Google's CEO Says Tests of Censored Chinese Search Engine Turned Out Great - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/wired-25-sundar-pichai-china-censored-search-engine/ <comment><USER2> > "But we also follow the rule of law in every country,"

No. you probably make a good effort to follow the _letter of the law_ in the jurisdictions you work in. I'm sure you employ many talented lawyers to minimize your legal risks. However, the "rule of law" is a separate concept that your businesses _obviously_ ignore.

If you respected everyone being ruled equally under _laws_ (or law-like concepts in non-government situations), enforcement actions like closing accounts for would involve some type of _due process_ where the accused has an opportunity to face the accusation, see and rebut any evidence, and make a reasonable defense. Closing accounts unilaterally by your edict while refusing to offer any explanation beyond mumbling vaguely about "TOS violations" is a clear example of being _ruled by men_ , now laws.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a Chinese consumer I desperately need a viable alternative to Baidu. A consored Google would do so much good by bringing proper competition to the market.

I know censorship sucks. But peole concerned about it should fight it by means that minimze harm to users. Stronger encryption, tools that bypass the great firewall, standards and protocols against censorship and dictator influence, these would be a lot more meaningful than bashing a single company and a single product.

All companies that do business in China contribute to censorship and oppression indirectly by paying tax. The point have always been and should be makig sure these businesses bring a net benefit to the people.

<comment><USER4> > But peole concerned about it should fight it by means that minimze harm to > users. Stronger encryption, tools that bypass the great firewall, standards > and protocols against censorship and dictator influence, these would be a > lot more meaningful than bashing a single company and a single product.

Those people are building those things. _Google_ could build those things -- and then people could use the real version of Google from inside of China and there would be no need for a censored one.

<comment><USER3> Before those things are built, what should my mother do to avoid being killed by those fake medical ads on Baidu? How should I explain to my mother she should always toggle on the VPN that doesn't always work and use the search engine that she can't even pronouce to avoid being scammed? And how can we scale up that effort two hundred million times so that all elderly people in China can save their hard-earned money and their health? And while all that happns how do we make sure the Party will simply sit and watch and not further restrict access?

<comment><USER5> What an absurd false dichotomy. "Either let Google assist the Chinese government in censoring information or my Grandmother will die." Seriously? It's the government's responsibility to prohibit false advertising, and in an environment that lacks such regulation, there's no reason to think Google will do a better job of self-policing such ads than Baidu.

<comment><USER3> It's the government's responsibility yes but the government isn't the only effective measure against false ads. The market works too so why not have both? Isn't it even more necessary to have other resorts when the government isn't elected and does not work? There of course is reason to think Google will do better because people are literally crying for an alternative. It's a no brainer for anyone who wants to compete in China.

<comment><USER5> A "market based" solution makes no sense here. Both Google and Baidu are going to optimize for ad revenue, which means doing only the minimum in terms of self-policing to avoid government regulation, just as Google, Facebook and others have done in every other country in which they operate, including the US. The fact that Google is entering this market in the first place, in essence putting profit over ethics, weakens your point further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They're not going to leave that kind of money on the table. This is way more than the potential from "project maven." They cannot ignore this market and that market will not take no for an answer, so you have a CEO who will tergiversate on this issue.

Apple would do the same if the CCP/PLA came down and said, we need a way to look into user data. They will hem and haw and make noise but in the end they will capitulate (because if they don't they will cede the market to a domestic provider or a competitor who will sooner or later enter their home market).

His biggest concern will probably be more with regard to keeping his IP from getting exfiltrated.

<comment><USER7> I think this is a mis-reading of how China conducts business. China isn't interested in just establishing back doors in the dominant players in the market. They're interested in both dictating to foreign companies what they must censor and report, but also they're interested in establishing local competitors that will have state sponsored advantages in the local market in the long term in order to achieve economic dominance.

So the question here isn't whether Google will pay the price of sacrificing it's principles for market share. It's whether Google will pay the price of sacrificing its principles for a short term opportunity of a market at the cost of possible IP theft that could threaten its existence internationally.

Oh, and that's before we get on to the question of whether what China is asking for is limited to China, or whether once established Google can start asking for deprioritizing of tiananmen square mentions on Google in Europe or America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> WIRED, unfortunately, is more of a press release outlet than a real news outfit. :| Pichai got softballed a few questions by Steven Levy, a guy who has written a glowing book about the company and somewhat regularly writes in- depth exclusive puff pieces for Google.

It's really disappointing this is the outlet Pichai finally chose to spoke to, but it's understandable why: WIRED wasn't going to ask him anything he wasn't ready to answer.

</comment><comment><USER9> > "But we also follow the rule of law in every country,"

How can one speak of "rule" of law in an autocratic non-democratic country? The Chinese people in no way consented to anything like this "law", and to follow it is an act of oppression against the Chinese people.

Would Pinchai gas Jews in Nazi Germany, murder gays in Uganda, and stone schoolgirls in villages in his native India to follow the "rule of law"?

<comment><USER10> Well, from the point of views of a normal Chinese citizen, Google's presence is always welcome. It better be censored or it'll be kicked out pretty soon. Though people doesn't like these censorship, vast majority of Chinese simply doesn't care at all. As a recent NY times report mentioned, even when young people are given the tools to bypass the censorship, few of them actually used it, and almost nobody used it to access western news reports. Censorship is not great but it's no where close to be comparable with gassing Jews or murdering gays, and fighting censorship simply has super low priority for most Chinese. HN can be accessed from China freely but very few Chinese come here or even knows abou it. Otherwise the sentiments in the comments would be very different :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Man, getting really close to selling all my stake in Google. This CEO is turning out to be a really big 'tool'.

</comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one who is worried when he said:

"When you're so early with a powerful technology, sometimes you have to self- regulate."

<comment><USER13> surrender of the commons to the private wishes of the powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > We are compelled by our mission [to] provide information to everyone, and > [China is] 20 percent of the world's population."

Notice how he removed "the world's information" from Google's mission, since Chinese are only allowed to see CCP-approved inform.

</comment><comment><USER14> Of course one can. But should one?</comment>


US scientific output begins to slow - old-gregg http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/01/report-us-scientific-output-begins-to-slow.ars

<comment><AUTHOR> I recently read an interview with Eric Schmidt discussing how companies can't afford to spend money on fundamental research because it doesn't contribute to the bottom line. Since any public companies only responsibility is to produce a profit for shareholders. He seemed to want universities doing R&D with government money. I would prefew the government not get involved with funding research to be used by the private sector (libertarian tendencies?) but I don't see any other way around the lack of R&D.

<comment><USER2> In some industries, e.g. life science, publicly funded academic research forms the vast majority of the R part of R&D. The models for commercializing this research need some work, but with the risks associated, long time spans and the sheer diversity of researchers required, it will be very difficult for commercial companies to actually do the basic research. They are much better placed to take a promising project or two and then drill down.

One more point - I am not sure just volume of papers is a good measure. In the ideal situation, that should be going down if we manage to somehow ween ourselves away from the publish or perish model.

<comment><USER3> Before Bayh-Dole allowed universities to commercialize their federally funded research, companies had no trouble doing in-house R&D. They made it a reasonable part of their budgets because they _had_ to do so, if they wanted to exclusively profit from their inventions.

Thanks to Bayh-Dole, University research is far more commercial, companies have slashed or eliminated their research budgets, and it's harder for scientists to get jobs. The private sector doesn't feel the need to pay for R&D, when the universities will do it on the government's dime.</comment></comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi Web Hosting with Trusted Certs and Remote SSH Access Using Ebbflow - <AUTHOR> https://ebbflow.io/guides/raspberrypi <comment><AUTHOR> Author here, let me know if anyone has questions or gets stuck!</comment>


Chinese-Made Smartphones Stealing Money from People Around the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/cheap-chinese-smartphones-malware <comment><USER2> > A Transsion spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that some of the company's > _Tecno W2_ phones contained the hidden _Triada_ and _xHelper_ programs, > blaming an unidentified "vendor in the supply chain process."

...

> Collier researched Triada and xHelper and said they were "the first malware > [he's] even seen where a factory reset doesn't take care of it. That's a > game changer."</comment>


Tor's first real donation campaign - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/blog/our-first-real-donations-campaign <comment><USER2> Nice. Not a big fan of Paypal though. Wouldn't it be possible to just use Stripe?</comment>


Show HN: Feedback requested - <AUTHOR> https://lightqa.com/<p>I have been working on a side project and need your feedback (idea and landing website)  . The website is a place where you can post QA tasks ( by specifying your website/app and steps to follow ) and testers complete those tasks (on different devices) and submit reports. <comment><AUTHOR> Link : [https://lightqa.com](https://lightqa.com)</comment>


A Deep Dive into Litecoin - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/todd-moses/a-deep-dive-into-litecoin-ltc-31b7dbbabf3a <comment><USER2> Is there a way to get around the Medium paywall?</comment>


First-ever images of the entire Sun - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/entire-sun.html

<comment><USER2> "This is a big moment in solar physics," says Vourlidas. "STEREO has revealed the sun as it really is--a sphere of hot plasma and intricately woven magnetic fields."

Is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously like it is from an Onion article? I mean, it's very cool (and presumably useful) to have a full-time 360 view of the sun. But I'm pretty sure the idea the sun is a sphere of hot plasma is not startlingly new information...

<comment><USER3> Besides; everyone knows that the sun is a mass of incandescent gas. (A gigantic nuclear furnace.)

<comment><USER4> Actually, it's a miasma of incandescent plasma (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was sad at how low-res and JPG'y the images were.

I wish NASA would release versions in whatever the native dimensions/resolutions they are receiving the image data back in.

<comment><USER6> You do not really want the raw data (it generally looks something like this[1], from the COR telescope, "FITS" format[2]. Warning: mix of ascii and binary). Anyway, this[3] links to where they are putting the raw and first- order-derived mission data they have released so far (if you want more of what you saw, you probably want SECCHI). And here[4] is an example of said derived data. And this[5] seems to be where they seem to be putting highlighted derived products for public outreach.

Generally, there is very little money and little expertise for polished public outreach efforts (they are scientists, not web developers, after all). There is a good chance the scientists behind [3] are doing some of it in their "spare" time. Feel free to drop them an email and let them know it is appreciated :)

1) [http://sharpp.nrl.navy.mil//postflight/lz/L0/a/seq/cor1/2011...](http://sharpp.nrl.navy.mil//postflight/lz/L0/a/seq/cor1/20110102//20110102_000500_s4c1A.fts)

2) <http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/>

3) <http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/data.shtml>

4) [http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/movie/make_javamovie.php?img1=stb_...](http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/movie/make_javamovie.php?img1=stb_e304&img2=sta_e304&stime=20110101_0000&etime=20110102_0000))

5) <http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/gallery.shtml>

<comment><USER7> The image in the article is also not really low-res. As far as I can see Stereo's CCDs have a resolution of 2048x2048, the image in the press release is 1280x720, that's not exactly a substantial reduction (also considering that the two images from the two spacecraft were heavily distorted to create this side-view of the sun).

By the way, I found this wiki about processing and analyzing SECCHI's images, if you wanted to you could presumably learn about it and start processing images on your own: [http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DataProces...](http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DataProcessingAndAnalysis)

<comment><USER6> If you install CFITSIO[1], you can rebuild GDAL with FITS support. GDAL is the crazy-format swiss army knife. Some caveats[2] apply, though.

1) [http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.htm...](http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/software/fitsio/fitsio.html)

2) <http://www.gdal.org/frmt_various.html#FITS>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Step one to our very own Dyson Sphere ...

<comment><USER9> Next step is a Ringworld?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who sees this and wonders why there's such a large discrepancy between the right and left halves? Were they taken days / weeks / months apart or something? It kind of defeats the point of "stereo" to do so.

Specifically, why is that white splotch in such a radically different location (remember, diameter of the sun as Google states it is 1,391,000 km, that's gotta be near 100,000 km difference).

</comment><comment><USER11> I read this article this morning. I wonder why they didn't launch one satellite into Orbit A, wait 6 months[1], then launch the second satellite into Orbit A, but from the other side of the sun. Then, once they maneuvered into position, we'd have satellites stationed on both sides permanently.

It seems like that would be a lot faster, and would also ensure we can maintain our full view of the sun for a long period of time.

[1]Or however long it would take to get to the opposite side of the sun, accounting for the first satellite's movements.

<comment><USER12> The stereos aren't staying in place, they start in the same orbit as Earth (and thus, with the same orbital speed). So we need to gently speed them up and slow them down. It would be inefficient to have the first probe burn a lot of fuel to stop, burn some fuel so it won't get pulled into the sun, and then 6 months later burn some fuel to resume orbit.

<comment><USER13> What he's saying is gently slow one down, then six months later gently slow down another. Then there will always be two opposing sats.

Only reason I can think of is that there is either other experiments on-board that they need to recover (solar wind collectors, etc), or that they were both taken up in the same launch vehicle, which would be the lion's share of the expense of this experiment.

<comment><USER14> Nope, you're not understanding the issue.

If you launch the first sat into Orbit A, it still has the orbital velocity of the Earth. Unless you can slow the first sat down a _lot_ , it will continue to track along in about the same place as the Earth.

Waiting 6 months will accomplish very little in that case. The reason is, in 6 months, the Earth and the first sat will be in nearly the same place.

The key concept is known as "delta-v" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v>). It's the change-in-velocity allowed by a certain amount of fuel. Here's some more on the STEREO mission trajectory: <http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/orbit.shtml> It's worth it to watch the movie.

Gravity assist can help a lot, but it also takes a lot of time.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. I missed it. You'd probably have to wait something like 8 years for a long-term solution. With American ADD, wouldn't count on it actually happening.

<comment><USER14> Also, the people who design the missions eventually get old and retire. At some point, they have to take the human time scale into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Humanity Accomplishment: Dyson sphere sensor.

Next: Dyson sphere itself?

</comment><comment><USER16> I actually debated posting this earlier today and decided against it (wasn't sure it was HN-appropriate). I'm a newbie so I'm learning every day.</comment>


"Face it: There's no money in open source" - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3032647/open-source-tools/face-it-theres-no-money-in-open-source.html <comment><USER2> To my knowledge most models of making a profit with open source involve selling services like support or hosting around it.

The value of Red Hat is also in support and training that they offer.

So I think big companies can exist with open source easily, and they already do. I do, however, have questions about what a single developer can do. Can't really offer a whole lot of support for some widget you'd normally sell in an app store.

</comment><comment><USER3> what about [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cloudera#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/cloudera#/entity) ?

</comment><comment><USER4> wow, I've not read a Matt Asay piece in years. And strangely, he seems to be saying the exact same thing he said then.

</comment><comment><USER5> No surprise here</comment>


Reaction Engines Reveals Secret of Sabre Frost Control Technology - <AUTHOR> http://aviationweek.com/space/reaction-engines-reveals-secret-sabre-frost-control-technology <comment><USER2> Can someone explain for a layman what this cooling technology is useful and necessary for?

Edit: Thanks for the excellent explanations. Upvotes all around. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> The guys at Reaction Engines are trying to build a jet engine that will operate at very high speeds. In order to make this work the incoming supersonic air has to be slowed to subsonic speeds and compressed. This has the unfortunate effect of also making the air very hot and much less dense than it might otherwise be. This limits the effectiveness of the engine. This cooling technology can be used to cool the hot air before injecting fuel for combustion. This can increase the maximum speed at which the jet engine can operate.

The reason Reaction Engines is working on this type of jet engine is because they want to use it for an airbreathing single-stage-to-orbit re-usable spaceplane. (Technically, the Reaction Engines design is a hybrid that switches to a pure rocket mode at higher speeds.)

Some further reading:

Precooled jet engine: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precooled_jet_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precooled_jet_engine)

SABRE (rocket engine): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_%28rocket_engine%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_%28rocket_engine%29)

Single-stage-to-orbit: Airbreathing SSTO: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to- orbit#Airbreat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to- orbit#Airbreathing_SSTO)

Skylon (spacecraft): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_%28spacecraft%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_%28spacecraft%29)

<comment><USER3> Perhaps not all of them are 'guys'. Can we stick to the gender-neutral 'boffins' please?

<comment><USER4> 'guys' is gender neutral in the US. 'boffins' is not used at all in the US, and sounds vaguely offensive, even if its meaning is not.

<comment><USER5> Well that is bizarre. When did guys become gender neutral in the US? How did that happen?

<comment><USER6> Started exactly in June 1985. In the film Goonies, Sloth called out 'hey you guys' to a gender mixed group. Never been the same.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmTNWVh2gSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmTNWVh2gSw)

<comment><USER5> Well that explains it, thanks :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The system chills incoming air from more than 1,000C to minus 150C in less than 1/100th of a second"

sounds impressive!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is really incredibly awesome.

The SABRE is turning out to be "Countercurrent exchange: the engine".

</comment><comment><USER9> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the secret is to use countercurrent exchange to rapidly cool incoming air? Incidentally, countercurrent exchange is the same principle used in the kidneys to concentrate waste products into urine.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> This project is a bit like the British 'Bloodhound' land speed record attempt in that there is a bit of 'Duke Nukem' about it, i.e. it is never going to happen! Very 'British' though, with the usual cause for failure, e.g. short term return on investment demands of the city, the uselessness of the government for backing 'British genius' and so on.

Anyone not sceptical is advised to watch the BBC documentary 'The Three Rocketeers':

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_a21fPkYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_a21fPkYM)

These guys have been begging for funding and making the same 'design studies' for decades, the fact that British Aerospace 'BAE SYSTEMS' have disowned the project is quite telling, it is not anywhere near being tangible and it never will be. The only lesson to be learned here is how not to run your start up!!!

<comment><USER11> Except the UK Space Agency awarded them a £60 million investment in 2013 after a successful precooler test conducted with the European Space Agency.

[http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles...](http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/6023/UK- Government-Invests-60M-in-Spaceplane-Engine.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not an engineer, but this [0] appears to be at least one patent related to technology used to cool the air and economize on methanol. Perhaps someone can interpret it for a more general audience?

[0] [https://www.google.com/patents/US20150101334](https://www.google.com/patents/US20150101334)

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't get it. They are injecting methanol on the outside of the precooler tubes right? What causes it to move opposite to the airflow? Capillary/wetting action?

<comment><USER8> The dehumidification is done before the precooler, I'd expect.

They seem to inject it at the end, collect it somehow, then inject it upstream of the first injection location, then collect it again, then inject again upstream of that...

No clue how they perform this collection action, though.

<comment><USER14> No, it seems like the mix moves against the airflow, so they'll inject it and collect it upstream. He refers to a trick from the chemical industry. It seems like with the massive temperature difference, the mix will move (expand?) to the warmer part, and the force of this is stronger than the airflow so it moves upstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this will be the single biggest revolution since aviation history. It would change the way we travel, send things up to space. Of course, military consequences will be interesting as well. I wonder if US military already has something like this in the works. I'd hate it to see it fall into the wrong type of people.

Very inspiring stuff.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_a21fPkYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_a21fPkYM)

<comment><USER16> Given China, Russia, US all steal from each other when it comes to military- aerospace technology (making no statement about who steals more mind you), it would be entirely irrelevant if it fell into the wrong hands.

If China gets it first, the US will steal it from them. If the US gets it first, China will steal it from them.

Of the countries that could actually put it to use, they're going to get it no matter what. The other countries are of no concern, they're all at least 30 years behind and will perpetually remain that way.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Techy with a basic MVP, how do I find a partner? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
As I said in the title, I have a basic MVP for a product which I think is likely to be very valuable to many colleges and University. Ideally as a techy, I'd like someone with more of a business background to help with the sales, etc.
I'm also not sure whether I should be going for funding. My understanding is that you should really only look for funding if you need it, but what does that mean? I need money to survive and if I had funding I could dedicate more of my time to this and not need to worry about running out of money.
Does anyone know a good way to find someone to help me with the business side of things? Is there a good website I should know of, are meetups the way to go, or perhaps you know some better way? I'm from the UK by the way.
I have no personal contacts which would be of any help unfortunately.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> From what you've written, you are at the stage where you put in "sweat equity".

Not meaning to sound harsh, but at this early stage, you're not really investable - and other than your immediate circle of "the 3F's (Friends, Family and Fools), no one is going to invest in you - until you prove that this is more than just an idea.

You need to get your first PAYING customers, and establish some numbers that would entice an Angel or other professional investor to take a closer look.

You will have to be creative (part time job, consulting, sell your car etc., etc.),as to how you survive or feed yourself until you get to the stage where you are "investible".

If I got a dollar everytime someone approached me for money for investing in their MVP - without first having proved that it is a viable business - I'd be a very, very, very rich man.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on the work so far. Fully agree with you that diverse backgrounds among founders are a huge help. Seen too many tech founders think about the business side of things much too late.

Question: How did you determine you have an MVP and that it's likely to be very valuable to that market? Even getting that far (market research etc) requires some pretty decent business skills.

Have you spoken to a couple universities and colleges about it? If not, I would spend time to do that before spending time finding a partner or funding. It will be a bit awkward if you haven't done this type of customer research before. Additional benefit of doing this first yourself, the more you know about the business side of your future company the more you can evaluate if a potential founder has good business skills.

Heads up: the education market doesn't act like other markets (your customers are the government or close to it). A partner with education-related work/biz experience might be significantly more helpful in this case vs general biz background.

</comment><comment><USER4> What would it take to get some paying customers? Perhaps a grant or seed stage funding could come after that maybe?

I'm in the UK too and have had seed funding from a couple of schemes so they are out there. I'd be happy to help with suggestions. My email is in profile if you want to discuss.

</comment><comment><USER5> are people searching for your idea on google? then make an ad and a landing page. or posting about the problem your solving on twitter? contact them to see if you can talk with them about it.

here's a couple links on getting first users: [http://blog.lifecycle.io/how- to-get-first-users/](http://blog.lifecycle.io/how-to-get-first-users/)

[https://jasonevanish.com/2013/08/11/95-ways-to-find-your- fir...](https://jasonevanish.com/2013/08/11/95-ways-to-find-your-first- customers-for-customer-development-or-your-first-sale/)

Here's a good article on how grubhub got off the ground and found a co- founder:

[https://mevans314.com/2013/09/01/blog-series- from-1-to-700-e...](https://mevans314.com/2013/09/01/blog-series- from-1-to-700-employees/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Would you mind sharing what your product exactly is ? Happy to give you some pointers. Disclosure: I have a bootstrapped educational tech. product even though we don't sell to schools necessarily.</comment>


Web Summit 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.websummit.net/

<comment><USER2> It says tickets will be released May 7th. Is that a typo?</comment>


Google Play doesn't have an API. So I built one. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pastfuture/MarketBot

<comment><USER2> I see, it's based off of:

<http://github.com/chadrem/market_bot>

Edit: I would like to point out that Google Play actually does have an API. It uses protocol buffers, if you check the Google Play apk.

<http://github.com/kanzure/android-market-api-py>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not official though, and the results you get back from it are incredibly varied.

<comment><USER2> > and the results you get back from it are incredibly varied.

Can you show me? I haven't noticed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have any examples anymore, because I deleted all the code I had written using the protocol buffer API when I decided to start writing MarketBot.

Searching for something as simple as "foursquare" would never return the Foursquare app back and the results I was getting were never the same between requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://github.com/pastfuture/MarketBot/blob/master/App/Andr...](https://github.com/pastfuture/MarketBot/blob/master/App/Android/AmazonAppstoreApp.php)

        \PastFuture\MarketBot\App\Android\AmazonAppstoreApp

Welcome to Modern PHP.

</comment><comment><USER4> I did something like this, but using xpath queries, only problem is when they decide to change these, you will have "fun" times retesting all the dom locations to fix your scraper when the time does come when it breaks.

<comment><USER2> > I did something like this, but using xpath queries, only problem is when > they decide to change these

That's a strong reason for going with a library that is used by multiple users (more people to distribute the workload over). But more realistically, you can just use the existing API endpoints because there are client apps in the wild that rely on those APIs working the same way-- at least until Google sunsets Google Play.

<comment><USER4> there was an API which i found a while back, but it didn't work at all, all the unit tests it had failed, so my guess was that google changed their api once again and the project was worthless. The solution i came up with was the only reliable one i could build. It was only like 6 lines of code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh god parsing HTML pages.

Why don't Google Play provide JSON API like iTunes do?

<http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=343200656>

and alternatively

[http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId=com.clickgamer.Angry...](http://itunes.apple.com/lookup?bundleId=com.clickgamer.AngryBirds)

The second link can be used in client app to self-checking for new version updates.

<comment><USER6> There are tons of Android Market website clones. How do they get their data?

<comment><USER5> apps are likely to be published on G Play first, then to 3rd party markets.

If an app is exclusively published on 3rd pary market, then it's likely distributed directly through apk , there's no way to identify them using a centralized way.

<comment><USER2> > then it's likely distributed directly through apk , there's no way to > identify them using a centralized way.

You can identify them via md5 hash of the apk, the "versionName" attribute and the "versionCode" attribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you run into any query limits with aggressive scraping? A colleague wrote an android market scraper a year or two back and she was repeatedly stymied by limits on the number of queries she could make to the store before getting cut off.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't do any aggressive scraping at the moment, so I can't really answer to that. The way our backend stuff works is that when we want to add an app to the site (<http://gdgt.com/best/apps>), we query for the search results, and then grab the app we're looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want to add iTunes, here's an article on how to get the iTunes Store HTML from PHP:

<http://hactheplanet.com/blog/5>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah we're currently using their JSON API, it just hasn't been migrated over to this library yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like a BOSS.

How about the Apple Store?

<comment><USER10> Look above [1], they already have a JSON output for apps.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4634634>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bon fortuna!</comment>


Ask HN: Large brand wants to buy my side project, what should I do? - <AUTHOR> (this is a throw away account for an obvious reason)
I have a very small personal side project, ~1k+ UVs/day. A few days ago, one large company (think Alexa top 1000) got in touch with me with a proposal to acquire my project for for a small price of $10k.
I have never dealt with things like this before and I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to sell the project, but instead would like to grow it (which is quite hard to do on my own).
Would it be smart to suggest them some sort of a partnership, as it seems like they are ready to talk? <comment><USER2> Given that the page has 1000 unique views per day, is there any revenue? Any earnings? The 10k offered is strategic. They selected an amount that indicates their uncertainty regarding your business acumen. It was not an insulting lowball offer. It was an invitation to negotiate. If you would like to discuss please email me at email@example.com. As an intellectual property attorney, I'd be happy to provide some counsel.

Ken Stein

</comment><comment><USER3> They offered $10k? Counter. $50k, $75k. Whatever you feel is right. $10k is the cost of a few good laptops, not a viable business idea.

<comment><USER4> 100% this. Ive bought a few domains for companies. In my though limited experience they will be offering 10-50% of what they will pay. Once I bought a small mainly information site/blog a few years back for a bank. We wanted the domain and existing traffic as a better starting point as they ranked well in the space we were interested in. The original offer was 20% of where we were willing to go. The guy didn't even counter offer. Always counter offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah...This. You must be right. I think they want some of the existing rankings — this is the only valuable thing I have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much did you invested on this project at real business figures? I mean, if you invested 100 hours and you choose an hourly rate of $ 100, you ended up investing $ 10k and a $ 10k is pretty low.

How much does this large company should invest to implement your side project themselves? This is another number to take into account.

If you ask me, $ 10k is nothing, it is the price for a less than two weeks custom project without too much negotiation, far from acquisition price, also think in all the work you should done to close this deal (including lawyers).

<comment><USER6> Yup. That's what you'd expect to pay for a week or so for a skilled consulting firm. Not a ton of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh boy. Find an attorney now. Or you will regret it heavily in the future. DO NOT give them any information yet (like weather or not you're a registered company, or have any patents, etc...) until you find a professional to consult with.

#1 You have something they want. Understand that. You are on their radar. They can either clone your project, or buy it, whichever is cheaper for them legally and financially. How you negotiate with them will determine weather these people will be a partner, a buyer, or a competitor, or enemy.

#2 Probably they want your idea and are giving you a tiny amount of money for it, thinking $10k is going to impress you. When really your project is worth a lot more once they monetize it. If you ask them for too much they won't bother dealing with you unless they really want what you've got.

#3 They might even want your domain, or you to join their team. Equi-hiring style. Are they asking you to continue working on the project?

If you don't sell to them or offer too high a buying price, they will clone and compete with you. Are you ok with that?

Consult with a professional, this is a must. ===> MUST < ===. They WILL have lawyers drafting up the contracts, you do NOT want to get screwed. I work in a law office myself and have seen so many people get screwed on good deals (regardless of the industry) because they thought they could "do it themselves for cheap". A lawyer can help negotiate a fair deal where they give you not only cash up front but also a percentage of stock or revenue or royalties on the product they buy from you. That way they don't give you pennies for a business that might make millions later.

<comment><USER8> #2: Of course they think it's ultimately worth more than they're offering because you wouldn't buy something if the ROI was negative.

I'd personally just not deal with all the uncertainty and negotiating, and just take the offer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It probably would _not_ be smart to suggest a partnership. Maybe you want to sell, maybe you don't. Maybe $10k is not the right number, but those things can be worked through.

A partnership is a whole other thing - and it's very unlikely that you as an individual, and this large brand, have similar or compatible goals. So, forget that idea, and either sell it and walk away, or decline the offer.

</comment><comment><USER10> $10k is a consulting _day rate_ to large companies.

<comment><USER6> I'd say week rate, unless the consultants are particularly specialised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would never give up a passionate side project for such little return. I would return their offer with a much higher sale price that you would definitely be happy to get. Let it be their loss and your gain if they don't accept it.

</comment><comment><USER12> 10K is an absolute insult. I have sold domain names for that much. Ask for at least 100K plus a percentage of any revenue they generate from the product for the next 10 years. Then you will find out how serious they are.

<comment><USER13> > 10K is an absolute insult.

How can you say that without knowing what the project is? For all you know it's a clever sed expression that took the author fifteen minutes to write.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't get out of bed for less than $100k unless it's $10k for a local gig for a week.

They're going to pester you endlessly for free labor post-sales if you let them, but consider offering a support contract on a per-incident / per-hour basis which could Lingchi-them, consulting-style.

</comment><comment><USER15> > but instead would like to grow it (which is quite hard to do on my own)

I don't know the details but a lot of, now very successful projects, have been grown by a single person, so you can definitely do it. Check out www.indiehackers.com for advice and inspiration.

I have also not dealt with things like these, but one thing I strongly believe in: don't be afraid to let people know how you feel about things and how you see things. So I would probably say something like this: I do not wish to sell my project but I am looking for an opportunity to grow. Would you be willing to help me out with this? In turn, we can find a way to help you out with your goals as well to make this a win-win scenario.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why is it hard to grow? Are you making sales from it? How does $10K compare to a year of potential sales? If it's so simple, why can they not just copy it?

<comment><AUTHOR> No sales from the website. I don't sell anything. They want to use my brand to test new market.

<comment><USER17> One might read that as they want the domain name. Is it a particularly desirable domain maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, nothing about the domain name. The thing is that mt side project is sort of based on their content. Sometimes the content goes viral. That's about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it worth 10k to you to sell? Do you think they'd pay more? Is this an aqui- hire? Are they bringing you on? Have you thought about getting angel investors to maybe see this through and help you grow it?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Is it worth 10k to you to sell?

Yes. That's the perfect price.

> Do you think they'd pay more?

Probably not, but I wouldn't want to sell it even if they said $20k.

> Is this an aqui-hire? Are they bringing you on?

No.

> Have you thought about getting angel investors to maybe see this through and > help you grow it?

The project is so simple that I don't believe anyone would ever want to invest in it.

<comment><USER19> $10k is _not_ the perfect price if you'd be reluctant to sell at even twice that. The perfect price, for a buyer, is the minimum price at which a seller is willing to sell.

The perfect price for a seller is the maximum price a buyer is willing to pay.

If the former is greater than the latter, no perfect price exists.

<comment><USER20> That's a fallacy assuming homo economics rationality, there can be valid reasons that accepting a lower price is more desirable than accepting a higher selling price.

There is in reality such a thing as dis-utility, which can mean any price over some $xx,xxx is actually less valuable due to marginal utility of each additional dollar actually being negative.

<comment><USER21> Wouldn't that only be if he had to work harder for those additional dollars? How could any higher purchase price have negative marginal utility in this case, realistically?

<comment><USER20> I know this is an unpopular idea, but even the belief that you're getting more than something is worth can cause negative emotions which is a negative marginal utility.

The marginal utility is really the sum of the economic utility of the dollar and the emotional utility, you can in fact have a negative emotional utility that is greater than the strictly economic utility of the dollar.

And to be honest, I don't think I'd ever have that feeling, but it can be a realistic phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tell em yes for $25k, then you can say "I have built and sold a company/product."

</comment><comment><USER23> Is it an info or a product site? If it's the latter you could go into an affiliate agreement with them and that would be a win-win situation without the need to sell the site. If it's an info site with that amount of daily visitors I'd say the offer is quite generous. If you try to work a partnership you'll have to divulge numbers which isn't in your favor.

</comment><comment><USER24> Could you licence your product to them? Or get some sort of equity? I'm just thinking that any given number as a fixed sell cost basically deprives you of the ongoing potential of your creation. I guess if you were smart and sold your product for, say, $100K you could invest the money and make residual income off it that way. But still. What if your idea becomes something huge. Like if someone had bought Facebook from Zuckerberg back in the day for $10K. Just a thought.

But $10K does sound really low. If it's something they value, unless it's something they can replicate easily, it seems like that's just a low ball, an invitation to negotiate.

</comment><comment><USER25> Say you'll accept an offer for 150K, with details on what you hand over (domain name, code, database), with a post-sale support contract retainer of 20 hours a month for 250$/hour for as long as they need you for questions.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ok, having some actual experience on this, I think you can ignore most of what has been posted here, particularly all those "10K? No way! Ask them for 100K!" posts. It just doesn't work like that.

Two posts that do strike a chord with me are ChrisNorstrom's and LargeCompanies'.

Whoever said they _will_ clone you if you don't sell is also correct. That means that whatever value your project may have now it won't have in the future once the competitors (plural!) start popping in.

It appears that you have already talked to them and figured what their motivations are, that's good.

Depending on how good your negotiation skills are (and I'll assume they're not very good, since you're asking here) and what your feeling about their offer is (whether they're lowballing it and how much) you could:

1\. Ask them for a bit more (maybe 50% / 100%) and sell as-is, or

2\. Take their offer and sell as-is, then

3\. Offer them a limited number of support days at a fair day rate ($600-$1200?). This is where, after you get the money, you show them how your thing (which is now _their_ thing) works, and

4\. That should be the entirety of the agreement.

That means no code review, no technical discussion, nothing. They have seen what they have seen and they have named a price that's good enough for them based on the information they already have. They don't need any more than that and you are satisfied that it's a fair valuation.

Just to emphasise, if they are well-resourced enough and have enough of an interest in whatever your product is, and you don't sell it to them, they will copy it.

So you'll be better off selling it blind to them for whatever money they offered and then you just set up a new site competing against your own old code. See my point 4 above and don't sign a no-compete clause. Hopefully you're a good enough actor to play dumb and convince them the deal is not worth enough for you if you need to start lawyering up so you'd rather keep things simple.

All the above is based on actual experience.

</comment><comment><USER26> How many hours have you put into it? Multiply the number of hours by $100.

</comment><comment><USER27> Look at the numbers. The project is worth a minimum of 3x the annual gross (NOT EBITDA or net). If it is increasing in sales volume, margins are 40% or better, and it's truly scalable, it's worth closer to 10x to 20x. If the buyer sees it as a strategic purchase, not a tactical purchase, it can be worth as much as 100x.

Consider your unvarnished answers (no rose colored glasses, please) before responding with an acceptance, a counter offer, or a gracious decline.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is it on a .com? Maybe they could care less about the project, but need the url to flesh out a million dollar ad campaign. Are they asking for any kind of non-compete? i.e. Could you simply re-brand and relaunch? My advice would to not be in any hurry. See if you can gauge how urgent they are. For now, tell them this project means a lot to you, a lot more than $10k.

</comment><comment><USER29> Don't counter with an actual number. Simply say, "you're going to have to do better than that."

</comment><comment><USER30> If they want to by it, that offer will not go away just because you ask about terms.

That being said, there are many reasons why a large company may not have the ability to partner with a very small side business (having to do with transaction cost and management overhead)

It never hurts to ask.

</comment><comment><USER31> Online businesses typically sell for 3-5x profit/year. How does the $10,000 offer compare?

</comment><comment><USER32> You should read this, as it explains what will probably happen if you engage without leverage: [http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html](http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html)

</comment><comment><USER33> $10K is about what you can get for a minor domain name with some traffic. Is that what they want it for?

</comment><comment><USER34> $money = sell(); invest($money);

</comment><comment><USER35> I once got an email from Motorola/Google regarding one of my projects/startups and then after a phone call I hopped on a plane to meet/demo my technology to them. During the phone call it was asked.... have you ever thought of selling your technology and we'd love for you to demo.

Well this type of interaction is what almost ever startupper/inventor wants to receive and then sell their technology to the big G.

Turns out the big G (Motorola ATAP at the time now Google ATAP) were a bunch of jerks who just wanted to know how our non-public technology worked. After flying from Bmore to Silly Valley .. filing our provisioinal patent and then them prying the info out of us with the bait of buying it we were quickly showed the door and told the race is one... better hurry.

I guess that's part of Google's R&D process...stomp on & treat the little guy like garbage!?!

YOu need to lawyer up if you don't have connections who are connected to X big brand. It's David vs. Goliath and Goliath will just crush you and your hopes and dreams.

Here is my blog post i wrote after our mutual NDA expired... [http://ryanspahn.com/my-google-NDA-experience.html](http://ryanspahn.com/my- google-NDA-experience.html).

<comment><USER36> > I guess that's part of Google's R&D process

It wouldn't have been the first time they allegedly do it like that:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/339sty/ju...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/339sty/just_like_what_happened_to_yelp/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp#Private_company_.282009.E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp#Private_company_.282009.E2.80.932011.29)

<comment><USER37> Rule of Thumb: Don't pass around those kind of projects, planning, ideas, etc on Google+, GMail, Facebook, Bing, hotmail, Yahoo, #Slack etc... unless you intentionally want/expect someone else to run with the idea, because if it is any good they will run with it.

Use E2E encryption to coordinate, communicate, etc but don't expect those services, software, and the hardware they run on to protect you or your company and ideas in any real meaningful manner.

<comment><USER38> > _Rule of Thumb: Don 't pass around those kind of projects, planning, ideas, > etc on Google+, GMail, Facebook, Bing, hotmail, Yahoo, #Slack etc... unless > you intentionally want/expect someone else to run with the idea, because if > it is any good they will run with it._

What's the paranoia level of this suggestion?

I mean, if you could prove that company X stole your novel idea from a conversation between you and someone not working for X on X's platform, you'd definitely come out on top right?

So surely companies big enough to have a reasonable chance of such conversations going on aren't so stupid as to snoop for product ideas?

<comment><USER39> > What's the paranoia level of this suggestion?

The kind of paranoia level that's reasonable to have, nowadays. If you're too young to have heard of Snowden, read up on him. If you're too old to remember Snowden, read up on him. The concept of industrial espionage is not just a concept, it's being done all the time.

Now you may assume that upper management would not want to have something come to light and would therefor not engage in it. The thing is, upper management does not control what employee X does. And employee X may want to get _that promotion_ after all.

The fact that society shifts more an more of their lives onto Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. servers boggles my mind. And they don't even end-to- end-encrypt (assuming that encryption is currently not broken yet).

<comment><USER38> > _If you 're too young to have heard of Snowden, read up on him. If you're > too old to remember Snowden, read up on him._

Does that apply to anyone reading HN in 2016?

My asking about paranoia level was not intended to slight. Some amount is healthy in this context, as you say.

I suppose my point was that although not every employee can be relied upon, surely this fact means that such companies, not wishing to get into trouble, don't allow employees access to data like that.

End-to-end encryption is obviously a good idea. Though I also appreciate that not having it (and, e.g. "Snoopers' Charter") catches bad guys - for some order of 'badness' that isn't extreme enough that we can assume they're all up on encryption (as is the common argument for it being ineffective against terrorism) e.g. paedophiles rings.

<comment><USER40> I don't believe that it has ever happened in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ask them for 100k, no questions asked. If they don't agree balk. You can also say it's an acquihire where you will continue to work on the project, if they pay you your existing salary +20%, in addition to the 100k bonus, plus any relocation fees. If they are going to be working on your project, it's better that you who wrote it to begin with continue to work on it.

<comment><USER42> I second this. If 10 or 20k isn't enough, what if you add a 0? Given your input time (labour) plus consumables (computers, internet service, food) you have probably spent 20-50k on development already.</comment></comment>


Steve Blank: Relentless – The Difference Between Motion And Action - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2009/11/09/relentless-%e2%80%93-the-difference-between-motion-and-action/ <comment><USER3> This reminds me of my hero of project management, Tom DeMarco.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeMarco>

His approach was that every task is either 100% complete or 0% complete.

No task is ever "80%" complete. If you really think that it is, then break it down into smaller tasks, 80% of which are 100% complete and 20% of which are 0% complete. This way it becomes much clearer what is complete and what remains to be done.

I have never allowed anyone to report anything as n% complete for values other than 0 or 100. As soon as someone does, that's a pretty good sign that they may be confusing motion with action.

Remember OP's discussion with Jim...

      Me: Jim, how are we doing with getting Ansys ported?
      Jim: Great, I have a bunch of calls into them.
      Me: How are we doing on the Nastran port?
      Jim: Wonderful, they said they'll get back to me next month.
      Me: How about Dyna 3D?
      Jim: It's going great, we're on their list.

Now imagine how much different that conversation would be if each question started with, "Which tasks are complete and which tasks are incomplete?"

<comment><USER4> There is something very sexy about this.

Yet, I can think of situations where this is counterproductive. Take sales. Any company that has a sales cycle can create predictive models after a certain amount of time. They can make predictions like 80% of sales close after point x. So if a sales dept has 100 sales at point x, they can predict about 80 will close. If this model has proven to be mostly accurate over a period of time, it can bring a heathy sense of stability and consistency in the company.

I couldn't tell where Steve stands with this exactly but isn't a linear sales process what allows sales-focused companies to be able to scale? I know in the case Steve described it was not the way to go because the sales cycle hadn't been proven and needed to be developed. But once developed, you don't want to be reinventing the wheel each time a new sales guy joins the team right?

<comment><USER5> That's a prediction, not an outcome. Predictions are useful, but they aren't the same as outcomes at all.

(This is a different thing to the Motion/Action discussion, too)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) As a child the most important thing is effort, not results. If you try really hard your teacher/parent will reward you, even if the results are crap.

2) If you watch "business people" on TV they're involved in phone calls, meetings, and deal making. No boring or hard stuff that involves solo work for hours on end.

Put together those two ideas and you get people who think their _entire_ job is to make an _effort_ by doing what "business people" do all day.

This is why someone could feel entirely satisfied with themselves, even if they haven't produced a single meaningful result through all their effort.

<comment><USER7> "deal making" is pretty damn important, I don't know why you think it's some intermediary step like making a phone call or sitting in a meeting.

<comment><USER8> Until the deal is done, it doesn't amount to much.

<comment><USER7> You're certainly right - did you notice how Steve Blank never actually explained how to bridge the gap between "schedule meetings with people" and "get the deal done"?

"Scheduling meetings" is required, it just can't be used as a metric for progress. Don't get fooled into believing all these problems can be solved by sitting down and writing code for 10 hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> _notice how Steve Blank never actually explained how to bridge the gap between "schedule meetings with people" and "get the deal done"?_

He does in his book. But a blog post has to have a limited scope or it becomes a rambling mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The specific delusion that motion is action is but one instance of what I'll call "value generation bias".

Most people have a pretty poor sense of whether they are generating value, and therefore seek to reassure themselves that their time is well spent by taking pride in whatever accomplishments they can track and their peers can recognize. We need this validation in order to feel that we have a purpose, and are serving that purpose.

Successful entrepreneurs are characterized by a merciless drive to remove bias from their understanding of value generation. They do so by working in enterprises that inherently provide this feedback -- like startups that die if they're not generating enough value -- or by soliciting feedback from trustworthy sources like customers, advisors, or numeric measurements.

If you are the kind of person who places little faith in value assessments made without clear reference to a worthy goal -- grades, job titles, signs of social status -- and you actively seek out information that challenges your own value judgments in order to reduce your own bias, you are probably moving in the right direction.

<comment><USER10> That's a terribly honest and critical viewpoint. I love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find I make this mistake constantly: I've contacted someone, I've put the ball into their hands, but the goal is still as far away as it was when I started. It's an easy trap to fall into, at least for me, because clients have as much to do as we do to get various projects completed. Now that I've seen the issue, however, I can watch for it and take action where appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER12> I noticed that when I use the expression "the ball is in their hand", I don't really care about the outcome. I'm just happy I don't have to deal with it right now.

It's funny how accurate the expression is, now that I think about it. Handing over the ball is a sure way to prevent you from scoring.

<comment><USER13> OTOH, sometimes you get an alley-oop or an assist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a manager, how do I know I'm not making an opposite mistake - <USER2> action with motion? In other words, how do I know I'm not too hard on somebody? The guy is making dozens of calls, sending hundreds of e-mails, and going to dozens of meetings to get people to write software for my machine with no customer base, but I don't see any concrete results. How do I know it's not _my_ fault for asking him to do an impossible task?

<comment><USER15> Two approaches:

1\. It could be an impossible task, but if the company depends on it, then what are you going to do? You can't hang on to someone who isn't delivering the results you need because you don't have infinite time and money. If they are filling a seat that someone better could potentially fill, you and the rest of your employees would be better served finding that better someone and survive.

2\. Some tasks are impossible, but most are just hard. Embrace this definition of insanity: doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. If your report is making no headway, quickly as a team accept that, learn from it, and then spend the time to generate new approaches and test those out.

Both approaches are correct. You fire or double down depending on how aligned your report is to positive action. If they are defensive, unwilling, or incapable of learning and experimenting, they are roadblocks. If they are also concerned about their lack of progress, generating ideas, and resourceful, go the distance with them.

Note: it's legitimate for your report to claim that given the resources they have, they cannot meet the target. They can demand from you more resources to meet your goal, or demand you adjust your goal to meet their perception of reality. Then the process works in reverse. Are _you_ defensive, unwilling, or incapable of learning? Or are you concerned about how well resourced you are, resourceful, and willing to go to bat for your report?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's easy to confuse activity (non business results-producing tasks) with productivity (direct business results-producing tasks). An entrepreneur is one who attacks that difference with zeal.

</comment><comment><USER17> You could swap the words motion and action in this article, and it wouldn't change the meaning.

i.e. why not: action: just doing something, whatever motion: making forward progress towards a goal. _movement_

The words only server as placeholders -- they might as well be X and Y. Break out a dictionary once in a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no need to be hostile. It's a famous Hemingway quote. See the first line of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very simple, yet insightful article. This is something everyone should look out for-not just entrepreneurs. When it comes down to it, we're measured by our results not by our efforts.

</comment><comment><USER19> The key point:

> My brain was wired to focus on the end-point and work backwards, removing > each obstacle in my path or going around them all while keeping the goal in > sight.

Which is a really good one.</comment>


An ARM-based MacBook SE could destroy Chromebooks and mid-priced Windows laptops - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/a-macbook-se-will-destroy-chromebooks-and-windows-laptops-in-one-fell-swoop <comment><USER3> I seriously doubt that Apple would release an ARM-based laptop that would "destroy" the massive low/mid-tier Chromebook and Windows laptop market for three reasons:

a) They'd have to release it at the same price point or less than those products (that's not The Apple Way)

b) Chromebooks have a huge market share in the educational space, and Windows low-end laptops have a massive market share everywhere else (and in general, the first person to a market usually maintains their lead for a long time, even given other factors - just like Apple with the iPhone)

c) This would require users to switch from one app ecosystem to another on a different platform that attracts developers that want to monetize directly compared to the app ecosystem on most Chromebooks and low-end Windows laptops (which are still x86_64-based and have a plethora of free/FOSS productivity apps)

<comment><USER4> Point a) need to be elaborated a bit: the reason they can't release it at a very low price point is that, while sure, it might "destroy" the chromebook and low-end windows laptop market, it would also destroy much of the MacBook and iPad market for the same reason.

Who's going to buy the $1k macbook when a $300 one works just as well? This isn't going to happen. Apple is a company built on high margin products, they aren't going to change that.

<comment><USER5> Worried about cannibalization? Of course, like the iPhone SE, there are some sacrifices compared to the premium devices, because these are non essentials for the target demographic: commoners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apple's chips are really impressive. I would love to see them in a general purpose computer so that developers can really take advantage of the power. Whatever is in my iPad Pro would make a great development workstation if I could connect two monitors to it and ... run Linux. It is power-efficient, very lightweight, and has built-in 4G. In those categories, it beats the pants off of any Intel-based laptop I've ever had. But I still have to SSH to a real computer to work, which is an artifact of Apple's OS policies, not what sort of workload the chips they put in there are capable of.

The unfortunate reality with all of these stripped-down computers, though, is that nobody is writing software for them. While the CPUs are powerful enough to run pretty much anything, nobody is porting their AAA games or CAD software or video editors. Maybe Apple's ability to dynamically recompile Mac Store apps to ARM will help, but I still think MacOS is seriously lacking compared to Windows. So the best Apple can hope for is a "budget Mac" which power users won't buy (and power users write all the software), and they'll just be an expensive Chromebook. (ChromeOS doesn't have a lot of native software either, but at least you can run a normal Linux environment in a container and write software on the device. And, I don't think any person goes out to buy a Chromebook... they just get them for "free" from their school or company. It is an interesting segment of the market that can be profitable, but I really want to see these chips in something I can sink my teeth into. Set up a development environment, write software, and run the same software in production on those chips too.)

My takeaway is that it's a shame that this amazing CPU-design division exists inside a company that is all about dumbed-down user experiences. They could probably kill Intel overnight if you could just buy the chips on their own, but instead they insist on putting these chips in devices that are hamstrung by arbitrary policy. Obviously they are playing a long game, but as someone who just wants the best possible equipment... I can't afford to wait. (And I don't think the end result of the game -- Apple makes the CPU, laptop, OS, and software -- is very good for anyone.)

<comment><USER7> Do you really suspect that Linux would run as well as iOS? Isn't iOS optimized for the A17 and vice versa? It's out of my wheelhouse, but I suspect that this synergy is the only reason they seem so fast.

<comment><USER6> I am going by compute benchmarks, which should be relatively unaffected by the OS. (The OS could slow them down if it really wanted to, I guess.)

Random example: [https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/01/2018-ipad-pro- benchmark...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/01/2018-ipad-pro-benchmarks- geekbench/)

<comment><USER8> Those benchmarks don't seem to account for batteries.

I hook my 2018 MacBook Pro up to a 4K TV to present to a meeting and the battery goes down to about 35% after two hours.

<comment><USER9> 2 hours is a reasonable amount of time for something like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A few years ago I picked up a second hand 12" Macbook. Without a doubt it has been my favourite laptop I've ever owned. I'm pretty sure this is as close as they'll go to a chromebook competitor. I wouldn't want it as my main machine but for programming and general use on the go it's a joy to use. The dimensions are brilliant, it feels lighter than any chromebook I've used, and it has a "more full" OS than an iPad. I was so sad when I found out they'd discontinued the line.

The battery is on it's way out now and the keyboard is getting worn out but I'm pretty sure I'll get it repaired rather than picking up anything else. I'm not one to buy apple products usually but I've been so happy with this purchase, I'm not sure another laptop will ever top how great this one has been for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> This...feels very much like the old canard of "Apple _must_ release a cheap computer to compete with all the shoddily-made Windows computers!"

Apple's not shooting for marketshare. They never have been, they (probably) never will. And, conversely, it's very unlikely that _most_ people with Chromebooks and Windows laptops today would be interested in switching to a Mac—the software's either not there, or very different.

And I say all this as a devoted lifelong Mac user.

</comment><comment><USER12> A MacBook SE could also destroy a lot of market for MacBooks and MacBook Airs...

<comment><USER13> what if they put ios on it and not a full macos

<comment> grey-area The two are getting closer and closer. Witness the gradual creep of iOS apps onto Mac OS int he last couple of iterations. This will continue:

[https://www.cnet.com/news/macos-catalinas-ipad-apps-for- the-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/macos-catalinas-ipad-apps-for-the-mac-are- here-but-the-story-is-just-getting-started/)

At some point they will merge iOS and Mac OS, given that iOS makes them all the money, and is now capable enough (with a different UI toolkit) to provide both phone and desktop programs.

<comment><USER14> > _At some point they will merge iOS and Mac OS_

And just outright kill a bunch of applications?

<comment> grey-area Yes, as they eventually did with the OS X transition, the 64bit transition etc

They'll support older apps for a long time though, it just won't be the preferred sdk and will gradually be phased out.

The situation they have right now is madness - two parallel slightly different UI toolkits and SDKs, one of which makes vastly more money.

<comment><USER14> > _two parallel slightly different UI toolkits and SDKs, one of which makes > vastly more money._

And one which has a longer history. Should every Cocoa application be written in UIKit to continue working?

<comment> grey-area Yes, in the same way as all Pascal apps had to be rewritten to the C API a long time ago, and all Mac OS 9 apps had to be rewritten as cocoa (NextStep), or all Objective-C apps will have to be rewritten as Swift as that is the new blessed SDK. In practice it won't be a huge burden as older apps will not be phased out for a long time - see the Objective-C to Swift transition - <USER2> will be a very long transition period.

I'm not saying this is great for developers, I'm saying it makes economic sense for Apple and the signs are they are moving in this direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If it is a MacBook, it will start at a minimum of $999. That is the price at which most chrome books end up for higher end pricing . The entry level chrome books for schools etc start at $250 where Apple competes with the entry level iPad

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel like "Destroying Chromebooks" requires competing with the Chromebook price point of around $300, despite the link near the top of the article to a list of "the best Chromebooks in 2020" that goes up to $1200. ([https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best- chromebooks](https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-chromebooks))

Apple is picky about what it puts in its machines and what it makes them out of; can they make one of their signature milled aluminum cases cheaply enough to be a part of a BOM that lets them make a decent profit at $300? I can't find much data on estimated BOMs for the Air (I feel that's the closest thing in their line to this category) beyond a 2010 estimate of about $750 for machines sold starting at $1000. That price to users has remained consistent so I feel I can assume the cost to Apple hasn't changed much. Some quick and sloppy searching shows that Intel's prices on the CPUs in the current Airs are somewhere in the $150-300 range, if I make the best-case assumption that the cheapest Air's CPU costs Apple $300 and that the cost of a desktop-level Apple CPU is _zero_ , that's still a BOM of ~350 for the rest of something built with the same specs as the cheapest Air. I guess you could bring in a mid- range Prestige Chromebook at that cost? Maybe? I have no idea what the Chromebook market is shaped like.

A plastic enclosure would probably lower the cost, but would they do that? I think the last time we saw plastic MacBooks was the "toilet seat" iBook back in the days of the gumdrop plastic iMac.

<comment><USER17> The last plastic Mac laptops were the original MacBook (circa 2006-2008 or so?) rather then the toilet seat ones.

<comment><USER16> Ah thanks, I wasn't really keeping much track of laptops back then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would love to see this. I currently use a Chromebook as my 'around the house' laptop. It's great for that but once you start doing things like installing apps or having multiple users it breaks down fast.

For example, the Google Play store app is only accessible by a single account, and apps aren't available across users. So if another user wants to install an app, you have to log out all users and they need to log in as the primary user. It's super annoying.

</comment><comment><USER19> Still too expensive. Chromebooks are $200 and could probably go lower. If you want to compete on quality you must also compete on software/apps. The new Ipad pro would be interesting though, if it where not for the price. Maybe when everyone is going SAAS Apple could go with classic licenses, where software is run on the user machine rather then some very expensive server.

<comment><USER20> Chromebooks are $200 at the low end. Something like the Pixelbook Go is $600+.

<comment><USER21> And iPhone SE has better specs than pixelbook pretty much all around except ram at the same price. How does that even work?

<comment><USER22> Economies of scale. A 'high-end Chromebook' is an extremely niche device, they aren't going to sell many.

<comment><USER23> I wonder how many $1000 MacBook buyers would actively prefer a $700 version with MacOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Macs still don't have games.

<comment><USER24> Demonstrably false.

A quick glance at the front page of Steam shows at least half the games support Mac and Linux: [https://store.steampowered.com/](https://store.steampowered.com/)

It's never been easier to write a cross platform game with toolkits like Unity.

<comment><USER25> Half of those games marked as macOS don't work anymore after the forced 32->64bit migration. My Steam library is useless on my Macbook.

<comment><USER26> Hmm, another reason to stay on High Sierra rather than upgrading to Catalina.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't quite get why "entry level" products are being made. In almost every conceivable category, if your budget is limited, buying used premium products is most likely the best option. A few years ago I would consider myself rather poor (think ex-eastern block), and me and almost everyone I knew was buying used stuff - be it cars, phones, computers, tools etc.

If you aim at the entry level market, you either make something that will soon be obsolete, or cut corners on manufacturing - both options lead to the landfill rather soon.

<comment><USER28> Because "used" is not the same as "new."

The definition can vary. What one person defines as "normal wear and tear" is not necessarily what someone else would define it as. A small crack on the corner? A dead pixel? A loose hinge? Scratches?

In addition, buying used is fine if you can support it; but, what if someone can't? A warranty can be a good thing, as can tech support.

I've bought a number of used Thinkpads and it takes work.

<comment><USER27> Good point about support - I think this scenario could be more realistic if there were regulations in place which force manufacturers to enable third party repair (schematics, sale of parts etc).

It's working well already with cars - in places where labor is cheap things like older BMWs get extended life, as the same repairs wouldn't be affordable in other places, and as a consumer you get the benefit of driving a decent car for a reasonable price.

I see quite a bit of refurbishers in my area selling ex-leased laptops for a low price with a warranty, so it looks like the market finds a way.

My point is, there are upsides to buying new, but I think the environmental downside is much much greater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This could be a real game changer if Apple succeeds in expanding their mobile toolkit to the ARM Mac.

To be honest, I'll buy an ARM Macbook right now if I can use Microsoft Office, Safari and VS Code.

</comment><comment><USER30> Only if the machine lent itself to the installation of alternative operating systems, whether that be some form of Linux or Windows or anything else. That would imply the hardware would need to be open enough for drivers to be developed. The chance of Apple launching something like this seem slim, they may have started as a hardware company but by now they are well hooked on spreading their 'ecosystem' as well as on their secondary income streams from the app store etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Pretty weak article.

Tries to argue the Windows transition failed because of the lack of a walled garden app store. But Windows on ARM did have a (to all intents and purposes) mandatory app store. Indeed, as the Mac App Store has broadly failed it had more of one.

Apple is going to have the same issues with third party software transitions. The reality is that consumers don't seem to really like the idea of a "proper" computer that can't run everything.

<comment><USER32> Right, and I'm really not sure what this paragraph from the article means, or if it actually has any meaning at all.

> With iPadOS now offering macOS-like features, as well as keyboard and > trackpad support, it's arguably not too much of a challenge for Apple to > rework macOS to run on RISC and ARM.

<comment><USER33> I can answer that. Apple already has macOS running on ARM, and has had for years.

This gives them two things:

1\. Leverage on pricing with Intel;

2\. The ability to ship ARM macs whenever they are ready.

So the next thing is, "what's the definition of 'ready'?" Opinions about that vary. I side wth tthe popular speculation that the 'problem' with macOS on ARM is not macOS, but all the legacy apps that need to be recompiled or run in some kind of emulation or need some other magic solution to "just work."

It's easy to ask every developer to recompile, but people have lots of shareware apps, unsupported old apps, enterprise apps, and apps from developers who aren't making enough money to justify putting a lot of work into supporting a new chip.

So for now, we have this weird situation where phones and tablets have enormous amounts of computing power but require less power and thus provide longer battery life for a given mass... Mostly to support computational photography.

p.s. Completely spitballing here, but I wonder if their hesitation to ship with an emulator—as they did when they made the PowerPC -> Intel switch—is because on a mobile device, emulation might be a heat source and power hog. With desktops, they didn't have the same concern about power draw or heat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Their regular laptops are priced at 2x or more the market for similar specs. The Mac Pro is more than 4x.

Unless they align themselves with market price (within a premium range, maybe up to 50% more than median), I don't see how they can "destroy the market" (they could still be a commercial success though).

The prime selling point of cheap laptops/chromebooks is their price.

</comment><comment><USER35> I worry that any non-x86 MacBook would make it significantly harder to virtualize macOS on KVM.

</comment><comment><USER36> When I'm not using a MacBook 15", I'm on a Surface Go for it's ultraportability. If Apple made effectively an iPad Go that ran an ARM macOS, I'd use it. I don't care for apps, I make them usually for web.

</comment><comment> m-p-3 And it would become a great and cheap portable option for iOS developers that just needs an Apple system to develop and compile and publish mobile apps.

I get (but I don't agree) that Apple wants to lock developers into their platform.

</comment><comment><USER37> They are missing a very crucial point: even if apple will sell a cheaper macbook se it will still be a lot more expansive than the cheap windows notebooks bought. Apple will not make a 400-500$ notebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> They do make iPhones and iPads in that price range

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> the page contains a redirect to a page telling me to turn off adblocking. Evidently this is because my adblocking didn't go far enough. It goes away if I disable scripts on the page altogether.

<comment><USER39> get uBlock origin. Not adblock, adblock plus or uBlock. But uBlock origin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> MacBook SE already exists, it's an iPad with an external keyboard

<comment><USER22> No. For now a real MacBook is still a computer in the traditional sense, you can run your own code on it. An iPad isn't.

<comment><USER40> Lol yes I know

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Chromebooks hold the trifecta: \- K-12 market share +60% \- G Suite ecosystem (admins/users) \- Pricing (Sub $180 HP G8 (AMD))

<comment><USER42> According to Wikipedia, Chrome OS usage share is just 0.18%. Yes, that's just one fifth of one percent. And their K-12 share is nowhere near that high, worldwide.

<comment><USER20> In the US ChromeOS seems to have about 4-6% market share [0] with about 60% share in K-12. As you say, those are US numbers and the K-12 figures are much lower (single digits) elsewhere. Of course, not sure what availability and promotion to school systems even looks like outside the US.

[0] [https://calacanis.com/2019/01/02/chrome-os-is-the- ultimate-p...](https://calacanis.com/2019/01/02/chrome-os-is-the-ultimate- productivity-hack-will-exceed-mac-os-marketshare-but-can-it-challenge- windows/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> An affordable Ferrari could put VW, Ford, GM and Toyota out of business. Imagine if that was possible, would everyone want it? Or would they buy themselves another Golf?

Given the choice of a deluxe Apple computer (never mind an SE one) I would still take the regular PC or the Chromebook. Sounds mad but I like ChromeOS, Chrome and the normal PC keyboard. I don't actually want MacOS and I would pay to not have it. I am not alone in thinking this way.

</comment><comment><USER44> Could it be that it is linked to expiration of some Intel patents?

</comment><comment><USER45> Macbooks dont even have a touchscreen.

edit: why downvotes? machines like that are also replacement for a tablet.

<comment><USER22> Not having a touchscreen is a big plus point these days. It usually means you get to use much more precise input devices instead!

Touchscreen devices with touch-centric operating systems/UI systems will never replace 'proper computers' for 'serious software' as everything has to be so completely dumbed-down for touch, simply because you can't build a complex and feature-rich UI for such a limited input device.

<comment><USER46> I don't think this will always be the case. Applications like Bitwig Studio have both traditional and touch interfaces. It's only a change in GUI. I can see most applications in the future having "responsive" gui layouts like how web designers deal with screen sizes, but for touch interfaces.</comment></comment></comment>


EBay's Strategy for Taking On Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy-for-taking-on-amazon.html

<comment><USER2> I hope Amazon crushes Ebay/Paypal

Ebay/Paypal has a long history of screwing sellers and buyers and users of Paypal, just search the internet for horror stories. Their support is staffed by drones (ha) unlike Amazon support who are swift and efficient and seem to go out of their way to make me feel good as a customer.

What is more surprising is that Ebay hasnt been brought to court here in Europe, its quite obvious majority of sellers are not charging or paying sales taxes (VAT) which are as high as 20 to 30% here depending on state.

<comment><USER3> I was a consultant at eBay for a few years, and one thing I learned was that it's big, hairy, complex problem to run a marketplace. Every policy change is fraught with vitriol because there are always two sides -- the buyers and the sellers. One group will always think you're screwing them over while the other side thinks you made their day. It's worse because the sellers are a small, extremely vocal group and the buyers are the quiet millions that simply react through purchasing decisions (or lack thereof). Buyers tend not to run anti- eBay blogs, forums, etc.

On top of that, there's fraud. Both eBay and PayPal have inserted themselves as an intermediary in the long history of humans trying to screw each other over, where one or both parties is going to walk away very unhappy, and the company gets the blame. It's a tiny fraction of the activity, but the outcome is that everyone pays the price through draconian policies, high fees, bad customer service, locked accounts, etc.

<comment><USER4> Honest question, why does EBay not offer a simple we open the package weigh it and take some pictures and then email them, to the buyer option? Even adding a week and charging 20$ + shipping would be worth it for a fair number of purchases and add quite a bit to there bottom line.

<comment><USER3> I have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say the problems are that it's not cost effective and it could cause eBay to hold the bag in the case of fraud. I'm not sure that it would be as little as $20 to process shipments, and photographs aren't necessarily going to show problems such as defective products or counterfeit goods. It requires a more lengthy examination by an expert.

I think there's a small market opportunity here though. Gazelle and some other companies are doing this for some electronics. Instead of essentially acting as an escrow, they are buying a tested, QA'd product outright from the seller, and then selling it for a more hefty markup on eBay and other outlets. Small, high value goods with high margins such as electronics, luxury clothing, and jewelry may be a good business here if it marketing can be scaled cost effectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I usually only ever shop on Amazon; recently I got a little into drones and aerial photography, and some addons can only be found on eBay.

Man, shopping on eBay is a friggin' nightmare.

1\. For some reason, eBay logs you out completely every time you restart the browser (whether or not you check the "stay connected" checkbox). Curiously, the page says "hello {my name}" but I still need to reconnect to do anything, and when I do, I have to retype my email address!! If the system can remember my name why can't it remember my email address?? (This is the most annoying detail imaginable, probably because it seems so easy to fix).

2\. Product descriptions are a mess; they usually contain many pictures but the text is more about what the buyer NEEDS TO DO AND VARIOUS OTHER WARNINGS IN ALL CAPS (and red font) than about the product itself. I feel like I'm being yelled at by an angry cop every time I read those.

3\. Paying is a pain. Buying and paying are two very different events on eBay, whereas they're just one and the same on Amazon. You have to go to Paypal (completely different website -- eBay owns Paypal, can't they integrate it to the main eBay site??) and then you get a deluge of emails (around 4 I believe, sometimes more when the seller decides to write too).

4\. Sellers are often unprofessional and obnoxious. They send you emails telling you to rate them 5 stars and that "FOUR STARS = FAILURE"; they add a paper saying the same thing in the package; they very rarely respond to emails; shipments are made via non-traceable systems.

5\. Products are of uncertain quality; some are very good and some are cheap rip-offs (but it's hard/impossible to tell from the product description).

I would very happily pay 30% more (or even 100% more for some products that are very cheap anyway) to shop on Amazon vs. eBay; I can't understand how they're still in business (it can't just be me buying a couple of filter adapters for GoPro cameras, can it?)

<comment><USER6> Interesting; my experiences on eBay have been quite different. They do make me log in repeatedly, but my browser remembers the form data so it's just one click. By the way, Amazon also makes me log in repeatedly; I see no difference there.

I try to pick reputable sellers and I've learned to avoid the Hong Kong and China based sellers, some of whom really do sell junk and are hard to deal with. Recently I had a bad experience with one, and eBay quickly credited me the money even though it was long past the eight weeks which is the maximum.

As for shipping, almost everything I buy on eBay is trackable, except for stuff coming from Asia. It's a different shopping experience from Amazon and other online retailers, but sometimes I prefer it actually. I do prefer Amazon's review system which often provides invaluable advice about the product and feedback on the seller.

<comment><USER5> > _By the way, Amazon also makes me log in repeatedly; I see no difference > there_

Amazon doesn't make me log in repeatedly; they ask for your password again for some actions (looking at your order history for example) but for most actions (including buying) you usually don't need to retype your password... and you _never_ have to retype your email address.

eBay makes you retype your email address while they display your name on the page, which is incredibly stupid.

Amazon looks like it's build and operated by real people who care about what they're doing; eBay looks like it's been put together by consultants who couldn't care less about the user experience.

Man I hate eBay.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like a browser setting. Chrome browser remembers my name and password on Ebay and I never have to retype my name or email. In fact it's a little too easy; I'm wondering if I should tell it not to do that; my 9-year-old can just wander in and order all kinds of stuff!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best thing eBay could do is copy Amazon in how a third party listing works. On Amazon we can throw up a feed of our entire inventory. On eBay you need to create a separate listing for each product you want to list. In effect it means more complicated software and overhead to maintain the same level of listings.

Additionally it gives customers the impression that one unit of a product listed on eBay is one physical unit the merchant has and is specifically holding for an eBay listing, which are rarely the case.

Basically this is the result of eBay shoehorning fixed price multichannel merchants into the traditional auction listing model that they started with.

</comment><comment><USER8> Could you change the link to the single page view: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy- fo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy-for-taking- on-amazon.html?pagewanted=all)

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I only read the first page when I saw I should click through 5 more pages... will continue reading now. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting read. A few months back eBay change their affiliate cookie from 10 days to 24 hours. Revenues for most affiliates dropped across the board and lots of those pushing BIN products jumped ship to Amazon. Lots of those pushing auctions are stopping active development on their sites - it's incredibly tough to make a 24 hour cookie work. Shame really, it was a great program.

</comment><comment><USER11> Their strategy seems to be "throw a lot of stuff against the wall and see what sticks."</comment>


IRetroPhone iPhone App -- $30,000 Net Profit for One Day's Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/iretrophone-iphone-app-mobile

<comment><USER2> Congratulations to these guys!! Totally awesome!!

 __runs to padded room. sound of muffled thuds, screaming. __

</comment><comment><USER3> fantastic for him, seriously... but a sad reflection of the state of the AppStore in regard to utility/quality. stories like this bring gold diggers out of the woodwork and pollute the store, imo.

not trying to be a pessimist here... just venting.

<comment><USER4> Why shouldn't any developer be able to make almost any app, then make money on it?

If this app made 30k, build a truly great app and retire.

<comment><USER5> Assuming that revenue scales with app quality...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only reason he sold that much was because he was mentioned in a magazine with a massive readership. Almost any half way useful or interesting application would sell that much if mentioned in such a magazine.

<comment><USER4> So you are saying, work hard at getting good press?

<comment><USER6> No, that's not relevant. He created the type of product that is interesting enough to be mentioned in the 'wierd' section of a big magazine. He did not work for the press, he did not do any clever marketing, it was his product that was clever. He could just as well have never gotten mentioned, and his product would have made a hundred a month or so from the few people who like the quirky idea.

What he did right was create a simple and fun product. There is hardly any lesson to be learnt from the guys experience, apart from the obvious lesson that more eyeballs brings more sales, and that people will willingly pay for iphone apps.

<comment><USER7> >He did not work for the press, he did not do any clever marketing,

You can not really be sure about that, now, can you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great, I still think iPhone App building will be a golden mine for some time. Anyway, he must be a great coder to be able to do such an application in only one day - almost unbelievable.

<comment><USER9> Yes. It also looks quite nice (which probably takes the most of the time)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Let's see if there are straight-up clones of all these iPhone apps once Android hits the streets next month.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how Apple will take care of app pollution. The store works fine now that there are less than a few hundred apps in each category, but as that number grows, it will be harder to browse it in its current state on the phone.

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I had read some time ago that Apple patented the touch-based rotary dialer concept. If that's the case, I'm surprised they let this one through.

<comment><USER9> They will let him generate the publicity and then confiscate his earnings. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Umm isn't it free? I have it and it was free for me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> guy sold 15,000 copies in the first day at $2.99 per

</comment><comment><USER14> of course this will only happen once

</comment><comment><USER15> Every time someone does something like this, I think "that was a good idea! Oh well, there are no good ideas left now".

Will I ever learn?</comment>