Real estate site Redfin files for IPO - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/30/real-estate-site-redfin-files-for-ipo/ <comment><USER2> I hope this company sees nothing but success.

I bought my house through Redfin last year, and not only did I save ~$5k in commissions compared to a conventional realtor, I also felt the process was much smoother and more pleasant than other times I've interacted with a conventional realtor.

It's simply absurd that in an era where any buyer can view photos of a house for sale online real estate agents still expect to receive 6% commission on the sale of a house.

<comment><USER3> Let me offer a different viewpoint.

Redfin absolutely serves a purpose, but in some markets, notably for my case very hot markets, it's a significant impediment. I really wanted redfin to work, shopping in seattle 2 years ago. I tried for almost a year, but they would consistently be not as contactable or prompt as we wanted, and gave us very erroneous advice when it came to crafting offers on some houses we wanted. As a result we lost out on houses when we could have been competitive.

Eventually we got a very solid realtor, who was aggressive in finding us houses that would slip through our normal searches (the house we ended up buying had been on the market for a long time at a higher price than they eventually relisted it for, in an area we had discounted.) When a bidding war started, he worked with us by being connected with the selling agent, gave us very accurate hints on how we'd need to push and what would work to our advantage, and landed both the deal and some back and forth that happened after.

Downside, this was after 2 years of searching and losing out on houses I frankly today still regret not getting. An hour+ commute sucks, and I attribute some of my early failures to not getting an experienced/knowledgeable/active realtor earlier.

YMMV but that's the caveat from my experience.

<comment><USER4> I bought a house in SF three years ago through Redfin. The realtor that Redfin gave us was prompt, aggressive, and thorough in the bidding/closing process.

What he didn't do is drive us around to open houses or suggest places to us. Which we didn't want anyway.

I suspect that the individual realtor you get through Redfin has a big impact on your experience with the site. It sounds like you got a bad one and were unhappy. We got a good one and were happy.

<comment><USER5> This is really confusing. I just bought a house in the UK, and the process is as follows:

1\. Look for house on Rightmove or Zoopla. 2\. Call the estate agent or private seller to arrange a viewing. 3\. Show up at the appropriate time. Look at house. 4\. Make an offer. Offer gets accepted/rejected/they want more. Repeat until you get it or get outbid or give up. 5\. Offer agreed (hopefully). Now do all the actual buying through mortgage brokers and solicitors.

The estate agents charge the sellers a percentage, which is cheeky because they do almost nothing - the only reason you should ever use one is if you are incapable of taking photos or really can't spare a few evenings to show people around the house.

But nobody ever drives you to see houses or finds them for you. How does it work in America?

<comment><USER3> I can only speak of hot markets in America, which are VERY different than many others, but at least within that:

A "reasonable" house goes on the market. ("reasonable" defined by <1 mil, within an hour commute of a city center) This house will usually be sold within a week or two. Usually less. Definitely less, if it's actually priced within middle-class-affordability (and I laughably define that as ~400-500k). I've seen houses sell the day they listed. The selling process involves showing up at the house during an open house (viewings are possible but rarer in hot markets as typically it's a race to get your offer in and sellers know they don't need to be accommodating; even viewing my house during the closing process was a "if we can fit it in" sort of thing from the seller side) You don't really get to "repeat". If you're very lucky they MAY tell you a competing bid went over your escalation threshold, but for 80% of the houses I put offers on, they look at the escalation guidelines and offers and just make a choice right there. Typically at least someone has offered +50/100k in cash and is going without a loan, so they'll often nab the house without a back and forth with any of the other offers. If the seller agrees, the closing begins. The buyer usually gets 1 shot to make an impression for a given house, usually having to put the offer together within 12 hours/a couple of days max, having seen the house once, usually with a bunch of other people.

A real estate agent helped me in multiple steps of the above.

\- Having an offer ready ahead of time with lots of contingencies/tradeoffs well understood so we could tune it quickly and get it out and under the wire.

\- Knowing how and where to look for houses before listing, IMMEDIATELY after listing, and that may have been listed ages ago/at bad prices.

\- Able to get us contacts with the sellers if an open house time won't work/if we need to ask questions.

\- When our BOA agent left us high and dry, he hooked us up with a trusted local lender with a good reputation and used his prior working relationship with her to get our file pushed through in a ridiculous timeline over a weekend so that we could put in a competing bid. (as I said, timelines are nutso)

\- Gave us advice on what parts of our offer would have what impact, to what sellers. e.g. 5k vs 3k vs 10k escalation steps? What other caveats? Should compromise on preinspection? etc.

\- If anything went wrong, if we had followup questions, needed contacts, he would be extremely accessible, would give us contiguous care (and thus knew what our preferences were, what we were looking for, what offers we were comfortable with/what our finances were) which saved time in rehashing that every few weeks with a new agent; and given that you WILL lose most of the offers you make, this process can go on a very long time so continuity is nice. (we were on the market 1-2 years)

<comment><USER6> Did you look at areas that haven't been gentrified?

Plenty within 1 hour of Seattle that are affordable.

<comment><USER3> That's more or less where I ended up buying, and managed ~400 for a respectable 3b2b. That being said, the gentrification is spreading so aggressively and was already well in place even when I bought; in the last month 3 of my neighbors went on sale, all sold within a week at far higher prices than comparable for when I bought. (I only had... 2 other bidders, if I recall, when I bought, so it's certainly less hot than redmond where 10-15 competing was common)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm still waiting for someone to completely eliminate the realtor and charge a reasonable flat fee ($1000?) to buy/sell a house and handle all the related details.

Why do we need realtors at this point? Everyone finds houses themselves online nowadays. Why does anyone need to pay a whopper commission to some middle-man?

<comment><USER8> "I'm still waiting for someone to completely eliminate the need for a software engineer and charge a reasonable flat fee to bolt together some libraries and handle all the related details.

Why do we even need software engineers at this point? Everyone can find the libraries and open source tools they need online nowadays. Why does anyone need to pay a whopper paycheck to some middle-man?"

You're paying for someone's expertise, like in most industries.

<comment><USER9> I generally have a different opinion. I am somewhat in the industry (construction side) and I feel that generally most realtors dont really have much knowledge of what they are selling. Furthermore, it is relatively easy to get a real estate license (at least where I live) and the handful of acquaintances that have gotten their license really dont know more than the average person.

I actually find the lack of knowledge of most realtors very surprising (not that there arent some really good ones out there). When we were working with one to find a home, we would walk into a place and our realtor would look through the listing sheet and be like "oooh they supposedly have a good quality insulation in their walls", I would then need to explain to him what an R value means and that no they truly didnt have good insulation and what they were using as a marketing point was in fact the minimum required by code. I would then point out a few other items (jump ducts, hollow core doors, etc) that would make me feel like I was walking into a Habitat for Humanity type of home, not a $600,000+ residence.

Buying a home is the largest single investment people are likely to make in their lifetime and they have almost 0 knowledge about what they are buying and do almost no research into it other than the location. They then rely on input from someone regarding what they are buying that has very little additional information other than comparable sales and "knowledge" of the market. I wrote a business plan a little while around this, but never took past just putting some ideas on paper.

<comment><USER10> This is so true. Not only do they typically not know anything more about nay given home that you, the buyer, do. If they are on the selling side they will also outright lie about home features. I experienced this so many times on houses I visited and even on the house I ultimately purchased.

You just have you shrug your shoulders and fix whatever they misrepresented.

<comment><USER11> In my state you should file a complaint against that agent with the department/office that oversees real estate licensing. And you might be eligible to be compensated for the agents misrepresentations if you can prove them.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to. Some of the things seem difficult to prove. Such as

> Welcome Home!!! Take a seat on the PORCH SWING on your COVERED DECK and > enjoy the Fall Season! Come inside this cozy home and view it's OPEN FLOOR > PLAN [calling this open floor plan is a big stretch], Original HARDWOOD > Floors [and they are destroyed as a result. Water damage. literally cut > through to put in a furnace in the basement in one place. Covered by a > carpet in the living room and destroyed as a result] and FRESH Neutral > Paint. Two bedrooms and a LARGE full bath [probably as small as it gets > while still being a full bath] on the Main Floor with a SUNNY eat-in Kitchen > and Conveniently located MUDROOM, additional bedroom/office in the basement > [not legally a bedroom]. This home features Updated ELECTRICAL [in some > places sure. Half the house is still crappy old cloth wrapped wire], Updated > PLUMBING throughout, Living Room is WIRED for SURROUND SOUND, [broken] > SPRINKLER SYSTEM and NEW Roof with a LIFETIME transferrable Warranty! > Detached Garage has HEAT & A/C, Wired for Cable and LAN line [a CAT5 cable > that terminates in the floor and is not accessible to be hooked up to > anything because it's in the floor!], has Electric [electricity to the > building no where near code because it is fed from two sources] and a HUGE > Attic space to Provide LOTS of EXTRA STORAGE. This home has a Private > COVERED PATIO in the back where you can relax and enjoy YOUR NEW HOME!

There was more in the listing than this but that's just the basic bio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm very interested in why many people believe a realtor should receive a percentage of the home's sale price as compensation but not the:

\- inspector (arguably a good one is more useful than realtor by pointing out foundation problems and other issues that can cost 10s of thousands)

\- attorney (again, arguably more useful. they can point out clauses and things like flood zone, unpermitted work, liens on the property, etc.)

\- appraiser (you might not even be able to get a loan if the house appraises for less than the purchase price, unless you can foot the difference and/or waive appraisal contingency)

\- lender (unless you're paying all cash. some lenders have vastly different interest rates they can offer you, given a credit score. this can save you 10s of thousands).

Additionally, it doesn't really make sense. The realtor's value is not proportional to the price of the home. Even if you believe a realtor is extremely valuable, a house being twice as much in price wouldn't make them twice as valuable.

Redfin is definitely an interesting step in the right direction towards fixed fee realty.

<comment><USER13> Same reason that app stores charge a 30% commission instead of a flat fee. Prices are what the market will bear and prices are controlled by a cartel that runs the marketplace (the MLS members)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's a great piece by Ben Thompson discussing the economics and markets of such services:

        Both limit growth: regular agents with a stake in the
        current system steer home buyers away from Redfin
        properties, and hiring and training agents who aren't
        interested in the upside from commission takes a lot of
        time and money.

[https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth- emulat...](https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulating/)

Why the flat-fee brokerage Allre had to close shop:

        All of these internet companies that profess to want to
        disintermediate the real estate business – just as they
        did with the travel agency business (everyone even uses
        the same analogy) – forget one major fact: buying and/or
        selling a home is often the largest, most complicated
        transaction a person may undertake.

[https://therealdaily.com/editorials/allre-startup-thinks- imm...](https://therealdaily.com/editorials/allre-startup-thinks-immune- brokerage-laws-may-lose-main-partner-even-launch/)

<comment><USER15> >Here's a great piece by Ben Thompson discussing the economics and markets of such services:

Most of the article is about OpenDoor. I don't think that quote about Redfin describes the situation very well.

I don't think there is evidence that agents with buyers steer them away from Redfin and it wouldn't work very well since almost all buyers will go to a site with MLS listings and see what is on the market. Redfin takes a lowered commission on their business, they don't lower the commission to the buying agent.

In terms of hiring, they allow agents to get away from the continual cold calling/door knocking and self promotion they need to do to attract the next customer and they offer a stable salary and a support staff to take care of the mundane stuff like arranging inspections, etc. I don't think they have a problem getting job applicants. (Not associated with Redfin, but a happy customer.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had a superb experience with them in 2012 despite being a nightmare customer. Chose Refin because their blog was so good. I bought a 2nd house in the same neighborhood. It started out odd because part of their onboarding is asking "Where do you want the check sent?", because, you know, you save so much using them. I knew it would be fake but whatever. (It wasn't--I did indeed get the $10K check almost immediately upon closing.) Problem is that my bank thought I was a terrorist, despite the fact that I have literally 12 accounts with them (several businesses, savings, checking, etc.). I put down 20% on an $890K loan. My income is closer to $800K than $500K and my other house in the neighborhood was already paid for. The simple act of moving the $200K into an account ready to write the check spooked the bank and they literally treated me like a terrorist. Suddenly everything took infinite amounts of time to handle and resulted in triple the usual paperwork. It was excruciating.

The bank (Bank of America, of course) caused so much trouble that I finally decided to pull out and lose my $20K earnest money. (I had chosen B of A on the theory that they already knew all about me, and also because they offered a killer ARM.) The mortgage officer literally quit his job over his bank's bungled handling of my sale. Somehow they came through, by this time, 3 months after I had made the offer. I was actually paying $100/day to the sellers because at this point they had moved out and were in a hotel and weren't able to close on their own new house.

Anyway, my agent at Redfin was a champ, even when I told her I was quitting. So she had way more trouble than a full-service agent with none of the upside. The whole thing on Redfin's side was precisely as advertised.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bought my house via redfin and very satisfied with the process. It's also a bonus for buyers, they send you a refund check for a portion of the commission that normally all goes to agents.

Their agents may have less experience or knowledge, but as long as you get highly rated/reviewed service providers (lawyer/inspector/etc), that's all that matters. When I sell my current house it will definitely be via redfin. So much is now done online, why pay high commission to traditional realty companies?

This is indeed an industry ripe for change, and redfin is definitely doing just that.

</comment><comment><USER18> I bought through Redfin five years ago.

Actually, we offered on two houses, backed out after poor inspections, and then purchased the third house in a competitive multi-bid environment all in a few months. With Redfin I never felt the kind of sales/relationship pressure to close a deal that I did when buying with traditional realtors. The only reason we didn't sell our Condo through Redfin is I wanted someone in the neighborhood who could help coordinate painting, staging, etc in the lead up to the listing.

All and all a great experience.

</comment><comment><USER19> Having completed thousands of home sales at Opendoor, I believe a system will works better for most home sales, but local expertise works better for high- end homes.

An agent always make you feel like their differentiation matters. Redfin advertises their refined process across thousands of homes to sell faster for more money. Your neighbor advertises their local expertise and awareness to get you an edge.

We joke that real estate is like politics – Everyone hates real estate agents, but loves their real estate agent.

<comment><USER20> Does Opendoor primarily work with high-end homes or your "average" home (relative to the area of course)?

Also thoughts on Ben Thompson's analysis on your company ([https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth- emulat...](https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulating/))?

<comment><USER19> Our average purchase price is in the low 200,000's. We work with the middle 80% of homeowners.

Huge Ben Thompson fan, and waking up to his analysis that morning was a joy and big surprise.

Rob Hahn has also done some solid analysis on his blog: [http://www.notorious- rob.com/2016/12/forest-for-the-trees-op...](http://www.notorious- rob.com/2016/12/forest-for-the-trees-opendoor-edition/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Realtors have for the longest time seen other realtors as competitors. Its time they recognise that the true competition is from large sites like Redfin that will use tech to gain an advantage over them.

I realised this after several conversations with realtors about this open source project I've created to help them build decent websites:

[https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder](https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder)

Most of them figured if it was open source then any of their competitors could use it and be just as good as them. They would say this even if they recognised that my product would give them a better website than they currently had. Pretty strange way of thinking if you ask me....

</comment><comment><USER22> Some food for thought: "The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?"[1] which has been discussed on HN previously, lists "Appraisers and Assessors of Real Estate" at .9 probability of computerization and "Real Estate Brokers" at .97. It's certainly not a solved problem, but these two jobs are nearly at the top of the list (or bottom, as the list is in reverse order).

[1] PDF: [http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Futu...](http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER23> Having worked in the real estate industry for a time, it's ripe for disruption. Redfin is going to have a problem when it paves the way for a flat rate competitor, but right now it's doing a massive service to buyers and sellers.

<comment><USER24> seriously curious as I am about to pay 10k+ for selling my house. what are they doing that is so special?

<comment><USER25> I think buyers could brave buying a home without a realtor. It's a little crazy but doable.

Selling is another matter entirely. If you would like the peace of mind to know that your home is actually in your past once the money is in your bank account, use a broker. Having your past home haunt your future can be a miserable prospect.

<comment><USER26> Why can't my attorney provide me with that assurance while he's taking me through the closing process? What extra thing is the broker doing?

<comment><USER27> >What extra thing is the broker doing?

The broker is causing the closing to happen by finding and satisfying the buyer along with the buyer's many, many issues with most properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Disclaimer: After a decade of working in the real estate industry in various aspects I will say it is a sh*t show of incompetence, laziness and greed.

While most real estate sites are bad, zillow is awful and Realtor.com should be considered a crime against humanity. I have to say redfin seems "ok"

On that note I am surprised that redfin is missing basic marketing messaging.

</comment><comment><USER29> I like Redfin, but I have a couple of qualms with it:

1\. They will tag a house as "hot" arbitrarily. The cynic in me thinks this tag is for sale.

2\. They tend to hide information. I've seen houses come on the market, not sell for weeks, go out and then come back in the market for a lower price. But their "history" section does not list "price reduced"; they just pretend like the previous listing never existed. For example, the house at 110 Steiner Street ( [https://www.google.com/search?q=110+Steiner+Street&ie=utf-8&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=110+Steiner+Street&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) ). It came on the market, and now is nowhere to be found. But when it does come back on the market, they will completely erase the history of this house not having been sold.

3\. They allow you to filter with other criteria, but Walkscore is not one of them. I have given them feedback several times, but no response.

<comment><USER30> >2\. They tend to hide information. Redfin does this to comply with local MLS rules. Zillow does not, so best to check both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Redfin with its smaller cut of RE transactions on the seller side combined with the ability to circumvent MLS with it's own listing system could be the begining of the end for agents.

<comment><USER32> While I don't disagree with you, Redfin has been in business since 2004. 13 years is a long time to take to kill off realtors.

I'm in the process of selling my place and I'm using a realtor (who nearly matched Redfin's seller commission rate). The Redfin agent I first spoke to proposed a generic, templatized method to sell my property - list on N realtor sites, email my contacts, take nice pics - while the realtor I went with lives two doors down from me, knew the quirks of the HOA, had working knowledge of what potential buyers were looking for in my community based on recent deals he had been part of.

<comment><USER33> I agree. Realtors won't get killed- they'll just have their commissions reduced. I've bought a house through Redfin which was easy enough, but used an agent who agreed to Redfin level fees, but was much more knowledgeable and better at selling my house. From dressing up the house, doing open houses to following up with buyers, to negotiating. Redfin couldn't match him with their inexperienced agents/helpers, high volume and cookie cutter methods that are more suited to hot real estate markets where there's not much for realtors to do.

<comment><USER34> So the mere existence of Redfin has lowered their fees. Good for you :) and an example of the market at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Redfin is a big pile of nothing. It's a glorified real estate agency which is itself an anachronism or soon will be.

You can _easily_ find online or other brokers ready to "sell" your house which just means listing it on the realtors' association multiple site listings for 1% or even a few hundred dollars. The realtors association still control everything in terms of having all the data on homes for sale.

They could have some opportunity in giving buyers rebates i.e. having a 1-2% margin for buyers which most agents don't give, mostly because it's a lot luck to find a buyer than to represent the sell-side.

The idea that it's worth around 8x revenues...a low margin business as a real estate agency is...is a stretch, though to be fair, their revenues are fast- growing without that much of a marketing spend.

Not sure how their quarterly sales vary (seems like a lot in their profitability at least) but their latest quarter was terrible with only $6 mn in gross income on nearly $60 million in revenues and then $30 mn in operating expenses.

They claim to have helped users buy/sell $40 billion in real estate last year but showed just $270 mn in revenues which is something like .8% of that market value (while it should be in the 1.5 to 2.5% range I think). Not sure why that it is.

</comment><comment><USER36> I am actively looking the house right now. And getting disappointed by Redfin these days. Previously it showed listed price for sold properties but now it has gone. Only sold price is shown. Not only this, but the property disappeared from MLS then re-listed with higher price tag doesn't show previously listed price.

Information should be transparent between seller and buyer but Redfin is leaning to seller side at this moment.

So, I am using Zillow more frequently than before.

<comment><USER37> I don't think that's true. If you scroll down to the "Property History" section on any Redfin sold listing, you should see the full details for that home, including list price, any price adjustments, and sold price. In some markets, this information is only visible to logged-in users due to MLS restrictions, so you may have to log into your account to view the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I had a positive experience with Redfin, but honestly feel like even with the refund check, I still overpayed for their contribution.

I shopped online, went to open houses on my own, and Redfin basically just contacted the seller on my behalf to present an offer. I'd be shocked if my agent did more than a few hours total work over the entire duration of the sale – though I liked him a lot, and he was super responsive the few times I needed him.

</comment><comment><USER30> Guess how many California-licensed real estate _BROKERS_ Redfin employs? The answer is here:

[http://www2.dre.ca.gov/PublicASP/pplinfo.asp?License_id=0152...](http://www2.dre.ca.gov/PublicASP/pplinfo.asp?License_id=01521930)

A total of six BROKERS. Helped out by 528 _SALESPERSONS_ , who have little or no financial responsibility.

A curious fact that no RE agent or Realtor will tell you: Under California law, the terms "real estate agent" or "Realtor" have no significance.

</comment><comment><USER39> Good for Redfin. Disruption in any business that charges 6% transaction fees is great.

Having said that, real estate transactions are complex beasts with many moving parts. A lot of this process can be scripted and templated. But there are many situations where it cannot. Buyers and sellers are under immense stress as they face very large financial and legal decisions. They don't understand the process, the terminology, the legal and financial consequences, etc. There are local regulations and conventions that differ from region to region. E.g: Check out the differences in who pays fees across counties: [http://chicagotitletransfertax.com/](http://chicagotitletransfertax.com/)

Good agents absolutely earn their fees when uncertainty and complexity arise. I suspect Redfin is seeking to carve out the part of the market that comprises straight-forward, template driven transactions.

<comment><USER40> >E.g: Check out the differences in who pays fees across counties: [http://chicagotitletransfertax.com/](http://chicagotitletransfertax.com/)

The complexities can be and already are structured in a table format? Seems like a job perfectly suited for a computer, not a human.

<comment><USER39> Sometimes transactions stick at the strangest places. For example, a buyer balks at paying a final $500 fee allotted to him because he has hit his financial stress limit - potentially killing the entire transaction.

Good agents are not just facilitating the transaction, but also acting as friends/confidants/therapists for buyers&sellers - helping them make responsible decisions. Good agents also come up with creative solutions to complete transactions - this pops up often in resolving inspection contingencies. Say there is some leakage discovered underneath a bathroom sink with some cabinetry damage. The buyer is getting cold feet. What do you do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm closing literally today on a house I bought through Redfin. It's my third Redfin buying experience. Redfin for buying is great. Their website makes it easy to look for properties and get alerts when properties you might like go on the market. No need to pay a realtor to do that part.

I'm still not using Redfin for selling. When you sell, you're paying for a salesman, and a salesman can make a big difference on how much you sell for, IMO. Redfin will save you 2%, so the question you have to ask yourself is: will a traditional agent make me 2% or more, compared with Redfin? I think the answer is yes, they likely can.

<comment><USER42> Indeed. When I needed to sell a house in the East Bay, the Redfin agent wanted to list the property for almost 20% less than it sold for. When I told her that I thought she was pricing it too low, she looked at me like I was crazy. The local agent that we ended up using instead (who had recently sold 3-5 houses in our same neighborhood) had a much better idea of what the house was actually worth, and also paid to stage the house--which Redfin would not have done.

We used Redfin to purchase that house, and our purchase experience was very positive, but selling the house with Redfin could have cost us a bundle. It would probably have been fine if property prices had not been rising so quickly at the time, but regardless, I am a believer in the value of staging which is a service not covered by Redfin's fees.

<comment><USER43> > The local agent that we ended up using instead ... also paid to stage the > house--which Redfin would not have done.

You paid for that.

<comment><USER42> Yes, but it seems you've missed my main point entirely. If I had used Redfin, the house could have sold for $80-90k less than it otherwise did, whereas using the local agent cost me perhaps $5-6k more. The smaller point that I was making is that you often can't compare Redfin's fees to the local agent fees without also knowing if the local agent provides staging services, and many of them do. Granted, staging is only a couple thousand for a modest house (from what I understand), but it's something to be aware of.

<comment><USER42> I would guess that Redfin's problem is retaining talent. If an agent can make more money going off on their own, they likely will. The agent who helped us buy that house was amazing. But, guess what, he isn't at Redfin anymore. It's too bad. I love Redfin's site and want them to succeed, but perhaps they don't do enough to retain good agents (or their model financially prevents it). That's just a guess, though. Also, their agents may have to cover a larger geographic area than other agents, so it's not possible for them to be as intimately familiar with particular neighborhoods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> redfin maps + school ratings + real time alerts, and when I say real time I mean I was in a house in fremont with my realtor and I got an alert during the private viewing that the house just went pending, hah! In any case, this site was instrumental in helping us find a house. RDFN is definitely going in my portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER45> To get rid of real estate agents: You have to find a way to create a free multiple listing service (satellite imagery maybe, looking for FOR SALE signs?). It's the MLS monopoly that has kept the real estate industry in the dark ages.

</comment><comment><USER46> Ah, so that's why it was name dropped on Silicon Valley recently...

</comment><comment><USER47> i purchased my house thru RedFin and it was an amazing experience. Yes, a bit more hands on than conventional realtor but you never know how much a conventional relator was working on your behalf anwyay

</comment><comment><USER48> Coming from a background in real estate as an active broker who has worked with Redfin agents, I'd like to point out a few things. Redfin's biggest asset is their website. It's a good user experience and grabs them a lot of leads. However, Redfin agents tend to be subpar agents when representing sellers and or buyers. Most wouldn't survive in a regular brokerage setting. If I am hiring an agent, I want a hungry service oriented agents, not someone who is fine with receiving a salary. Discounts are enticing to consumers, but from what I have noticed these discounts come at a cost to their clients. Rather than list a bunch of examples, from what I have witnessed, Redfin agents are not all that skilled in negotiating. They are actually horrible. Redfin needs to train better but training is a multi-faceted issue. They need experienced brokers who have been beaten up and have seen it all. I was lucky to have a mentor who played a significant role in redefining the industry back in 2001. Let's just say, nobody knew what the concept of Exclusive Buyer Agency was during the late 90s. Anyway, in order to have great agents, they need to learn from smarter battle tested agents in the office. An agent needs good instincts to represent clients well. This takes time - 10,000 hours easy and they need to see a lot of deal flow. You learn from the ugly deals, not the smooth ones. Fortunately, for Redfin most Redfin buyers/sellers won't realize how good their agent is until they have something to compare it to. Redfin does not have top agents nor can the attract high-quality agents. In order for them to succeed in the public market, they will need to increase fees because the cost of maintaining and attracting talent isn't cheap. Discounting gives companies a good chance to obtain market share. But market share will go down once they raise fees. Historically speaking, discount real estate companies don't do well in public markets. Let's look at one example of a company associated with discounts, Zip Realty. I think they did an IPO in 2004 or so. Over the years things didn't go well so they were forced to merge. Now, you might say, REDFIN is different. This is somewhat true but I am sure if you read the Redfin S1, you will see some of the concerns I have addressed.

This is coming from a non-traditional broker. I have always gone against the grain. I believe Redfin will need to evolve a lot to get the public market to embrace them. If I had to guess they will become a little more "traditional" overtime.

I hope Redfin trains better and figures things out. Otherwise, they will need to merge post-IPO.

Sorry for the long comment. I could write forever on this topic. I may do this on my site when I have a couple of hours.</comment>


Apple Shuts Down Push Notifications From AppGratis - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/18/apple-shuts-down-push-notifications-from-appgratis/

<comment><USER2> AppGratis's response[1] to this new development (and the repeated allegations of gaming the App Store) is weird and full of double-speak.

> Allow me to jump right into this by saying that yes, we have created a > business while solving a problem.

> And that last time we checked, it was still OK to do that.

Double-speak: "solving a problem" wasn't why AppGratis was banned: if "solving a problem" was a bannable offense, every app would be banned. No, it was banned for a specific "solution" to a very specific "problem": providing pay- to-play access to their install base in order to game the ostensibly organic rankings of the App Store.

Under the section that promises to explain why AppGratis's business model is fair, you'd expect it to be about that, but it's not: instead, it's a short biography of the founder, a recap of all the money they raised, and this curious statement:

> And this is how we helped and are still helping – for free – hundreds of > indie devs with great apps to get well-deserved visibility. In the past few > days, many of them have stood up for us – and many haven't, probably in fear > that Apple will stop featuring their app if they speak. I make no judgement > of this. I thank the former, and fully understand what motivates (or > doesn't) the later.

So everyone believes AppGratis is good, and the people who actively state otherwise are only doing so under threat from Apple? That's begging the question on a grand scale.

Under the "Where's the money coming from?" section, they go into great detail about how AppGratis was accepting money from people with big marketing budgets to feature their applications on a CPI basis— something they admit Apple banned—and how the companies were using this to game the App Store:

> And to guide them through their complicated media buying, we'd send them – > with no guarantees whatsoever – a spreadsheet that indicates the forecasts > of installs we thought we'd be a able to drive for their app in each > country. Since the App Store algorithm relies mostly on download velocity, > it's simple math to buy your way to the top of the charts by purchasing the > numbers of installs you need combining multiple vendors.

Yet they immediately deny that they were gaming the App Store. Their entire business model, _as described by them_ , was built upon facilitating app store gaming. The hair they're splitting here is that they are not providing an explicit statement of guarantee regarding placement in Apple's App Store rankings. Yet that's the entire value of AppGratis to potential buyers and what a CPI business model would result in, leading to the same end result: buying placement on AppGratis guarantees better rankings in Apple's App Store.

Finally:

> We have always based our business on solving the App Discovery needs that > consumers have.

and

> We then surveyed our community: "Folks, happy with this new type of deals?" > Answer: "Yes". Status: OK. Carry on, AppGratis.

are both double-speak: their consumers and community are the companies that buy placement in AppGratis, not the people downloading the app (much less the people who are relying on Apple's App Store rankings). Of course they're happy with AppGratis: they wouldn't be paying them otherwise.

AppGratis had a fairly sympathetic narrative handed to them: mean old Apple, who has a history of ostensibly capricious and arbitrary decisions regarding their app store, banned an app that had 12 million installs. Blog posts like the ones they've been posting that at best sidestep the issues raised, or at worst confirm them, do them no favors.

[1]: [http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things- straight...](http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things-straight- about-the-appgratis-business-model/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Get off my App Store.

All of you vultures with your paid and "incentivized" marketing can just leave. Go "solve" a problem that doesn't cause a myriad problems for the victims. Instead of making golden crumbs from rich app developers at the expense of poor app developers - instead of running up the score for scumbags and becoming scummy in the process, make something that helps people do something worthwhile in the world.

Seriously, get out. You are bad people running these kind of companies, or you are delusional to not understand how the things you do are bad. You are so infatuated with success or entrepreneurship or hacking or whatever, that you lost sight of what it means to be human and part of society.

Apple's response to App Gratis is another reason why the App Store is a good market for honest, hard-working people. Even if the walls around the garden seem a little imposing sometimes, at least scumbags can be kicked out. It's not like the internet where malware and dishonesty flood over you if you venture out of the well-trodden nodes.

</comment><comment><USER4> A new AppGratis blogpost shares their perspective:

[http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things- straight...](http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things-straight- about-the-appgratis-business-model/)

      > And to guide them through their complicated media buying, we'd
      > send them – with no guarantees whatsoever – a spreadsheet that
      > indicates the forecasts of installs we thought we'd be a able
      > to drive for their app in each country.

The crux of the issue (from my limited perspective):

      > Since the App Store algorithm relies mostly on download velocity,
      > it's simple math to buy your way to the top of the charts by
      > purchasing the numbers of installs you need combining multiple
      > vendors. It's the most common marketing strategy in the market
      > today, and at the end of the day, it's just regular advertising.

Glad this is out in the open in this way; it is useful to see where people line up on this issue.

<comment><USER5> One thing I wonder is if AppGratis' s business model (intentionally or not) games Apple's App Store ranking algorithm... Why not just change the algorithm instead of playing whack-a-mole with AppGratis and similar apps?

For example, I could imagine Apple requiring disclosure of promoted apps and factoring that in to the rankings. Sure, that adjustment wouldn't be perfect, but there's lots of other noise to deal with (e.g. iOS apps with Android counterparts that are featured by Amazon or Google can see a significant bump) that it shouldn't be hard to make it good enough.

<comment><USER2> I'm somewhat surprised Apple doesn't do something similar to what Google does in their SERPs: blacklist anyone caught paying for placement from the App Store rankings.

<comment><USER5> One complication is that Apple's "death penalty" is at least theoretically far harsher than Google's. With Google's even if you're blacklisted people can still go to your site and use it if they want to. The only penalty is that the site is (much) harder to find (especially when you're not looking for that site specifically).

With Apple's, once an app is kicked out of their app store, there's no way to use it short of jailbreaking (with the possible exception of grandfathering depending on the particular circumstances).

<comment><USER2> Oh, I'm not suggesting Apple blacklist an app entirely. Rather, remove them from consideration from the Top Paid/Free/Grossing lists (or put them at the bottom). Maybe even remove them from keyword search results in more severe cases.

So you could still find the app by direct link or searching for the app name, but paying to increase rankings would be for naught. Like Google, Apple could then accept reconsideration requests that demonstrate the app is no longer the beneficiary of app store ranking manipulation.

<comment><USER5> Ah, that's a much more proportional response. That makes a lot of sense to me (though maybe not to Apple who often seems to act in black and white).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why would they not kill push they banned the app from sale.

<comment><USER7> Apple rarely (did they ever?) uses a full kill switch on apps. They will stop further sales, but they will not, typically, disable features that customers already have in their hands. For example, I think the tethering in FlashArmyKnife still works for those who have it.

<comment><USER8> They didn't kill-switch AppGratis, they just blacklisted it from sending APNS notification messages which is a different thing.

I'm not a huge fan of Apple and a big part of that is due to the power they have over the app store (and the fact that they were successful with this model encouraged so many others to emulate it), but given that they removed the app from the App Store, disabling APNS for it is a pretty reasonable thing to have done on top of that.

Why expend resources (all APNS go through Apple's server infrastructure) servicing an app that isn't even allowed in your store anymore?

<comment><USER7> Because, as I said, they have users using the app. They have said "we will not sell this app anymore", but they typically do not extend that to "we will no longer support existing customers for this product" (and even less so to "we will take this app away from those customers who downloaded/bought it")

<comment><USER9> By "even less so," you mean "never," right? Because they literally never have.

Disabling a feature within an app != shutting off push messaging. The first doesn't use Apple's infrastructure. There aren't a lot of apps that have been permanently removed from the store by Apple, and I can't remember if any of them used push messaging, so I can't be sure, but it seems reasonable to infer that if an app is permanently removed, its APNS profile might be automatically removed as well.

<comment><USER7> I meant "I don't think they ever did, but I am not sure, and don't want to see replies discussing this minor point".

As to disabling push messaging: I think this is a bit of a gray area. For some apps, push messages are minor features. for others, they can be an essential part of the app. Disabling them for such apps is equivalent to removing the app from the user's device.

I haven't seen the AppGratis App, so I don't know what push messages mean for that app.

<comment><USER10> They're pretty essential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Gaming the ranking system.

That's Apples #1 concern.

Don't panic over the other issues listed.

For example, AppGratis tried to rally developer sympathy by claiming this rule was being used : "Apps that are not very useful, unique, are simply web sites bundled as Apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected."

And while that rule is ridiculous and too generic, it wasn't what caught Apple's attention.

Gaming the ranking is what concerns Apple.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is Apple letting you know who really owns your phone.

<comment><USER13> I think you meant "this is Apple letting you know who owns their notification infrastructure".

<comment><USER14> ...which, by the way, is the only one you are allowed to use...

<comment><USER15> ... thankfully ...

As a user: I want the platform to take care of notifications. I care not to install dozens of different notification systems because some app decides to use Yet Another Notification System.

As a developer: I want the platform to take care of notifications. I don't want to worry about some third-party server works as expected nor do I want to have to care about the user having the right software install either.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


F.B.I. Concludes Investigation in Fatal Anthrax Mailings - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/us/20anthrax.html <comment><USER2> So why did this guy just target Democrats and liberal media, enemies of the Bush admin? Why did he associate it with 9/11, attempting to pin it on Islamists? How was he able to get everything ready in a week? How was silicon use to weaponize the anthrax when Ivins didn't have access to the tools to do this?

Killing oneself with Tylenol seems as odd a decision as David Kelly's "suicide" by penknife. Also no suicide note, yet they didn't do an autopsy.

<comment><USER3> Statistically, suicide notes are very rare--their absence is something to be expected, not suspicious of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is odd that the sender was smart enough to make the return address "4th grade" at some school, but was not smart enough to spell penicillin correctly.

<comment><USER5> Maybe he wanted to throw people off his trail by misspelling a word a doctor would be able to spell correctly.

Could you imagine how terrible it would have been if he misspelled the to: address and it was returned to sender(assuming that address is legit)?</comment></comment>


The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/?utm_content=buffer94690&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer&single_page=true <comment><USER2> Yesterday's discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10222544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10222544)</comment>


Ask YC: What Language Do You Use for Multiple CPUs? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The real question is, "what process model do you use for multiple CPUs?" Assuming a Unixy OS, you can use threads or multiple processes.

If you choose multiple processes, you have to intelligently use IPC to coordinate them. But you can happily use pretty much any language.

If you choose threading, scripting languages are problematic. For example, Python has a Global Interpreter Lock. In that case, I think the only "safe" choices are C++ and Java. Java's safe because its "synchronized methods" enforce locking, often in a wasteful manner. C++ leaves the entire synchronization problem in your lap, giving you infinite room for performance and for subtle and maddening bugs.

Multi-process is generally a better approach than threading. I've seen too much time spent debugging threaded apps to ever recommend that approach. Every hour poured into debugging a deadlock, or worse yet, a mysterious cross-thread heap trampling is an hour taken away from improving the product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Haskell is excellent for parallel processing -- probably as good as Erlang if you're just talking about multiple cores on one system and not distributed processing.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've used C++ for multiple CPUs and multiple machines. Quite easy really. Most people just make it too complicated I think.

</comment><comment><USER5> Intel has made a library (TBB) and language (Ct) (both based on C++) that tackle different subsets of how you might want to use parallelism.

<http://blogs.intel.com/research/2007/11/q4_itj.php>

</comment><comment><USER6> SP-Forth (<http://spf.sourceforge.net/>) to program multithreaded applications, such as acWEB, acSMTP [.sf.net], Eserv/3 ( <http://www.eserv.ru/> ) internet servers.

</comment><comment><USER7> I just want to second what what several others have implied about Erlang. It makes the actor model feel right to the point that the fact that your program can run on multiple cores/cpus/computers is seems incidental.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ruby/Rails/Mongrel/Pound does a great job of utilizing all those CPUs that I have in a production environment. There's a bunch of overhead, but it is easier than having to deal with locking.

It really depends on your application, though. If it isn't a web application, and state matters, then you're going to have to go elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER9> Design software to run in multiple processes & threads, and you'll be fine for both multi-core and multi-cpu.

Most interesting systems have multiple dynamically interacting processes, but this might be a bias of mine from the robotics world.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was hoping that Python threads split across processors, but it seems that they don't. Is there a language that does it "automagically" without having to explicitly code it?

<comment><USER10> No, the standard Python interpreter kind of sucks at this. You might want to look at Stackless Python though, it has all sorts of neat concurrency primitives. <http://www.stackless.com>

<comment><USER11> Stackless is great, but it doesn't help much with multiple processors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Erlang

</comment><comment><USER13> I believe Erlang does.

</comment><comment><USER14> Java, C/C++/Objective-C. Many others.

</comment><comment><USER15> lolcode

</comment><comment><USER16> C and C++ using shared state, but minimizing locking by being clever (e.g., subdivide first).</comment>


Ask HN: how hard is it to maintain your own clone of HN ? - <AUTHOR>

There's a site I want to start - and I think the code behind news.yc (http://github.com/nex3/arc if I'm right) would be a nice fit for that.
I'm not an arc-ist at all, hence my question: is there anyone running its own copy, without much knowledge of Arc ? Has it been hard to tweak, maintain, support ?
(I definitely appreciate the learning opportunity it would represent - but I really want to be able to sustain the site, first)
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I've toyed around with it for a couple of days about two minor releases ago, it was quite stable but under load that might be a different situation.

My lisp knowledge is around -270 degrees so I had a real hard time understanding the code but bit by bit it started to clear up and once you get past that it looked _very_ compact.

The only person that ran a real production clone of HN with substantial traffic that I'm aware of was nickb, together with prakash and miles under 'newmogul.com', since then this has been taken over by markenomics.com, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of activity there.

As for stability under load, from what I can tell by observing HN the server goes down several times an hour and has a script wrapped around it to keep it up or something like that. Every time it goes down it re-reads the state from a bunch of files and then seems to work quite well until the next crash. The crashes - as far as I can see - rarely lead to data loss though there have been some rare instances of comments getting mixed up in the wrong threads.

I hope this helps.

<comment><USER3> _from what I can tell by observing HN the server goes down several times an hour and has a script wrapped around it to keep it up_

Very interesting. That sounds a little like an equivalent of MaxRequestsPerChild, which makes sense given it's a custom webserver, rather than Apache. How do you synch up what you're seeing with this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048348>

Why doesn't the leaderboard do this a couple of times an hour?

<comment><USER2> That's a good question, I don't know.

The symptom is invariably the same, the connection is refused for a bit and then the server is back up again as if nothing happened.

The times that it is down vary from just a few seconds to 10's of seconds, but rarely more than that.

It would be nice to know what is going on there, it certainly doesn't look very good.

Also HN can be terribly slow at times, much slower than would make sense given the number of people visiting it on a daily basis.

To see if that bug still exists I just tried it by requesting vaksels posting history and sure enough the connection timed out and the server was unreachable for a short while, then came back up.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=vaksel>

Does it work for you?

It's a pretty weird bug.

<comment><USER3> I agree on the general speed. The server is one process / single thread, and since on the speed spectrum arc is all about exploratory programming and not benchmarking speed ...

I've also noticed that connections get dropped a lot here. Usually it seems to be when I've loaded several pages in quick succession, and so I'd taken it to be anti-scraping IP throttling. I guess one could try to reach it through a proxy right after an event.

Also, that particular link works for me now. IIRC, the lazy loading is item- based so there may be some element of prioritizing connections based on whether or not the items requested are in memory. That would also be consistent with an anti-scraping approach.

Of course this is all wild speculation on my part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested, I'd be willing to give you a clone of the <http://Newsley.com> codebase. It's a bit bare bones right now, and since I'm the sole developer, I haven't worked on the documentation much. But, it's Python/Django, which might be a little more familiar to you if you're a Ruby/Rails guy. I've thought about open sourcing the code, but some parts are a little ugly right now, so I haven't done it. But if you're interested, ping me and we can talk.

Another thought is Slinkset: <http://slinkset.com/> It looks like they still have some active sites, and it looks like they've added features since I last looked a few months back. Anyone know if they're still up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey - thanks for the links. Look interesting.

If you planned to open-source it, go for it, but I won't use it if it's just between you and me.

I'll either use an open-source implementation (good support + community) or create it myself (just what I need).

Thanks though!

<comment><USER4> No worries. Any time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote up a detailed spec for an enhanced version of news.arc, I literally saved the HN item, home and user pages and made changes, which I elaborated upon in the rest of the document.

I'd be interested to share it in some sort of collaboration.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also welcome comments on how hard it was to customize the look or behaviour, if you did so.

<comment><USER5> Two different talented developers have told me with regards to tweaking news.arc:

"I think the reason you see a lot of posts on arc-the-language and very few on news-the-application is that arc is small and simple, while news, and arc's whole web application DSL, is very alien and difficult to learn :). "

and

"My preferred approach would be to do the bulk of the work in PLT Scheme, and then add the necessary interfaces into ac.scm."</comment></comment>


Hubs by Mozilla - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozvr.com/introducing-hubs-a-new-way-to-get-together-online/ <comment><USER2> What is up with the duck?</comment>


Firefox Fights for You. We keep your data safe, never sold - <AUTHOR> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fights-for-you/ <comment><USER2> "You decide what to share and when."

That's demonstrably false. Disabling telemetry resulted in the collection of meta-telemetry, in violation of users' explicitly expressed decision to not allow collection of telemetry.

[https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/21/mozilla-wants-to- estimate-...](https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/21/mozilla-wants-to-estimate- firefoxs-telemetry-off-population/)

<comment><USER3> For 1% of the users opting out of telemetry. And anonymized. And also the data not being telemetry related.

Technicaly correct, but pretending that this is mozilla going against the spirit of "decide what to share and when" is at best stretching it, and worst case willingly misrepresenting the case.

<comment><USER4> It literally went against the spirit of "decide what to share and when" if I check "never" and it does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your decision to show ads to your users this last week without their consent was the last straw for me. And believe me, I've stood A LOT from you. My relationship with you has been practically abusive. Farewell Mozilla, it's been real.

<comment><USER6> Where on earth are you going? Chrome? There are no other independent browser engines left besides Firefox, web browsers are a duopoly now and if you think Google is better on data collection and ads than Mozilla, I have a bridge to sell you.

<comment><USER7> Chrome isn't the only other option. There are tons of browsers that are more respectful of user privacy than Firefox:

\- Firefox (but fixed with settings that are hidden from the user for some reason)

\- IceCat, Waterfox, Pale Moon, etc.

\- Ungoogled Chromium, Iridium, Qutebrowser, etc.

Mozilla's actions (Cliqz spyware integration, ads in the browser, Google analytics in the browser, locked enabled telemetry, etc.) show that their "commitment" to user privacy is just marketing.

<comment><USER8> > tons of browsers

So...some minor derivatives of Firefox, plus some hacked-on versions of Chromium. What are you going to do if Firefox goes away?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dear Mozilla, you have no business _having_ my data in the first place. If you're promising to keep my data safe, things have already gone wrong.

<comment><USER10> Except they actually provide useful features like Firefox Sync. If you opt into that service it is impossible for them to provide it to you withouth having your data on their servers.

<comment><USER11> They should be transparent about _what_ data they have. There are options like "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" and "Allow Firefox to send backlogged crash reports on your behalf" in Firefox, I don't recall if they are enabled by default when you install the browser but I seem to recall that at least one of them is. These options have nothing to do with the Sync feature.

<comment><USER12> They _are_ transparent. Have a look at their privacy policy: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/privacy/firefox/) It's simple, human-readable language, not even legalese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They've been blasting the PR far and wide on social media but did they ever address their recent 'experiment?'

<comment><USER14> What are you referring to? Link please

<comment><USER15> Probably this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18800175)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Who's that guy?"

"That's Tron, he fights for the users."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kcgosLwPDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kcgosLwPDE)

<comment><USER17> That dialogue is gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone else find it strange that threads on Mozilla articles submitted to HN are filled with privacy-absolutists while articles about Google/Chromium are disproportionately commented on by Google apologists?

Are there two radically divergent subsets of HN users who hardly comment on articles about the other major browser?

<comment><USER18> Could possibly be brigading by Google (or whoever).

<comment><USER8> Maybe? I'm not that conspiracy-minded, but it's weird comparing the comments in this thread, to say, this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595069)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lets start with removing pocket and installing unlock origin by default. I'll believe you. And I say this as a loyal user since 2006.,

<comment><USER8> I honestly do not understand why so many people are angry about Pocket: [https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab- reco...](https://help.getpocket.com/article/1142-firefox-new-tab- recommendations)

> Important Note: Neither Mozilla nor Pocket receives a copy of your browser > history. The entire process of sorting and filtering which stories you > should see happens locally in your copy of Firefox.

Do you think they're lying? Do you just hate the idea of any built-in browser integration with proprietary services?

<comment><USER20> > Do you just hate the idea of any built-in browser integration with > proprietary services?

Yes. I hate the idea of any built-in browser integration with proprietary services.

<comment><USER8> Do you feel the same way about including Google as the default search engine? If not, why not?

<comment><USER14> Switching to a different default search engine is trivial. Removing pocket not so much...

<comment><USER21> About:config

Pocket.enabled

Set to false

Seems pretty simple to me.

<comment><USER22> Trivial for your average HN user, but "normal" users can't be expected to go poking around in an undiscoverable settings feature that warns them about dragons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I liked the new fast Firefox until I tried the macOS version with Gmail. :(

</comment><comment><USER24> Mozilla bragging to me about how they're defending me on the web is like Smith & Wesson telling me they're keeping me safe from guns.

It also seems like the height of hypocrisy to complain about data privacy when people use almost exclusively free services online. Somebody has to pay for it all, and since users refuse to do so, advertising has to. It's simple math: if you don't pay for content, your data will be monetized to pay for it. If all use of private data on the web was somehow regulated into oblivion, the web would collapse, because there'd be no money to pay for it.

<comment><USER25> Invasive advertisement doesn't fund most of the web, it only funds some thousands of top websites and I bet most of them can exist without invasive tracking and banners. There are still brand deals and content advertising and other forms of non banner advertisement, not to mention non advertising business models. And most websites can't exist on advertising revenue anyway and are funded some other way.

<comment><USER24> There's no question of whether a business _can_ exist without targeted advertising ("invasive" advertising). But they're definitely going to use it whenever feasible, because it's the most efficient form, possibly more than direct marketing.

The ways a business can make money online are A) partnerships, B) advertising, C) goods/services, D) subscriptions, or E) community. The last two are dwarfed by the first three, which depend on advertising. Even if you're a B2B, you still need marketing to get new clients, which almost invariably includes some kind of advertising.

So the majority of websites people visit are still paid for with some form of marketing. It may be indirect, such as by affiliate, partnership, selling of private data, etc, or it may be direct, such as with advertisements and spam/newsletters. The user is still going to pay for it, one way or another. If they're not paying via a subscription or donation, they're paying through their use as a marketing target. (And often, via both!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would use FF if they had a decent Mac app. Still no TouchBar support, weak cpu and ram management, no native zoom like chrome implemented

</comment><comment><USER27> The convenience of Chrome extensions that I use daily is a major hesitation from me switching to any browser.

<comment><USER28> If you don't have any ethical objections to adblocking, the Brave browser supports Chrome extensions.

<comment><USER27> I will look into it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Never sold, just given away, see the cliqz debacle.

[https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/06/mozilla-to-launch- firefox-...](https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/06/mozilla-to-launch-firefox- cliqz-experiment-with-data-collecting/)

<comment><USER5> Before the apologists roll in: Cliqz GmbH is a media and advertising company, and Firefox DOES NOT own Cliqz GmbH, they just own a bit of it (officially they are a "minority investor").

The Mozilla Corporation sent private data of its users without their permission to a third party ad company. It's despicable and unforgivable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This era of data business is such a mental papercut..

</comment><comment><USER31> First of all, what data do you have and why do you have it?

<comment><USER12> You could just check out their privacy policy you know: [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/privacy/firefox/) It's literally linked from just below the "Download Firefox" button and in the page footer.</comment></comment>


DuckDuckGo shows misleading Twitter account of Assange, first - <AUTHOR> http://archive.is/9QYv6 <comment><AUTHOR> I noticed some weird behavior of DDG search results lately. Maybe is just in my head, I thought. So I looked for an easy subject, a celebrity. Then I archived the result.</comment>


Drupal on a dedicated servers vs. Amazon AWS/EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://2bits.com/drupal-performance/drupal-on-a-dedicated-servers-vs-amazon-aws-ec2.html

<comment><USER2> Did the original AWS setup use Memcached? It doesn't sound like it, and clearly that would make a huge difference (and perhaps explain the sluggishness)?

In other words, they could have just added memcached to the AWS setup and gotten the same (or better) gains?</comment>


Antibiotic from human nose works by proton translocation - <AUTHOR> https://sciencebulletin.org/chemical-synthesis-demonstrates-that-antibiotic-from-the-human-nose-works-by-proton-translocation/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. Also often missing in the Western great antibiotic search is phage therapy, which was shunned mostly for political reasons (not invented here red scare). And antimycotics of all types and new classes are desperately to fight c. auris and other species in the fungal kingdom.

<comment><USER3> I think pharma do work with phages but it's not very public. Maybe due to limited use, so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chemical synthesis demonstrates proves that Antibiotic from human nose works by proton translocation. -resistant bacteria are an increasing health threat, making new antibiotics essential.</comment>


Uptime 15,364 days – The Computers of Voyager (video) - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/H62hZJVqs2o <comment><AUTHOR> Video description -

The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes, both launched in 1977, each had a primary objective to explore Jupiter and Saturn. This goal was achieved by 1981. Yet Voyager, NASA's longest running mission, has continued to this day. Both Voyager probes are still operating, and returning scientific data from outside our solar system.

This talk explores the computing systems of Voyager - the systems which enable remote control of the spacecraft, and provide for the recording and return of data to Earth. These systems have proved to be both adaptable, durable, and resilient in support of a scientific undertaking now in it's fifth decade.

What can we learn from the engineering of Voyager's computing systems? Why have they survived for so long in the harsh environment of space? What is involved in patching a system from a billion miles away? And what does the future hold?

</comment><comment><USER2> An interesting page from NASA about the Voyager computer and the history behind it: [https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html](https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html)

I think when it says programmable sequencers, it means an accumulator architecture though.</comment>


How Codecademy (YC S11) Snagged 200,000 Users in Seven Days - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/03/22/codecademy/ <comment><USER2> I used Codecademy for the first seven weeks. I started learning to program in January 2012, so the timing was perfect - I was their target market.

It was fun and interesting for a while. But the instructions began to get cumbersome. You had to read 3-4 paragraphs just to learn that they wanted you to write a simple, one line loop.

I spent more time reading instructions than thinking about or writing code.

I was using K & R at the same time, and the contrast was instructive. In K & R you're given a concise description of a feature, and then a short exercise that forces you to _think_ about how to use it.

In the final few weeks, my only motivation to keep going with Codecademy was the thought that "at least I'll have these badges that show what I know". That was a pretty big warning sign.

I stopped when I realized I wasn't even learning the concepts in the lessons. There simply wasn't enough coding practice for them to stick.

I haven't been there for a few weeks, so perhaps things have gotten better. But from what I saw, they needed to work on cutting out the cruft in their instructions. Pedagogy is difficult.

<comment><USER3> I did about 6 or 7 weeks of Codecademy and then stopped also. I found the same issues mentioned above, mostly just wrote "code" without really understanding what was supposed to be happening. I like Udacity a lot more and have been able to stick with that (so far). I think the lecture videos used on Udacity make a big difference. I guess it's also different in that it's "computer science" rather than learn to code in javascript - so the Udacity course is intentionally more focused on underlying concepts. I am afraid I am going to fall off the Udacity schedule though because it's very challenging/taxing. I just can't sit and work the lessons or homework in one sitting - my brain gets too tired!

Both courses/companies have been great for me though as a non-programmer. I think these companies and others like them have bright futures.

<comment><USER4> Great feedback—thanks a bunch, joeag. I'm so sorry to hear the lessons didn't keep you on board, but we'd love to learn more about your experience and what we can do better if you're willing to chat! We're contact (at) codecademy (dot) com—feel free to drop us a line and one of our co-founders will get back to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know why Codecademy gets any attention. After seeing a number of items about it, I attempted to use Codecademy to brush up on javascript. My conclusion: it's a fine idea poorly executed and basically useless as a learning tool. Pure hype.

FWIW, I don't mean to be caustic. I honestly can't believe that anyone who writes posivitely about it has used it.

<comment><USER6> Same here. A lot of hype thanks to it being associated with YC and hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm just poking my head in here to sing Udacity's praises. Their CS-101 class is phenomenal; it is hands down the best intro to CS on the web. The fact that it's free is just icing on the cake. The 1 unit per week for 7 weeks pace is demanding -- and I think users would benefit from the doubling of the course length -- but the videos, professors, community, quiz frequency, and challenging homework make for one hell of a learning experience I've never seen before online.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. I've been working through their class as well. I've worked through Codecademy, Coursera, Udacity and a variety of other courses.

Udacity is challenging, engaging and helps me learn better than anything I've seen yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a web designer who really wants to learn JS to be able to fully implement my designs on the front end (I know HTML/CSS and can edit a jQuery script to fit my needs). I feel I am in their target market, or close to it, but they failed at keeping me a student. I stopped going to Codecademy because I could no longer understand the instructions, and because it was buggy. I often had to ask my boyfriend, who is an engineer, to explain the instructions to me because they were so hard to understand for someone with a very limited programming background.

I've started with Udacity CS101 and it's much better. I still think the instruction from the professor isn't the greatest, but it's good enough for me to be able to keep progressing, even if it means I have to repeat a unit to understand the concepts.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the feedback. I'd love to chat with you in a bit more depth about your experience if you have a chance - can you email contact(at)codecademy(dot)com if you have a minute? We're doing everything we can to improve quality of content as well.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> possibly offtopic but as a non-beginner javascript developer I find some things taught to be not best practices. its possible that the user is being guided up to a place where he fully understands "this is why this method is better". an obious example is the use of global variables and functions whose main purpose is to act on global variables. while not technically wrong, it is definitely a no no in modern development.

From what I went through I would say its a good platform to learn syntax and keyword definitions e.g. "this is a function" but it doesnt address the application part. and no having a step by step project at the end of the lesson does not address the application part. application needs to teach how to think in programming, how to take problems conveyed in english and solve them with programing.

lastly, ive found technical errors in the way instructions are worded. what they are asking for in english is not exactly what they expect as the code solution. needless to say this frustrates beginners.

its very hard to teach.

<comment><USER10> thanks, apsurd. it definitely is hard to teach but we're dedicated to creating awesome learning material that's easy for everyone to use and learn with.

if you have more (or specific) comments, please shoot me an email - contact(at)codecademy(dot)com. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> No magic shortcuts. It may seem cynical but please read Norvig's Learn to Program in 10 Years: <http://norvig.com/21-days.html>.

<comment><USER10> We agree - it's about putting the time into learning. We're trying to make it easier to get started on the path.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wrote about the design side of CodeYear on my blog: <http://sachagreif.com/how-i-designed-codeyear-com-in-1-hour/>

</comment><comment><USER14> It would be an interesting study to try and understand the behavior and personalities behind the 100% completion rates so far. Most of code year signups happened around new year resolution time - compliance can't be much different than that of a typical gym with a great offer. But those who have been consistently at it, must be special.

The 0% completion numbers might look exceptionally bad for Codeyear as there was so much of hype surrounding it back then (Bloomberg and all..). But that is understandable, and the founders could not have done much about it.

</comment><comment><USER15> How many are still taking lessons?

<comment><USER16> Instructors from the free online classes at MIT/Berkeley/Cal/Stanford are much better than whoever is writing up code academy lessons.

<comment><USER2> Likewise, the Udacity courses are also much better planned. They put a lot of effort into making their lessons flow naturally. They pare down the presentation to the essential.

I find I spend a lot more time coding when doing a Udacity lesson.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> i stopped doing the lessons because of a lot of crashes. things like including print statements would cause Chrome to invoke my physical printer.

i am curious how far the people who signed up during this big spurt are getting through the program, and if it can be evaluated against competitors like Treehouse?

overall i am a big fan of competition in the e-learning space, because it's a topic that hasn't receive much attention in the past (Kahn Academy is likely to thank).

<comment><USER4> I'm so sorry to hear that silly bug contributed to your departure! I'm the Lead Designer at Codecademy. We're a lot more stable these days (that printer bug was fixed right away)—if you decide to give us another try, we'd love to hear your feedback about the experience: contact (at) codecademy.com. (Zach, our co-founder, makes sure the whole team internalizes member feedback. :D) Either way, thanks for giving us a shot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A strange question--as a service, I like the idea, but how do they plan to support it long term? Advertising? Grants? Will people pay for it?

<comment><USER2> If they _could_ reliably train programmers, then recruiters or companies would be glad to pay for skilled graduates or custom courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My guess as to how they got users that fast? A lot of people wanting to learn programming to make higher pay, plus, a spike in folks wanting to start web startups but are not already a programmer (with a good percentage of those excited by Facebook's story). I've had to review resumes and interview folks for software jobs before, and a surprising percentage can't seem to program or not know what they're talking about. Lure of money is strong.</comment>


The 10 Minute Design Challenge: Learn quick UI sketching with me - DanI-S http://10minutedesign.tumblr.com/post/16467656721/intro

<comment> DanI-S The first challenge is here, and there'll be a new one later today:

[http://10minutedesign.tumblr.com/post/16495873834/challenge-...](http://10minutedesign.tumblr.com/post/16495873834/challenge-1-the- antipodean-ice-cream-truck)</comment>