveshark.com/docs/public_api/v3/)

However it depends on a shared secret for generating/verifying signatures, and some companies ( _cough_ Stripe _cough_ ) have yet to implement that. As someone else has already mentioned, thankfully each webhook request from Stripe has an ID in it so you can query their API for verifying a webhook's authenticity.

<comment><USER3> If it's just a shared secret, why not just make a secret (and complicated) URL for the web hook? It's shared with the deliverer but as long as you're using SSL it should be just as secure.

Speaking of which, the right way to do this is to validate their SSL client certificate, but I doubt many places are easily setup to do that - in fact I would bet the sending endpoint doesn't even use a certificate most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> MediaCrush updates itself through GitHub hooks [1]. When we get the POST, it git pulls and restarts the site automatically. Best thing we ever did. Not worrying about deployment makes our lives a lot easier.

[1] [https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/master/mediacr...](https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/master/mediacrush/views/hook.py)

</comment><comment><USER8> Webhooks are great, until you don't get one... Then they suddenly become a nightmare.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why logs from the webhook provider are important. :)

<comment><USER9> That sounds even worse than:

> "I watch people poll APIs or create convoluted connections, and I cry a > little on the inside."

If the action being sent by the webhook is really important, there seems to be no way around doing it somewhat like this: Write a polling (or hanging-get) system, but use webhooks as an unreliable but lower-latency push mechanism.

In this setup, webhooks give you low-latency updates (when they work), and polling ensures completeness.

<comment><USER10> Depending on your requirements the remote end can be responsible for ensuring that you receive and acknowledge the wake up. Once you hit your own timeout you might do any number of things, not necessarily repoll the other end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've started adding web hooks to one of my Django web apps with Zapier's django-rest-hooks which I'm liking a lot:

[https://github.com/zapier/django-rest- hooks](https://github.com/zapier/django-rest-hooks)

</comment><comment><USER12> Stripe's webhooks are really nice. Everything that happens with your account, be it charges, disputes, transfers, or people changing subscription levels, all generate events that you can receive and do something with. In my book and the app that sells it[1] I use them to trigger emails to myself when important things happen. There's also an iPhone app named Paypad[2] that registers a webhook on your account that sends you push notifications when things happen.

[1]: [https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern- payments](https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments)

[2]: [https://www.pay-pad.com](https://www.pay-pad.com)

<comment><USER3> Just don't disable SSL on your server.

[http://baudehlo.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/stripe-webhooks- don...](http://baudehlo.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/stripe-webhooks-dont-work- with-tls/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great post, Paddy. One thing I'd love to see in the HUD is a GitHub OAuth + repo webhook config. That is, you log in with GitHub credentials, you see a list of repos and can select which workers will get POSTed to after specific GitHub repo events[1].

Examples:

\- The "adelevie/MyJekyllBlog" repo will POST to the worker "BuildAndDeploy" after event "push."

\- The "adelevie/MyRailsApp" repo will POST to the worker "TestMyRailsApp" after events "push" and "pull_request."

[1] [http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/hooks/](http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/hooks/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this idea. I've been wanting to do something similar to this, making webhooks even easier to hook into the Iron.io platform. I don't know if it will make it into HUD, but I'm definitely going to be trying to setup some push-button webhook configurations for popular services that support configuring webhooks from an API.

<comment><USER13> Will/can there be an Iron.io OAuth API?

<comment><AUTHOR> "We have nothing to announce at this time."

I'd like there to be is all I've got for you at the moment. :( Priorities, and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ok, maybe it's just the terminology that's confusing, but how do webhooks differ from callback requests? Is it that the semantics are standardized, or is there something that I'm missing? The Author is quite excited about them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm incredibly excited about them.

As far as I'm concerned, webhooks and callback requests are the same. If we were going to get pedantic, I suppose we could say that for a request to be a callback, it would have to be a response to an earlier request (think asynchronous processing) whereas a webhook is an evented request (it wasn't prompted by a previous request).

But being pedantic is lame. Let's just be excited about both!

Relevant: [https://twitter.com/paddyforan/statuses/254375310554968064](https://twitter.com/paddyforan/statuses/254375310554968064)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > It makes the web capable of pushing information to its users, instead of > waiting for users to ask for information.

[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.03/ff_push.html) [1997]

It seems I'm not the only one to remember the promises of this prophecy:

[http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/01/0...](http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/01/05/push_technology_gets_a_nudge/)

</comment><comment><USER16> If you have an API make sure webhooks can be created using the API.

It is win-win for everyone. It is easier to implement and apps don't have to poll you constantly.

<comment><USER12> There was a somewhat-confusing attempt at standardizing that pattern a few weeks ago: [http://resthooks.org](http://resthooks.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great an' all, but what happens when a request fails? There's no (specified) retry mechanism — and POSTs aren't meant to be idempotent. I guess many applications don't need strong reliability and so this is cool, but I can't help but feel HTTP's design is really being stretched with ideas like this. I totally get that it's really easy to get stuff going if everything just speaks HTTP, but is it really for the best?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't speak for other providers, but our practice is to let users set the number of retries they'd like and the space between retries.

We also are close to rolling out error queues, so when a push notification fails, the message is automatically placed into a queue, to be processed at the user's convenience.

I agree, the need for safe retries (as this is a process without user feedback) calls for idempotency, but that's at odds with the need for a webhook to be possible to be triggered multiple times.

One way around this is to use "tickle" webhooks--webhooks that tell the destination that data has changed, but require the destination to pull in that information themselves. Then the webhook call is still idempotent in practice (at worst, you're refreshing data more than you need to, which is still less than polling), but multiple webhook calls can be made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Webhooks are awesome but please don't make your users set them up: [https://resthooks.org](https://resthooks.org)

<comment><USER19> Firefox is throwing a "This Connection is Untrusted" alert on attempting to load resthooks.org via ssl. Someone should probably look into that.

<comment><USER2> [https://resthooks.herokuapp.com/](https://resthooks.herokuapp.com/) appears to be the meat of it.

But that is really just a pointer to:

[https://github.com/net- engine/resthooks/blob/master/README.m...](https://github.com/net- engine/resthooks/blob/master/README.md)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Love the post... and stripe webhooks! Integrated them with Keen IO in about 60 seconds and even made a (perhaps overly enthusiastic) blog post about it. [https://keen.io/blog/48628875285/integrate-stripe-and- keen-i...](https://keen.io/blog/48628875285/integrate-stripe-and-keen-io- in-60-seconds)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [http://webhookinbox.com/](http://webhookinbox.com/) gives you throwaway URLs for receiving webhooks. Good for testing.

<comment><AUTHOR> John Sheehan, of Runscope.com (which, by the way, is a super rad tool for API developers) did a great roundup on receiving webhooks for testing: [http://john-sheehan.com/blog/a-survey-of-the-localhost-proxy...](http://john- sheehan.com/blog/a-survey-of-the-localhost-proxying-landscape)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is basically pub/sub messaging, but over the internet?

<comment><USER23> > This is basically pub/sub messaging, but over the internet?

Its basically hubless pub/sub messaging over _HTTP_ ("...over the internet", sure, but there is _lots_ of _much_ older versions of that); there's also the with-a-hub version, PubSubHubbub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The next coming of SOA!</comment>


Reliable ZeroMQ Pub Sub - <AUTHOR> http://techno-weenie.net/2011/6/19/reliable-zeromq-pub-sub/ <comment><USER2> It's probably a bad idea to use durable sockets for reliable pubsub (I know I documented this in the Guide but that was before it became clear that this functionality is kind of bogus).

Explicit identities are dangerous for servers since they create entropy (state accumulation) unless (and even) if you set strict high-water marks.

They're also a real pain internally and as part of simplifying 0MQ's construction we eventually want to get rid of them.

There are better ways to keep and synchronize state among a set of subscribers. See the detailed Clone pattern in Ch5 of the Guide, for example.

[http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all#A-Shared-Key-Value- Cache-C...](http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all#A-Shared-Key-Value-Cache-Clone- Pattern)</comment>


$4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/12579/why-this-4000-renault-is-as-disruptive-as-the-tesla-model-3?xid=twittershare <comment><USER2> One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".

<comment><USER3> Ahhh safety, driving, and the developing world. Ugh. I haven't tested the hypothesis but I think the switch from mopeds to cars has resulted in a huge number of traffic fatalities. This was super evident in Thailand as it's quite clear that non tuk-tuk/rickshaw or motorcycle transport is a very new thing. There's an obliviousness to the fact that they're driving thousands of pounds of steel and nobody else on the road is protected in the same way.

India's drivers are actually pretty awesome, but they've had cars for a lot longer. Still. More people driving and perhaps being the first in their families to actually own a car means bad news.

Not that I see any good solution other than waiting a few generations, widespread driver's ed is probably cost prohibitive. Still. Ugh.

<comment><USER4> You may find this interesting: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic- related_death_rate)

Sorting by the second column gives a good picture about which country has more dangerous drivers. And Thailand is #2... so your claim tracks well against this reality.

<comment><USER5> Also interesting: The US has about two thirds the amount of fatalities by 100k people compared to India. I.e. the US should first improve its own stats before trying to school anyone else, especially considering that countries like the UK show that it could be improved 4-fold.

<comment><USER6> Comparing fatalities per 100k people seems like a pretty useless statistic when we're talking about safety standards. If you look at fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles it's 12.9 compared to 130. So 10x as much. An even better statistic to use would be fatalities per 1 billion vehicle miles. But that data isn't available for India.

<comment><USER7> Non-motorized transportation options aren't counted in vehicle miles. So accidents involving pedastrians, bicycles and other bystanders would skew this some. Since car accidents don't just hurt other motorists it's useful to measure this against the total population.

<comment><USER8> Is it not useful to look at both the statistic you mention along with the ones you responded to? They may not be equal in importance, but merit some consideration, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Crash test results: 0 stars

[https://youtu.be/jePu-6TxypI](https://youtu.be/jePu-6TxypI)

Reminds me of the Tata Nano (also 0 stars): [https://youtu.be/buMXtGoHHIg](https://youtu.be/buMXtGoHHIg)

<comment><USER10> Compare this to a 80s Mercedes 190: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1GNfA_AnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1GNfA_AnU) . The passenger cell remains solid though the crash dummies experience injuries. I often wonder how much better the automotive market would be if solid designs remained in circulation instead of these new-old mistakes re- entering the market every time.

<comment><USER11> In a lot of post-Soviet countries, rather than buying new, they import second- hand cars from Western European countries and keep them running. If you have skilled mechanics, and a steady stream of spare parts (from everyone else importing the same cars), it's quite easy to keep your car running up to 300,000km or beyond.

The other week I was in Armenia, and although the average wage is $400/mo, you see more BMWs and Mercedes on the road than you do in the U.K. Admitidely the climate helps, as you don't need to worry about rust in most of country.

<comment><USER10> This is a smart plan. A 20 year old MB has technology that is now finally trickling into modern pedestrian cars, such as electronic start key, 5 speed automatic, and side airbags.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So painful to read this article. How did it get on the front page? Is it that it's funny how confidently the author has no idea what "disrupt" means?

Summary: new car introduced at same price as current leading car in category, but with a bit more room and slightly nicer, and they give you cake when you pick it up.

Literally, that's the whole article.

<comment><USER13> For the below paragraphs alone I think this article is more than deserving of the front page:

> Short of a supercar delivery, I have never witnessed such time and effort > spent on a customer. Actually, that's the jaded American in me talking. > Power Renault Kattupakkam didn't spend this time and effort. They devoted > it. They invested it, in a way merely given lip service during the sales > training most American salespeople allegedly get, and which clearly isn't > building goodwill with customers.

> In the US, everything about the car ownership experience — from research to > negotiation to delivery to service — has been utterly and depressingly > commoditized. Any positive emotional relationship between sellers and buyers > has been sacrificed on the altar of efficiency. With rare exceptions — > generally limited to the ultra high-end — the American buying experience is > a circle of resentment. It's I want your time vs. I don't have much time.

I'm tired of feeling jaded about the American car buying experience so hearing something like this is very refreshing.

<comment><USER14> It is so weird seeing all these comments focused on price, perceived lack of quality, or how the article is link bait. The most important comparison between that $4000 car and Tesla is in the sales model, the delivery, and what happens after.

I was fascinated by the priest coming in to conduct puja as part of ceremonially handing the car over to the new owners. While it probably won't fly in America, it is this blending of modern and traditional that is lacking when we commoditized everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _What Is Disruption, Anyway? ... In India, where the average wage remains a fraction of those in the first world, it starts with an affordable car that isn't a complete piece of junk._

5 Paragraphs later:

 _It would be the same price as the sector-leading Maruti Suzuki, but with more space. It would include a 7" infotainment system with a touchscreen. It would have real ground clearance. It would resemble a smaller version of Renault's wildly popular Duster SUV._

New sexy features don't make something disruptive. Sure, it may pan out to be a popular vehicle, but disruptive? because it has infotainment?... spare us.

<comment><USER16> The point of the article is that disruption depends on market. Infotainment in India might be like the "not-getting-beaten-up-for-overbooking" of United.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone else feeling slightly uneasy with the exciting and "disruptive" plan of ushering a population of 1.3 billion into the glorious era of the fossil- fuelled car ?

Seems exactly what the world needs right now.

<comment><USER18> Just because the "developed" world has already brought us 90% to irreversible damage doesn't mean that we should deny cars to people who couldn't afford them previously. I'm sure that those cars will be sold as EVs as soon as that's feasible. Meanwhile countries that have the money could probably do more to reduce emissions. India's efforts to reduce emissions (i.e. increase them less) look extremely ambitions given their budget.

<comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure that being brought up to 90%* irreversible damage is actually a perfectly legitimate reason to deny cars to people who couldn't afford them previously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't get what this article is trying to say.

 _"In India," he said, "you cannot look or be strange. Choosing a new entrant is a risk. You have to be careful with your money. A new product must be different."_

Isn't this contradicting itself? What I understood from this article is (1) Renault are selling the cheapest possible _standard_ looking car and (2) They do localized, ritualistic sales & delivery which appeals to their buyers.

Seems to me that this is a story about a car that isn't trying to disrupt anything or be any more radical than absolutely necessary to meet its price/cost goals. It is trying to bring standard low cost Renaults to India.

The article mentions the Tata Nano, a more radical low cost concept. It could also have mentioned the Twizy, Renault's current attempt at a tiny lower cost car radically different from other models. Both of these stretch the standard definition of "car" and you might call them disruption attempts. The Kwid is explicitley trying to do the opposite.

The current suite of car types (budget hatchback, family sedan, SUV..) is fairly stable. This is probably because use cases have remained the same, the technology has remained similar & underlying economic factors of production haven't changed much.

Two things could change that: EV technology & AV technology, especially AV.

For example, if most passenger cars are autonomous taxis, we might see more specialized designs. Slow, single seaters for urban travel. Larger comfort vehicles for longer distance travel.. etc. That would be disruptive.

</comment><comment><USER21> This article should be viewed not from a point of _technology_ disruption, but from a point of _marketing_ disruption. The correct analogy would be with Lexus rather than Tesla (apparently the latter was brought in purely for extra clickbaitness). Lexus offered no technical innovation, however gained supply chain optimizations allowed Toyota to launch a car that offered significantly more value per money then it was common for the market at that time. A flavor of exclusivity together with non-exclusive price tag made Lexus a huge marketing success. So is the Kwid marketing disruption? Could be. If it's a right product for the right market - why not? Is the parallel with Tesla relevant? Absolutely not, because Tesla is known first of all as a technology break-through. Of course, good marketing & PR played huge role for the Tesla's success, but it's still secondary. All in all, the article is about a successful product/market fit case. It has nothing to do with technology advances.

</comment><comment><USER22> "How are we going to get anyone to read this article we wrote about a boring, shitty car? I know, gratuitous Tesla comparisons!"

</comment><comment><USER23> I completely disagree; Renault when buying Dacia, bought a company capable to produce a compact car at a ridiculously low price on an industrial platform that was proven (Clio) and on a market segment that is the bread and butter of all major European car manufacturer. However the same car was sold at almost twice the price within the EU single market as it was outside it. Before that, you had the experience of FIAT with a single platform produced in Europe (FIAT Uno) and South America (Fiat Palio). It was a commercial success for the company. However, the price for the Palio was lower than the Uno, as it was targetting developing market. The more mature market are not benefiting from technological development from those cars, as they are based on proven platform (read already paid for), or from the price reduction, as the competition is locked in place, and an aggressive price politic might actually be detrimental to the product perception. This is without even mentioning the cartel like behaviour or European car manufacturer.

<comment><USER24> I think you miss the point of the article, which is about Renault finding in India an opportunity to be as disruptive as Tesla is in the First World, with diametrally opposed products, but similar appeal to their respective markets by proposing an affordable yet radically new product.

<comment><USER25> But there is nothing new about cheap small under-powered cars. [We've had them since 1950s]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> That ceremony looks monstrously tiring to an introverted westerner like me. I don't want to cut a cake and watch a priest bless my car; I want to walk onto a lot, look over the car I pre-selected online to make sure it's the right one, and then give someone some money and drive away.

I'm also wondering how long that friendly attitude - and the traveling pop-up repair program - will last. Once everyone wants one of these, you no longer have to cajole people.

<comment><USER27> It's pretty common in India to take your new car to the temple and get it blessed.

<comment><USER28> Interesting that in the photos, the priest is the least 'dressed-up' of all of them.

<comment><USER29> That's because, he definitely is not a priest, he is most likely an employee at the dealership. Im an Indian, that guying doing the puja doesnot resemble a Pujari (priest), Hindu pujari's have a very traditional dressing style. I feel that the writer was either unaware or just adding masala(spicing up) to his article by claiming him to be a priest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They mention using a single Indian supplier and designing for that supplier as an advantage. Where I work we wouldn't be allowed to do that - always want at least two different suppliers so we don't put ourselves at risk.

Hope it works out for them - seems like a fun little car.

<comment><USER10> Also, the Takata airbag debacle affecting a variety of automakers but primarily Honda (1) is an example of how using a single supplier and developing relationships can be a bad plan.

1: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results- idUSKCN0Y40...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results- idUSKCN0Y40UD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was just watching on ViceLand an episode about the Indian (non-existent) sewage system. Millions of people there have no sanitation facilities and deficate anywhere, where possible. And are living of a few dollars a month. It's really worthwhile watching, btw.

So talking about "quality cars" for $4000 here seems totally surreal. And that that would be disruptive is even more of a strange observation.

The author sure has an interesting story to tell, but the conclusions, title etc of the article shows of actual lacking good journalism/storytelling.

<comment><USER32> Please keep in mind India has one of the, if not the, largest middle class population in the world.

<comment><USER31> Can you verify that with some sources/stats? And what's your definition of a "middle class" in India?

<comment><USER33> Presumably using the definition of spending $4 to $6 a day.

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/6-surprising-facts- ab...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/6-surprising-facts-about-india- s-exploding-middle-class/)

However, there are other estimations around that make India's middle class much smaller, say ~25M

[http://www.business-standard.com/article/current- affairs/ind...](http://www.business-standard.com/article/current- affairs/indian-middle-class-is-24-million-not-264-million-credit- suisse-115102900181_1.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Kinda off-topic: I own a Renault Zoe, which is an EV hatchback that you can get second-hand for about £4k, and also a Tesla Model X 90D.

People get far too excited by Tesla's brand, when there are really competitive EVs out there.

Feel free to AMA about EVs or how mine compare.

<comment><USER35> How is the charging time and mileage on Zoe vs. Model X?

<comment><USER34> At home we have a 7kW charger (the most we could get without having to change either the main fuseboard in the house, or have stuff dug up).

That gives the Zoe a charge-time of just over three hours (as we have a 22kWh battery) versus over 13 hours for the Model X. That's 35 miles of charge an hour for the Zoe, and 21 miles of charge an hour for the Model X.

The Zoe can fast-charge at up to 43kW on motorway service stations, whilst the Model X and charge at 120kW. In the UK there are way more locations with fast- chargers the Zoe can use than there are Tesla superchargers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> All the article is telling me is that American dealership experience must be incredibly shitty. We bought a brand new VW Polo here in the UK(and Polo is the cheapest VW car you can buy here), on the delivery day it was waiting for us in the dealership wrapped in ribbons, my partner got a massive bouquet of flowers, there were cards saying "happy new car day <partner's name>", and two sales assistants spent a lot of time with us showing us every bit of the car. That sounds pretty similar to the experience described in the article, minus the religious parts.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is a cheap car what we call disruption in 2017, really? We know that cars do not scale, look at LA traffic. Seems like a pretty bad idea to replicate the same problems to the 3rd world.

<comment><USER38> Cars for India is really stupid idea, where most people keep their cars parked for 99.99% of the time.

<comment><USER39> Is this not the case in most places?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This doesn't sound like marketplace disruption as described by Christensen.

Under his model, the marketplace disruptor attacks from the bottom. The challenging product is demonstrably, objectively _worse_ in one or more ways than the incumbent.

If introduced into the US, the Kwid would indeed be a marketplace disruptor. But in India, where the article itself points out that relatively few cars are driven, the Kwid is a luxury item.

In this view, neither anything Tesla has offered nor the Kwid should be considered disruptive. They're both vulnerable to a determined, capable incumbent.

</comment><comment><USER41> To say that this is unsafe is incorrect. It would be unsafe in the west compared to other cars, but in India compared to other cars and motorbikes that riders have as an option the Renault actually INCREASES safety dramatically

<comment><USER19> They increase safety in the short-term. As the number of automobiles goes up, they become more dangerous. Essentially,

safety = mass of your car / average mass of collisionable vehicles + C, where C is a constant that describes how safe the car would be driving the road alone

The safest world is one where you have a tank and everybody else walks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> On the plus side, given India's traffic, maybe this criminally-unsafe car will rarely drive fast enough to be dangerous?

</comment><comment><USER43> This is something I've always wondered, why are even the cheapest cars (in the Western world) so expensive? Isn't it possible to make a new car under ~ $10,000?

<comment><USER44> Safety requirements. Here's a crash test between a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in Mexico, and a 2016 Nissan Versa, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in the United States.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0)

<comment><USER45> Put a 2017 Nissan Versa against a 2017 Harley Davidson. They're both allowed on the road.

I've wondered if less safe vehicles (lighter, cheaper, smaller) could be made and required NOT to be on high speed roadways (above 45mph, freeways, etc.), or just have the US admit their regs are too strenuous.

<comment><USER46> Did you know you can buy baby formula in third world countries for a fraction of the price here? All because evil regulations make companies make use actual safe ingredients and manufacturing practices.

When will this big government madness end. When will the US admit their regs are too strenuous so we can finally buy our cut rate industrial runoff baby formula in peace.

<comment><USER45> Your comment isn't up to HN standards, and it also misses the point. We already allow two-wheeled death machines on freeways, and we allow people to ride them without helmets, and we allow children to ride as passengers.

Your sarcasm would have made a valid point if modern sedans were the low bar in vehicular safety in the US.

<comment><USER47> I thought it was illegal to ride a motorcycle/bicycle without a helmet? I'm trying to find a flaw in your argument...but it's not easy. Though I feel as if we shouldn't go back on safety standard progress just because there is a subset of vehicles where there's not much we can do in terms of the vehicle...but I'm sure there is a lot we can do in terms of what the rider wears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I think this article would be substantially improved by removal of references to Tesla or "disruption".

The stuff about the Renault is interesting, but all the "what these unthinking Musk fanboys don't realize..." is obnoxious and doesn't add anything to the article.

</comment><comment><USER49> I confessed I skimmed most of the article, but am I fair if I say that it makes the point that electrification is just a nice-to-have feature for rich western hipsters? And nowhere does it raise the issue of the global environmental issues if millions and millions of additional combustion engines? At least there's cake...

</comment><comment><USER50> One thing that is not mentioned in the article at all, other than the existence of scooters, is that specifically a huge number of them are 2-stroke gasoline engines which are incredibly polluting. It's worth having a discussion about the environmental implications of a growing middle class in south asia buying cars, but at least if scooters are replaced with cars such as this on a 1:1 basis, the air will be a LOT cleaner. The air in Lahore or New Delhi on a typical day is a blue-gray haze full of two stroke engine exhaust. The typical two stroke scooter pollutes more than a giant american gas guzzling SUV from 20 years ago.

<comment><USER51> > The typical two stroke scooter pollutes more than a giant american gas > guzzling SUV from 20 years ago.

Citation needed.

<comment><USER50> [https://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super- poll...](https://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super- polluters.html)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247506/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247506/)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science- news/1083467...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science- news/10834679/Scooters-pollute-more-than-lorries.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Note that the author is Alex Roy of Cannonball fame.

[https://www.wired.com/2007/10/ff- cannonballrun/](https://www.wired.com/2007/10/ff-cannonballrun/)

</comment><comment><USER53> So wait, this means that if it weren't for safety and emission standards I'd be able to go out and buy a new car for 4000 dollars and a used car for a tiny fraction of that? I get that others want safety, but for me that's not as important as avoiding debt. Shouldn't I have the right to make that choice on my own?

<comment><USER54> To answer your first question: no. And as for the second, mostly no, unless you are purchasing a car that only kills or injures yourself when you get into a crash and also the emissions only go into your house and stay there.

<comment><USER55> The emissions on a Kwid are far lower than those on an American car.

And the Kwid would probably injure yourself and anyone driving with you... but, there's a version with ABS and Airbags, so the GP has a point.

[https://auto.ndtv.com/news/renault-kwid-1-litre-variant- to-c...](https://auto.ndtv.com/news/renault-kwid-1-litre-variant-to-come-with- abs-dual-airbags-as-standard-1257346)

Edit: by the way, I owned a Maruti Alto, and now own a Renault Twingo. I'd say it's surprisingly safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I wonder which will make more money, the cheap car sold by the millions or the (relatively) expensive car sold by the thousands.

<comment><USER57> Judging by China's economy, I think it's a volume game.

<comment><USER58> In China, it is almost both. Some of the highest sellers are BWM, Jaguars and Mercedes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I think the kwid is not going to disrupt much in India. I'm in India and if I want to buy a car and I'm not going to consider the kwid. It looks too cheap and small. If they would have made it a 2 seater I'd have thought about it.

</comment><comment><USER60> >In the US, everything about the car ownership experience — from research to negotiation to delivery to service — has been utterly and depressingly commoditized

Clearly this guy hasn't walked into a Chrysler dealer and asked "How much horsepower can I get with four doors?"

</comment><comment><USER61> Funny, yugo cost that much in the USA 30 years ago. Btw, yugo was an icon, this is shite.

</comment><comment><USER62> The only thing a Renault will disrupt is the reliability of your transportation, and your bank account when you go for repairs. As a current Renault owner I have been forced to become an expert in automotive technology.

</comment><comment><USER63> Why don't you just limit the speed of the car to how much impact it can take without seriously injuring the passéngers and possibly pedestrians? That car can't take a 40mph impact but maybe it can take a 25mph one?

<comment><USER64> But other cars aren't limited to this speed. If I hit a car at 25 mph it might be safe, but if I hit it at 100mph that's a different story. That other car has no input on how fast I hit it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Why can't take they make a car like this for the European market? Not everybody wants to spend +20k € on a car. Somehow I feel this would probably cost +10k in Europe so what gives?

<comment><USER66> Do you have used cars in Europe? The US is flooded with used cars and you can get something much better than this for $4000.

<comment><USER65> Depends where you live. For example in Finland with high tax on cars for 4000€ you can get a -00 Toyota Corolla with 250k km on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> The problem of car safety isn't solved by the Renault driver driving slowly. The risk is still significant when the speeding large truck fails to stop/yield (is that even a concept?) and plows into the car.

Meanwhile, look at all the energy (and human time) being put into selling one car, but the streets and surrounding areas are covered in trash and worse.

I would much rather see these car salespeople doing what "The Ugly Indian" (see Facebook for group) is doing - cleaning up and decorating disgusting areas and teaching people by example how not to trash their home environments.

</comment><comment><USER58> That delivery ceremony is amazing. Are the salaries so low in India that the car dealers can afford to have such a ceremony for every new car delivery?

<comment><USER68> Keep in mind that this is an article written by an American seemingly enamored by something in India, and like most write-ups of such kind, it romanticizes whatever happens in India while being over-critical of whatever happens back at home. As an Indian who currently lives in the US and has a much more 'level' view of both places, this fetishization is quite frustrating.

That being said, the ceremony looks a little too elaborate compared to what typically happens—the car is covered in flowers, and the dealership guy ceremoniously hands over a symbolic oversized key to the buyer. Pooja may or may not happen.

<comment><USER69> Also he rubbishes quite a bit what happens in the rest of the world (or is it US only).

I know that in the UK, I bought a new BMW and we came in, my wife got flowers, the car was covered and she got to pull it off to 'reveal' it, and the vendor took a good 1/2 hour explaining all the gadgets etc. So no flowers on the car and priest onboard, but definitely 'ceremonious' enough.

<comment><USER68> Plus the priest thing is very cultural and nothing to do with cars in specific. A lot of Indians typically do ritualistic ceremonies (pooja) for any slightly major life event. And for most Indians buying a car qualifies (even the cheapest car is a fundamentally aspirational purchase for the lower and the lower middle class).

I dunno if it's standard in the US, but Indians typically also distribute sweets to friends and neighbors to 'celebrate' the purchase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER31> There is surely something to be said about Renault as a company brand's responsability and ethics here.

</comment><comment><USER70> Why comparision with Model 3? It's not electric. The blogger seems to have only anti-tesla agenda.

</comment><comment><USER71> In Brazil the Kwid will be sold for 10kUSD, even worse than India.

</comment><comment><USER72> > Ask the clickbait mills and the sheep who retweet them...

Surely the irony must be intentional.

</comment><comment><USER73> > You couldn't give a Model 3 away in Chennai or Bangalore. From wheel size to > suspension to charging to structural integrity, no Tesla would survive, at > any price. They're not designed to.

How do you know?

</comment><comment><USER74> I am still trying to understand how a 0 rating crash test car is being compared with one of the safest car? Am I missing something? Is this a sarcastic post?</comment>


Backblaze's Hard Drive Stats for Q2 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-stats-q2-2017/ <comment><USER2> I'm not a customer of Backblaze, but I really love how they publish this data for the public. I wish more companies did this kind of thing.

<comment><USER3> Yev here -> Thanks, so do we! Honestly we always thought that once we published what we see in our environment that others would follow suite, but that hasn't quite happened yet!

<comment><USER4> Again thanks for these stats. I love them and often refer to them when people ask for reliable harddisks, even for consumers.

I'm not a really big expert on your file system. How easy is it for you to replace a faulty drive? Just pop it out and put in a brand new one, even if it's other capacity and/or brand and/or model? Is firmware upgrade of harddisks supported?

Sometimes i wonder if it's possible to make a sort of small consumer (nas4free?) edition of the storage pod. Must be awesome to use almost any drive and still have a reliable big nas at home.

<comment><USER5> It's windows only, but storage spaces is a pretty good match for what you describe.

There are still some rough edges, but it's overall a pretty nice setup for me. I setup the virtual drive to require at least 2 copies of the data on the underlying disks (but there are options for 3 copies and more I believe), and then you can add and remove disks to the array kind of whenever you want. They can be different speeds, sizes, whatever.

<comment><USER3> Yup yup! ^

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad to see that HGST have the lowest failure rates across the board for the 3rd(?) year in a row. I was concerned they'd lose their place when they were bought by Western Digital.

<comment><USER7> I started buying HGST drives exclusively based on the Backblaze reports. Not a single failed drive (out of 8) failed on me so far.

<comment><USER8> Ditto. My new NAS has HGST drives because of Backblaze.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yev from Backblaze here -> Saw this go off in my twitter feed, I'll be here for any questions if you have them.

<comment><USER9> Big Backblaze fan. You guys have saved me a couple critical times!

I'm curious if your guys' view on NAS options is evolving at all?

My interest is this:

Here at Pixar we have several folks who I'd call "lazy power users" at home. Folks like us are familiar with computers, and we want a strong home network, but want to spend as little time as possible sysadmin-ing the thing. That generally means powerful, easy to manage wifi, proper firewalls, etc.....and networked storage/sharing & backup of all the family computers, from personal machines to spouse and kid setups.

For the circles I run in, this is a fairly common case, and no single service seems to fit the bill.

Backblaze seems so close (especially WRT "it just works"). If it could offer a "Home backup solution" as a service...oh man, I know of at least a hundred people who would sign up in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER10> > I'm curious if your guys' view on NAS options is evolving at all?

Our Backblaze "B2" product line was designed so that you get the exact same cost of storage of the online backup product line but you were free to write ANY policy you like (such as backup NAS boxes). Developers can use these APIs: [https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/) And if you are a "lazy power user" who wants something that just works, maybe check out one of these 3rd party tools: [https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html)

<comment><USER11> > I'm curious if your guys' view on NAS options is evolving at all?

It's simple, Backblaze "home" doesn't work on NAS boxes, but Backblaze B2 _does_ , Synology NAS supports it natively via the Cloud Sync package.

Backblaze home is $5 flat rate for a single machine.

Backblaze B2 has granular pricing but it's like <$20 a year cheap for several of my clients.

<comment><USER12> They have a pricing calculator on this page:

[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage- pricing.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html)

For what I want (a fairly static 2 TB backup), it would cost around $130 / year. If my QNAP box supports it, I think I'm going to sign up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like those Seagates are still disappointingly failure-prone, while HGST remains the most reliable.

</comment><comment><USER14> Backblaze won me over because they publish this stuff. I'm actually working with the backblaze b2 api now because of some stats they published earlier.

</comment><comment><USER15> I understand that backblaze probably uses spinnies all around, but would love to see an SSD version of this!

</comment><comment><USER16> These guys need an Internet tip jar.

<comment><USER17> It's called, "using their service."

<comment><USER3> Yes, there's also that :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> HGST continues to be the most reliable HDD. I am not surprised but I hope WD doesn't fuck it up. Lenovo bought IBM X-series , while that continues to perform well, I have little confident in Lenovo and its commitment.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, what's the deal with Seagate's 4TB drives failing so often?

<comment><USER13> Seagate's recent history shows they haven't been great at producing reliable drives:

[https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/Al...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/All-thru-Q4-2016-Failure-Rates.jpg)

Notice the rows where the number of failures is higher than the number of drives. That means the replacements failed too.

Edit: the 3TB Seagate is apparently infamous enough to have its own Wiki page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST3000DM001](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST3000DM001)

Only the "large" Seagates (6TB and above) seem to be doing OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Impressive performance by HGST..

<comment><USER20> Although WD bought HGST [1], it is interesting WD performs worse than them.

[1] [https://www.wdc.com/about-wd/newsroom/announcements/wdc- acqu...](https://www.wdc.com/about-wd/newsroom/announcements/wdc-acquires- hgst.html)

<comment> rkuykendall-com It makes sense, right? Keep selling decent quality WD branded drives to consumers who don't care for best-in-industry MTTF, often in external enclosures, but buy HGST so you also get money from super nerds.

<comment><USER21> The way Black & Decker bought deWalt.

<comment><USER22> They bought the Cadillac of shooting nails.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mormons using the Web to control their own image - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mormons-using-the-web-to-control-their-own-image/2011/08/11/gIQA1J6BMJ_story.html?hpid=z3 <comment><USER2> When I was young, say 10-13 years old, I had a mormon jingle stuck in my head, at one point I thought it was divine intervention, leading me to cryptic origins: "ladder day saints", at the time I wondered what the heck that was, a ladder with saints on it? It would take me another 12 years for me to learn enough about psychology and jedi mind control to figure out that this jingle stuck in my head (making me thing it was divine) was hand crafted by a humans.

We have to be careful to immunize the children against this bacteria that transfers over the medium of TV, radio and google search. Forget to do so and you find your kids committing everything they are, every last dollar to a mind control cult. Good citizens don't let their children become prey to drones.

It is wrong to use a mastery of psychology to get people to dance like puppets and give you money. If I find you doing this to others, I will work to expose you.

<comment><USER3> Man. I would hate to be Kit Kat... "gimme a break off that Kit Kat bar" or anyone else who has a series of words said in a semi rhythmic fashion...

So you got a few words stuck in your head. That doesn't mean it's part of a sinister plot to brainwash you. Occam's Razor.

<comment><USER2> I'm not a brainwashed Mormon today, so ultimately their evil plot didn't work. Though there are probably many kids everywhere in the world today wondering if a religious jingle that they can't get out of their head has some cosmic meaning when it has a message with 'god' in it.</comment></comment></comment>


Envy's Hidden Hand - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-inequality-bothers-people-more-than-poverty <comment><USER2> The article doesn't say if the tribes were exceeding Dunbar's number ?

> And most of the time everyone went to some lengths to avoid being singled > out for selfishness or self-importance. Unsurprisingly, this created an > atmosphere that was harmonious and that was torn asunder only rarely when > someone felt wronged.

Can we assume the atmosphere was good just like that ?

A good book on the topic - on the opposite side of this article - is Helmut Schoeck's "Envy" ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schoeck#Envy:_A_Theory_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schoeck#Envy:_A_Theory_of_Social_Behaviour) ), in which the author rather assume that theses kind of societies were oppressive and gives example of people fleeing out of there in hope to build a better future for them

<comment><USER3> It's quite common for people to idealize something foreign they don't understand, whether a romanticized tribal life or some mythical Shangri-La in the East.

And on egalitarian: [http://www.cslewis.com/c-s-lewis-and-kurt-vonnegut-on- egalit...](http://www.cslewis.com/c-s-lewis-and-kurt-vonnegut-on-egalitarian- tyranny/)

<comment><USER4> Well whatever we think of the overall point on equality, I have to congratulate Lewis on:

 _The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems eerily familiar to The Law of Jante[1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

</comment><comment><USER6> This has to be one of the most dishonest pieces of writing I've ever read. Why stick the thesis, namely: "envy and resentment are good," at the bottom? Why pepper the article with Marxist terms like "late capitalism"? Is it maybe because the author is trying to trick you into agreeing with them?

I thank the author for keeping me on my toes about intellectual dishonesty.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "late capitalism" bit stuck out like a sore thumb for me, too.

Regardless of the author's agenda, I found the article worthwhile for really calling to my attention the powerful role that envy possibly plays in various human societies.</comment></comment>


1500 Lines of Code - <AUTHOR> http://terrychay.com/article/1500-lines-of-code.shtml

<comment><USER2> WTF 1500??? a day?

<comment><USER3> If the problem is moderately complex and you've thought about how to solve it, sure, why not. I could see it happening on rare occasions; at that point, its just a matter of writing the solution down properly, not solving the problem anymore.

Or maybe the 1500 lines includes tests or Allman style code and you're counting {}'s..

<comment><USER4> In a 10 hour day, 1500 lines is 150 lines/hour, or roughly 2.5 lines/minute, or a line every 24 seconds. That's theoretically possible, but I have trouble believing that you could keep it up for a whole 10 hours, unless the work you're doing is _completely_ mindless. And if that's the case, why did it take you 1500 lines?

Now, I just mailed off a code review yesterday that probably has over 1500 lines of diffs (it's 44 files, and I could believe that each file is easily averaging 30 lines). However, most of those are just deleting a line or two and then changing the indentation of the whole file to match. The change as a whole is behavior-neutral: it doesn't actually _do_ anything. It's pretty easy to get distorted statistics like that - often the changes with the most lines do the least.</comment></comment></comment>


Instacart has raised another $200M at a $4.2B valuation - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/instacart-has-raised-another-200m-at-a-4-2b-valuation/ <comment><USER3> I have never had a good experience with instacart. I've ordered from them probably 10-15 times and every single time, without fail, they either forget an item or replace an item with another item that I don't want. This makes the service unusable, because if I'm cooking dinner that night and want to order instacart, there's a high likelyhood I'll be missing something crucial for my recepie, meaning I'll have to go to the store anyway.

Not to mention the shady fees. The last time I used instacart, there was a box checked called "service fee", I clicked on it to see what it was and it said "this $10 charge is optional and helps us keep running instacart". Meanwhile the tip for your driver box is not checked. I bet a large number of people assume the service fee is the tip, and leave tip blank. Blatant tip stealing.

Plus they mark up everything you buy, and obfuscate this so it's impossible to really know how much extra instacart is skimming off the top.

Amazing prime now on the other hand has never messed up an order. They always deliver on time. The prices are actually cheaper in some cases than in store.

I can't wait for instacart to go out of business.

<comment><USER4> as an engineer at instacart, it's very disheartening for me to see the top- rated comment on HN is "I can't wait for instacart to go out of business."

even if we did not provide value to you (which i apologize for -- it is a priority of ours to improve the replacement experience in particular as it is very frustrating to customers), i am not sure why that implies that we do not provide a valuable service for others and why you would wish ill on us.

perhaps it is because you think of us as an overall unscrupulous company ("shady fees", "mark up everything you buy"), which i would contest -- we strive for transparency when possible (see [1] for screenshots around how we describe the pricing of our service). but the larger point remains -- why do you think that there can only be one victor here, and that is has to be amazon? (or "amazing" as you put it).

right now, amazon is very explicitly coming for the grocery industry -- an $800+ billion industry that is almost 100% offline -- and we are attempting to be one of the (hopefully many) independent companies that enables it online. grocery companies have built amazing fulfillment pipelines and relationships with both farms & customers that we are building a front-end and logistics system for.

anyways, i do not speak for instacart as a company, just for myself as an employee who usually enjoys HN.

[1] [https://imgur.com/a/j47ls](https://imgur.com/a/j47ls)

<comment><USER5> Saying "we charge markups, but we won't tell you what they are" is still not sufficiently transparent, in my opinion. Yes, Amazon and grocery stores do the same thing (at face value, anyway) by not disclosing their COGS. But the key difference is that my next-best alternative to Instacart is to just go to the grocery store myself. My next-best alternative to getting something delivered from Amazon isn't to get it more cheaply from a brick-and-mortar Amazon store, or to buy it directly from their suppliers - it's to get it from a different retailer entirely, and I can trivially compare all-in prices between other retailers and Amazon. So I can easily assess whether it makes sense from a cost/benefit perspective to buy something on Amazon, but I can't make the same assessment for Instacart.

I do think the service creates value. But I still hope that, at the very least, it soon faces enough competition that it's at least forced to be fully transparent about the cost of its service. I want to see one number - <USER2> difference between what an order of groceries costs me on Instacart all-in, and what it would cost me to go to the grocery store and purchase the same items myself. As long as I can't trivially find or calculate that number, I won't use Instacart again.

<comment><USER4> i am very confused why you have a higher bar for this than other services. would you actually create a spreadsheet that values your time (against other alternatives), gas/lyft/train fare to and back from the store, the extra costs associated with actually being in a retailer (and seeing the specials in store etc) and compare that against our offering?

and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup -- those are coming from the retailer directly, who may (or may not) mark up prices, which is their prerogative. we put all of our costs in the checkout screen transparently.

<comment><USER6> >> and again, we aren't the ones doing the markup

So you claim, but since you refuse to list what the IC markup is then it's impossible for us to tell. You're essentially using the retailer markup as an excuse to hide instances of when you do it yourself.

Thus the lack of transparency.

In any given transaction, I have NO idea what the actual % that was added by IC. I do not have this problem with Amazon Prime.

<comment><USER4> again, in 99.99% of the cases, we aren't doing the markup.

and, in the one case where we do not have a signed relationship with the retailer, we do explicitly note the percentage.

we aren't hiding anything. and, you have that precise problem with amazon prime -- what markup are they charging?

<comment><USER7> If any markup exists, and if Instacart splits some of that markup with the retailer, it seems like obscuring the facts to state that Instacart does not charge a _separate_ markup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Imagine that Netflix launched as a courier service that would take your order and then go to the video store and try to get it and bring it to you. That seems kind of crazy even with the knowledge (in hindsight) that videos would later be digitized and Netflix would be in a position to move from middleman to market-maker.

But I just don't see any opportunity for Instacart to get out of the middleman role. Maybe they can make a lot of money helping grocery conglomerates try to spend their way out of a technology deficit vis-a-vis Amazon. But if that were true they would they need hundreds of millions of VC dollars?

</comment><comment><USER9> From an outsiders perspective this looks like a bad investment. But I'm an outsider, so I know I don't have all the information. I would love to get an insiders perspective on why this is a good investment.

My two main concerns:

1) Amazon and Whole Foods: Are they not a concern?

2) Economic downturn: Will people still order groceries at a premium?

<comment><USER10> I assume instacart has a liquidity event (IPO) lined up for the near future (next 12 months), and a few late stage and previous investors are laying down a cash runway to get the company there. Notably this round ($200m) was less than their last round 1 year ago ($400m) so it seems growth has slowed and its time for an exit.

So its not a bet, its a holdover cash infusion until the IPO, and is not exactly risky given how mature and well-capitalized the company is at this point.

The only real bet is that they'll be able to IPO before a market downturn, which seems pretty safe, I have yet to see anyone put forth and truly plausible triggers for another large global recession - there are no debt and enforcement chains I can see that would drag the system under again. But I'm not a financial expert, just an armchair economist, and if I knew what would trigger the next recession I wouldn't be posting here ;)

<comment><USER11> >I have yet to see anyone put forth and truly plausible triggers for another large global recession - there are no debt and enforcement chains I can see that would drag the system under again

that's not an indication of anything. has there been anyone who were able to predict the last few recessions with reasonable accuracy?

<comment><USER10> ok, and yes there were a few traders and economists who did ("the big short" follows 3 of these traders' stories), but in order to trade you need to have a thesis for what and when to buy.

there are tons of gloom and doom traders and economists (usually trying to sell "safe" or alternative assets) but i have yet to read any clear, compelling cases laying out what and when to buy when the first domino falls that will set off the next recession. i'd be interested to read anything you've found noteworthy

<comment><USER12> The typical advice for the beginning of a market downturn is to buy bonds, which usually act as a safe haven from those fleeing stocks (perhaps untrue currently though). Alternatively, some propose purchasing blue chip dividend yielding stocks, as money moves from risky stocks to tried and true ones.

During a recession/large market correction, you're looking to hold all cash and just buy stocks cheap after they drop all the way to their lowest point (think Ford or AIG in 2008).

The problem with these strategies is that market events usually occur over sufficiently long time frames to obscure their size and direction. Looking back at 2007/2008, Lehman was the obvious "moment" but the market and economy didn't nose-dive instantly to their nadir on the collapse of Lehman Bros. It feels like there was a "moment", but it was only obvious in hindsight.

<comment><USER10> I'm not talking about safe assets, I'm talking about what to buy now in advance of whatever crash is coming :)

For example leading up to the 2007 crash the pros that saw weakness in the mortgage market created and bought "credit default swaps" allowing them to bet against mortgage-based securities

<comment><USER12> Ah, well if you could go back in time to last week, you could have made a fortune with put options on VIX ETFs before some of them failed. Volatility being at such a tremendous low is definitely unusual and the possibility of ETF failures was baked in. Maybe in a few years we'll see a movie about people with foresight making money off of that event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As I remember, Instacart's main business was Whole Foods delivery. When Amazon bought Whole Foods they obviously lost that market, but there was some optimism presented because now suddenly every store has to compete with Amazon and would look to Instacart as a ready-made provider of this service.

But I am not so sure this will work out. Instacart builds some of their fees into item prices. If you're shopping at Whole Foods you're already signaling some price insensitivity, and you likely won't notice a few nickels added to these already premium items.

However if you shop at somewhere like Safeway, this may not work. The price competition is way more intense and consumers are much more sensitive to the price of essentials.

Maybe the idea is that anyone who orders groceries from a hip mobile app like Instacart is someone who can afford the convenience premium? I am just not convinced that they can really ever recover from Amazon here. Plus these other chains may want to do business with Instacart today, but in the long term they'll probably invest in their own delivery services and cut out the middle man.

Instacart is a pretty legit business, but $4.2B is a lot for a middleman in an industry that is synonymous with low margins.

<comment><USER14> Instacart hasn't lost Whole Foods. You can still get deliveries. (Though who knows whether this will last, or whether it can compete on price with Amazon's own offerings.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Surprised nobody has mentioned a different, sort-of competing model. Here in Nashville (and I assume other locations), Kroger offers ClickList[0]. Basically, order ahead of time via their website and select when you want to pick up from the store (w/o leaving your car).

It doesn't have the convenience of delivery, plus you typically have to order a day in advance, but it seems like the benefits would be that a) the people doing the picking are employees of the store, b) you're unlikely to not have a deliverable order, and c) you're probably out anyways and can schedule around your pickup.

Maybe this is more valuable outside of bigger cities, but I see people using it all the time around here. I haven't used it myself quite yet.

[0] [https://www.kroger.com/topic/clicklist](https://www.kroger.com/topic/clicklist)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, so they've raised close to $1bn so far! Wonder how many of these delivery services like Doordash, Postmates, Grubhub, Caviar, Uber eats etc will survive the next economic downturn.

<comment><USER17> As a former restaurateur, I would like to tell you, contrary to popular opinion, during the last major economic downturn in 2008 (2009 for me since I was in a southern state, and the downturn hit us a bit later than most), spending money out to eat actually went _up_.

The theory goes a little something like this -- people actually spend more money on themselves to cheer themselves up when life gets shittier. So folks, too depressed to cook, would go out and at least try to eat, drink, and be merry.

Now how this correlates to these dining services has yet to be determined.

<comment><USER18> Surprisingly, most poor people order takeaways the most around here, as well.

<comment><USER17> It's not surprising to me, it all ties back to the reality that it is more expensive to be poor than not. If you are poor, you most likely don't have the ability to keep a kitchen stocked with cooking essentials (spices are expensive), pots, pans, the increased water and heating cost to run a dishwasher and oven. Never mind the fact that most people living paycheck to paycheck are going from job to job and are physically exhausted at the end of the day. And that's for the people who were able to afford housing, then you have poor people stuck in shitty motels because they can't afford first month's rent and a security deposit. Those usually only have microwaves and a mini fridge.

Often times, going to McDonalds is your best option. The Government also subsidizes Big Food, so that factors. Getting 4 McDoubles for 4 dollars in 5 minutes driving through the drive thru next to your house so you can get back home to your kids and see them for the couple hours you have in between jobs versus spending 30 min to an hour buying a pound of ground beef, buns, cheese, lettuce, tomatos, the energy and utilities cost and the lost opportunity cost of the time spent cooking and cleaning when you could be working, it isn't hard to see why poor people choose the fast food.

<comment><USER19> The energy and other utilities for 1 meal will be like $0.30.

So that barely registers compared to time and ingredients.

<comment><USER17> Bad credit affects utility costs. Most impoverished people have bad credit. Again, being poor costs more in almost all areas of life in America. Contrary to popular belief, utilities are not a right. Utility companies have the right to refuse you if you have enough delinquent payments, can't front the deposit (if you have bad credit) or even outright refuse you (if you have terrible credit). Even on the FTC's website, their advice if you have trouble paying your utilities is basically to "budget harder"

<comment><USER18> Wow, I didn't know it was that bad. Being denied utilities based on credit score... damn. Do you have prepaid meters by any chance?

It's the standard option for those who fail to pay their bills on time here.

With a prepaid, you load up money and it turns off your gas/electrical once the prepaid amount is exhausted.

Water is exempt, no one can turn off the water at a residential address, no matter how long you haven't paid...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Terrifying, considering this one will be one of the first companies to go the minute this roaring economy goes sour.

</comment><comment><USER21> Instacart's biggest issue is not knowing real-time inventory. Amazon will never have this issue, because they just bought Whole Foods. Instacart, on the other hand, relies on crowdsourced shopper data to manage this.

The results is basically a hit and miss experience. My guess is they hope to get this inventory data direct from the stores one day, but who knows if they will.

</comment><comment><USER22> So with that money, can they finally afford to pay living wages to the people who make their service possible?

</comment><comment><USER23> As soon as Uber launches UberEverything , Instacart will be bleeding tons of money. I already left Postmates and Seamless for UberEats. Fast, predictable and more options.

If Uber could get more grocery delivery services and keep the onus of packing things on the stores vs delivery boys picking things, it will be more reliable.

</comment><comment><USER24> I really hope this money goes towards their customer service infrastructure, and the quality of their workers. As an Instacart Express customer (their premium offer for free delivery) since 2013, I can say the customer service has gone downhill significantly. I can elaborate some here more...

\- Their quality of workers have gone down. I don't know if they have just lowered the bar for who they hire, or if the workers are too focused on competing orders that they just don't care anymore. I'm not exactly sure.

For example, in the app there is a setting option you (as a user) can set to explicitly request a phone call me if there is any replacements to confirm them. In the past year, I don't think any workers have followed this setting. And I understand that is maybe because Instacart has added some of that functionality in app, but that doesn't really work all the time. I have also recently had more and more Instacart workers who will make the "replacement" requests in the last 2 seconds of shopping so you have no ability to actually "approve/deny" the things they pick. I believe they do this on purpose so they don't have to do as much work trying to communicate with their user they are shopping for. It probably shaves off time they have for completing other orders. So, by this "evil" tactic I've seen them start to use more and more, you can't actually control the replacements. You just get what they assumed you may want for the replacement. This is incredibly frustrating as a user to have happen to your order. Instacart has been good at refunding me for the bad replacements, but if they would have just called (like I marked in the app), we could have resolved the issue in store, and it would be all good. I don't understand why Instacart still has this setting if no workers are going to follow it anymore. They need to get this sorted out. Either informing their workers, or forcing app users to explicitly approve/deny in app before it closes that opportunity.

\- Their up-sell fees have gotten outrageously greedy. It seems they are just rounding up to the highest potential possible and then charging that. They are transparent that some stores have higher prices, I understand that, but it's frustrating when certain items are way too up-priced. Meat being a perfect example. If you just want to get 1 ribeye steak, the app will say it will be $20, but then when you get the piece of meat it will still have the price label on it saying it was say $8. Instacart doesn't do any price adjustment to factor that and just charges $20, unless you contact their customer support and complain. On top of that, last time their customer support wouldn't even change it until I complained on Twitter. Then they finally took care of it.

\- They used to give debit/credit card refunds for mistakes. Now they just give you a credit to your next order. I absolutely HATE this practice that companies sometimes do. It's so anti-consumer. You can't call it a refund if I'm forced to use your service again to actually be redeemed. That's a credit, not a refund. I don't get why they changed to this model, other than to speculate that their poor customer service has bit them in the butt so it's easier to give the user "monopoly" money to be forced to come back to use it, rather than just giving them a true refund. I'm not sure.

Those are just a few things that I've started to notice way more frequently. And I'll be 100% clear, this has all happened within the last year. I had 0 problems until the past year. I have no clue why it took such a dramatic fall. In the past year, there hasn't been a SINGLE order where I haven't had to contact customer support to fix something. And it's getting obvious that even their support is caring less and less about helping. Like making me have to go as far as get "social media justice" for them to fix their problems.

It's a bad trend I've seen. I'm optimistic that they can turn it around, and hopefully this money can help with that. I will not be renewing my Instacart Express this year, that's for sure. Will probably give them a few orders to redeem themselves after that and see. If it's still poor service, they will have lost a loyal customer all because of poor quality/scaling. But I'm also just 1 user. I get everyone may have different experiences.

</comment><comment><USER25> I know these businesses are very regional. Where we are Instacart has some insane prices and Shipt is absolutely kicking their butts on service. I'm having trouble understanding the $4.2B valuation given their execution.

</comment><comment><USER26> Another valueless "disruption" being injected play money to destabilise the semblance of healthy capitalism we had on a macro level.

Venture capital enables subsidies to speculative companies in hope of a small probability of profit, which destroys perfectly good small companies [0] , and acts as a libertarian version of socialism [1]. This exposes the fabric of a normal economy to small stressors, a couple of which may hit it big and destroy entire industries. This has its brutal repercussions [2] which are not only economical, but also social, as the sum of jobs destroyed is bigger than the new ones created, at least in low innovation sectors, and which makes extremist movements grow out of the general frustration with the state of things (isn't Trump the result of "disruption" in politics too?).

However, in my opinion Universal Basic Income will fix all the major problems acting effectively as a universal VC - and paradoxically a healthy one as not guided by buzzwords or credentialism, which should be the only way any subsidy work, as it frees everyone from black swan risks which are fruit of unexpected outcomes of technological advances (and a good thing per se), and enables them to work on bettering the world in an amazing way (my speculation). Until the AI comes along... Well, that's for another story.

[0] [https://m.signalvnoise.com/venture-capital-is-going-to- murde...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/venture-capital-is-going-to-murder- medium-656cbccf4829)

[1] [https://medium.com/@willszal/venture-capital-as- socialism-47...](https://medium.com/@willszal/venture-capital-as- socialism-478770b9715b)

[2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology- is-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology-is- destroying-jobs/)

Edit: build an argument

<comment><USER27> Even though I agree with you, it would make for a much better conversation if you provided some evidence yourself instead of insisting the onus is on others to prove you wrong.

<comment><USER26> You're right, I sound like a prick even though I hadn't meant it.

I'll grab some data later on to construct a more compelling case against this type of funding.

<comment><USER4> as an instacart engineer, i'd be super curious as well. i haven't seen many actual data-driven cases (noting this honestly and thank you for acknowledging the attitude in your initial comment :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Made in China 2025" is going to cause Beijing more headaches than anyone - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-22/trump-pressure-on-made-in-china-2025-is-doing-beijing-a-favor <comment><USER2> In fact the problems China has created have little or nothing to do with China 2025 and everything to do with Mr. Xi becoming China's "President for life" a while ago.

The trade with emerging Asian countries has historically been that the West gives them a leg up and in return the West expects them to eventually embrace becoming a liberal democracy. China under Mr. Xi has broken the pact that's why the West is no longer willing to indulge China 2025 or a lot of other China initiatives.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't say I mind too much about subsidies for solar panels and electric vehicles regardless of the motivation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Crabs in a bucket. We can't have China investing in high technology, then we'd have to invest too!

<comment><USER5> Its such a crass perversion of incentives..</comment></comment>