Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? - <AUTHOR> How many people on hacker news are running successful online businesses on their own? What is your business and how did you get started?<p>Defining successful as a profitable business which provides the majority of the owners income. <comment><USER3> Here's a couple of links you might like, although not all of them are exactly what you're looking for:

\- [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/) (of course)

\- [https://www.starterstory.com/](https://www.starterstory.com/)

\- [https://www.authorityhacker.com/undercover/](https://www.authorityhacker.com/undercover/)

\- [https://failory.com/](https://failory.com/)

\- Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Jan 5, 2017): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535) (thanks @jbonniwell)

\- Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Mar 9, 2014): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7367243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7367243)

\- Ask HN: Sideprojects/passive income businesses with little or no own coding?: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806208)

\- Pieter Levels - Turning Side Projects into Profitable Startups (1h presentation): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0)

<comment><USER4> I would say that these sites chronicle just the tip of the iceberg. I run a successful solo online business and would never agree to be profiled as I don't want to invite competition.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion, those site are just advertising for your business.

<comment><USER6> Which means it only makes sense being profiled if the readers of those sites are your potential customers.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I would only do it if I was targeting entrepreneurs

<comment><USER7> "Entrepreneur" is only one label for the people who read Indie Hackers, though. They are software developers, designers, creatives, fitness enthusiasts, etc. All the people who currently work a day job and are hoping to do their own thing. Entrepreneurship may bring them together, but it's not necessarily their only (or even their primary) identity.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but that still is a _tiny_ part of the overall economy. If you don't target those small niches, it makes no economic sense to get profiled on Indie Hackers et.al.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For the past 20 years I've been a recruiter, and a few years back I started a resume writing and career consulting business called Resume Raiders ([http://resumeraiders.com](http://resumeraiders.com)). It's a literal mom & pop operation and I do 99% of the projects myself.

I started the business because I've always loved writing, am good at navigating tricky job search and career situations (I've seen it all after 20 yrs in recruiting), and I enjoy it more than recruiting. I also noticed most resume writers didn't really have a background in hiring, but rather were just trained writers that probably had a hard time making it in journalism or other areas.

I'd been writing resumes for my recruiting candidates for many years, and many of those candidates would rely on me for career advice as well. It was odd to provide career advice as a third-party recruiter, as there were times when I might have some financial interest in what a person does. As an example, if someone approached me and said "Should I leave my job?", a recruiter might say "yes" with the thought that if this person leaves I might get a placement fee if I help them find work.

Resume Raiders is now my primary focus and has been quite profitable since it started. There is very little overhead. I live in a pretty expensive area, but my clients come from all over the world. I also offer a discount to HN'ers (see my profile page).

<comment><USER10> I worked with Dave, too! While I didn't get the gig I was after at the time, I was super happy with the help I got from him. Not surprised, but glad to hear the biz is working.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the kind words! Biz has been great. I was in a 'test mode' for a bit, as I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do this full-time and earn enough to maintain my lifestyle (wife, 2 kids, relatively expensive place to live), but it's been very successful and incredibly fulfilling on a personal level as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pieter Levels is the creator of:

      - https://nomadlist.com/
      - https://remoteok.io/
      - https://hoodmaps.com/

And he just broke €50,000/m a few days ago: [https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/96802754410347315...](https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/968027544103473152)

<comment><USER12> Yes, this guy is truly an inspiration. If you're a one person business, you will find this tweet very useful:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/93870716650815488...](https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/938707166508154880?lang=en)

(aka stop running after shiny new things and just do it!)

<comment><USER13> No offense but Pieter Levels seems like a bit of a bastard, and you can see it in that thread. I don't pay much attention to him, but when I do come across his social media posts they're pretty off-putting. He's pretty successful yes, but €50k/mo is not exactly f-you money.

<comment><USER14> He's already his own boss, the whole point of f-you money is being able to tell your boss, "f you!"

That means you can either go for the lump sum or the annuity, either one gets you out from under The Man.

<comment><USER15> Yes exactly. Also why would anyone need more than $50k/m? Even if you have a family?

<comment><USER16> is that revenue or take-home profit?

<comment><USER15> Costs and tax goes off but my profit margins is somewhere from 80% to 90%. Mostly server, mail and map costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I run Scribophile, one of the largest writing communities online, as a one- person business, though I have a ton of help from our volunteer forums moderators.

The story is pretty unimpressive... I had the idea back in the days when web 2.0 was the new hotness, so I decided to make it happen and use it as an excuse to learn web 2.0 technologies. It was a freemium model from day 1, though I didn't expect many people to buy the paid upgrade.

People seemed to like it, paid upgrades were getting sold, and after a while of it being a hobby I realized I could live off the earnings and decided to make it full time.

It allowed me to spend many years being a digital nomad back when that sort of thing wasn't quite popular yet. I traveled to a lot of places and met a lot of fascinating people. Now I'm settled at home but those years of my life were priceless.

These days we're one of the largest and most respected writing communities online, at least 3 of our members have been in Writers of the Future awards ceremonies, and our members regularly go on to be published by major publishers and smaller outfits.

I should also emphasize that having one's own business doesn't mean you're a millionare, like many assume. I make a comfortable living but much less than you'd think if you pictured a "business owner guy". I still very much consider myself a success, because I get to do what I love, and on my own schedule. (For example I took a little time off to start a new hobby, standardebooks.org, which produces high-quality, modern ebook editions of public domain literature, and releases them free of cost and via CC0.)

<comment><USER18> Just checked out standardebooks.org a bit. Seems like a great idea. Will check it out more and share it with others via my social media channels.

<comment><USER18> I checked out a couple of books there. Neither had PDF as an available format. Why is this? Is PDF not considered an ebook format?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tarsnap. I have an employee now, but I ran the company myself for the first ten years and from ~2011 onwards Tarsnap has been the vast majority of my income.

I got started by... well, sitting down and scratching my itch. I wanted good backups, and it turned out that other people wanted them too.

<comment><USER20> Can you give a simple explanation why a Tarsnap backup is superior to competitors, but for someone who isn't going to understand the research paper?

Does it backup my website like S3, or does it back up my personal files like Dropbox?

<comment><USER19> _Does it backup my website like S3, or does it back up my personal files like Dropbox?_

No. It backs up your files like tar. (Except with deduplication and encryption and cryptographic signing and off-site storage.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm running BazQux [https://bazqux.com](https://bazqux.com) paid feed reader. It's my only source of revenue.

I wanted to read comments in feed reader (there were few forums with very interesting discussions) and Google Reader only allowed to read blog posts. So I've started developing my own feed reader.

I believed that comments reading feature is killer and thought that Internet is big and many people will like it and I will be rich soon ;) I saved some money and quit my job to focus completely on my product.

Guess what? After initial release nobody purchased my product. I was quite disappointed and started asking people what they didn't liked (turned out to be the most important thing to do). And I've started to add features they've missed, asked again, improved again. And got first purchase few months later and second purchase few more months later.

Few times I thought to abandon project. But then Google announced it will discontinue Google Reader. By that time I had more or less usable product and got a lot of new clients and a lot of feedback (which is very important). Worked like crazy for a few months and after Google Reader was closed I've had enough clients to pay the bills.

It's still in active development with a huge TODO list.

Can't say that it is success. I would make more if I go to day job (and won't worry as much about what to do next to have income in the future) but I'm working on my own project, talking with my own clients, using technologies selected by me and can work on my own schedule (although after being burned out and birth of baby I returned to working 5 days a week in office -- my own office indeed, with piano ;)

Having one-person online business is definitely possible but it's not as romantic/easy as it sometimes shown. "Wow, this guy could work on the beach" is actually "damn, I must work even on the beach".

<comment><USER22> > "Wow, this guy could work on the beach" is actually "damn, I must work even > on the beach".

This is a fantastic way to put it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've only made about $5.00 on it so far (certainly not enough to retire on), but my latest endeavor is looking quite promising: [http://fastcashmoneyplus.biz](http://fastcashmoneyplus.biz)

<comment><USER24> Love this. Any interest in a merger with the cash machine that is [http://subpar.biz/](http://subpar.biz/)

<comment><USER23> I talked to the board, and they say that we're not taking merger requests at the moment, but would be open to a licensing agreement :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure if you've checked [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/) before, it's full of such stories and those are amazing and inspirational. Because those are not your Googles or Amazons, it's just solo business that are very practically approachable.

<comment><USER11> csallen is the best. Love indie hackers so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I created and run The Online Slang Dictionary - [http://onlineslangdictionary.com/](http://onlineslangdictionary.com/) . It's the eldest slang dictionary on the web.

I started it in 1997 when I was in highschool. I found it interesting that slang terms frequently heard just the year before were already passe. I thought it was something that was worth capturing.

It affords me a modest salary in a fairly high-priced area, on around 2.1 million visitors a month. I estimate that it would get 2.5x - 3x the traffic (and hence the earnings) if google weren't up to strange shenanigans with the site's rankings.

<comment> et-al That's amazing! I've definitely stumbled upon your site while searching some phrases.

How has UrbanDictionary affected your traffic?

<comment><USER26> Nice! I'm always happy when people have come across it.

Urban Doctionary gets around 30x the traffic. So it definitely gets the lion's share of slang dictionary traffic.

The Online Slang Dictionary was always a side project from when I started it in 1996 until 2007, when I started working on it full-time. It wasn't until 2007 that people could put content on the site without my manual intervention. So it's easy to see why Urban Dictionary overtook my site in the long past. Since 2011 though, Urban Dictionary's traffic has been artificially propped up due to an ongoing manual penalty against my site, which I've had no success in resolving.

So if anyone works at Google or knows anyone who works at Google - I can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or editor@<my site's domain>. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I run BugMuncher on my own ([https://www.bugmuncher.com](https://www.bugmuncher.com)), I've been working on it full time since October 2015, and it's been profitable since November 2016, providing all of my income.

If you're interested I've been documenting the entire process of taking BugMuncher from a side project to my full-time job on my blog starting here - [https://www.bugmuncher.com/blog/from-side-project-to- profita...](https://www.bugmuncher.com/blog/from-side-project-to-profitable- start-up-part-1)

<comment><USER28> I get a certificate error on Firefox Nightly. This is likely caused by [https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Upcoming_Distrust_Actions](https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Upcoming_Distrust_Actions)

<comment><USER27> Thanks for letting me know! I'll get that sorted

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I built a fully automated self-service Instagram publishing system, no private API hacks or such, but instead, by completely automating lots of Android phones (OCR, pattern recognition, etc.). Mainly offered this to small businesses and friends. Took off due to Instagram's popularity and made six figures after a while. Now contemplating to shut down, as Instagram has opened up publishing access to hand-picked partners.

A second business focused solely on Twitter analytics. Was about to shut that down years ago when Twitter suddenly offered free analytics, but it barely changed sign-up rates, so I kept it going.

On good days, I answer one or two emails, that's it. The occasional one-week- of-hell when things go sideways mixed in every few months, of course.

Now looking for the next project.

</comment><comment><USER30> I run [https://officesnapshots.com](https://officesnapshots.com) which highlights office design projects from around the world.

I guess I don't technically qualify for these posts anymore since I've hired a couple employees, but it was a one-person business for 9 years before doing so.

The basic origin was seeing photos of Google's offices and looking for a website that showed photos of other offices. There wasn't one so I made it.

<comment><USER31> Do you get the snapshots from the companies themselves or your employees collect them? What's the incentive?

<comment><USER30> We receive the project photography from architecture and design firms responsible for designing the offices. The incentive is to promote their work for others to see.

<comment><USER31> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sidekiq is a one person business. The creator, Mike Perham, gave an interview about what it was like building his business: [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/sidekiq-6e71309457](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/sidekiq-6e71309457)

<comment><USER33> AMA!

<comment><USER34> Most of my worry with one person business is what happens when you are not well or need to take personal vacation. How to arrange an ongoing support ?

<comment><USER33> My business is based on OSS; people are used to no support. I've tried to guide my customers to open issues and stackoverflow questions to get a response from the community. This makes for a nice historical archive that others can search and find similar questions and answers.

I explicitly state in my support policy that emailed questions can take 48 business hours to answer. I take my laptop with me on vacation to answer support questions every morning. The rest of the day is free.

You could also contract out support for a week if you really want to avoid the laptop. Pay a contractor friend $$$ to answer your support emails for a week.

My main issue is that collecting money takes as much time/email as support. ~30% of my customers have some need for a manual touch during their annual renewal: forgot password, change email, billing question, etc. My first hire is likely to be an AR person who can handle that administration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I run IdeaCheck, which validates startup ideas by running a survey within the idea's target audience. Started in early 2017 and it can now sustain me full- time.

[https://ideacheck.io](https://ideacheck.io)

<comment><USER36> This is interesting. How did you actually find people to respond to the surveys?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Paging patio11[1].

Patrick McKenzie is a HN celebrity that, in a previous life, blogged about his small consultancy and SaaS products[2]. His insights about A/B testing and automated sales emails are worth their word-count in gold.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11)

[2]: [https://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest- hits/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/)

</comment><comment><USER38> I have been running a very unsexy business selling WordPress plugins for the last 5 years, averaging about $30K in revenue a month.

Only expense is my time spent and a $5 Linode VPS that hosts my shop & update server.

<comment><USER39> Are these your wordpress plugins or is it an affiliate site? Any advertising?

<comment><USER38> My own plugins, all with a free version that's hosted on WordPress.org. The free version of my most popular product has hundreds of thousands of users and is what brings in the bulk of my customers.

No paid advertising. I tried but it never really got to a point where it was worth it.

Sorry for being a little vague, I'd rather not state my revenue and product together. And sine I've already mentioned my revenue, I won't mention the product. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I develop Cursive ([https://cursive-ide.com](https://cursive-ide.com)), an IDE for Clojure code based on IntelliJ. Strictly speaking it's just a plugin right now, but that's how most of my users use it.

I worked on it for about 2 years, mostly in open beta, and started selling it in December 2015. It's been the only thing I work on and has provided all my income since then.

<comment><USER41> And what a wonderful tool it is! Thank you so much for Cursive. For all of you folks wanting to try Clojure, this is a great way to go.

<comment><USER40> Thanks! I'm glad it's working well for you, that's always great to hear.

If anyone _is_ planning to try out Clojure, Cursive is free for non-commercial use (OSS, personal hacking, student work) so it's easy to give it a try. I make my money principally from companies buying licences for their devs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not quite at the majority yet, but at the current rate it should be by end of year. I run two websites:

[https://projectpiglet.com/](https://projectpiglet.com/)

I launched that in January, but the investment advice I've used for years (when it was a couple python scripts). It's regularly making 100% yoy returns for me, so I'm happy. Kind of different than most startups / businesses though. In late January I launched the paid version, and I'm getting a few trickling in every day. We offer one month free, every month you provide feedback (meaning I get feedback more than money ATM)

My other business is [https://easy-a.net](https://easy-a.net) \- it makes me a lesser amount of money, but enough to keep both projects running without me paying for infrastructure.

Those are combined under my C Corp, so I look at it as a single online business. Utilizing same tech stacks, methods, etc.

</comment><comment><USER43> I've started one after listening to a lot of indiehackers podcast's. Mine is [https://browserless.io](https://browserless.io), which is IaaS, and I just hist ~$1k/mo at about the 3 month mark.

Still not providing the majority of my income, however it's growing to the point where it will in a year or so, depending how things go. If anything else it's been a wickedly fun ride, and I've learned quite a bit in doing it.

<comment><USER44> you already provide docker image in github, how do you make money ? by running the customer's script in your infrastructure?

<comment><USER43> Apologies on not replying, I seemed to have missed your comment. Money comes in two ways: hosted plans on browserless.io and via commercial licensing. Happy to answer any more questions you have

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Here's an awesome list of resources for indie makers :P [https://github.com/mezod/awesome-indie](https://github.com/mezod/awesome- indie)

</comment><comment><USER46> Coderpad [1], an interviewing platform, is run by Vincent Woo [2].

[1] [https://coderpad.io](https://coderpad.io)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=akanet](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=akanet)

<comment><USER47> Only 1 person? Wow, we use it in our interview process

<comment><USER48> I think they have 4 people [1], still pretty impressive though and Vincent started it solo.

[1] [https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/coderpad-c95d5d0dd9](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/coderpad-c95d5d0dd9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I sell random stuff on Amazon, buying wholesale. Current run rate is ~200k/month, more in Q4, figure profit somewhere between 5-20%.

Started 2 years ago buying from stores etc, shifted to wholesale a year ago.

<comment><USER50> If you're referring to the "Amazon drop-ship" business, I think that space is probably already overcrowded. Those who got in and figured it out - and got a head start, probably still have an advantage. But you must realize that Amazon can, at their whim, change anything at any moment and kill that business.

Plus you have unscrupulous competitors who will throw a little money in to buy a bunch of your products as soon as they appear (if your products compete with theirs), and then leave negative reviews. I suspect that eventually the only way to be a winner is to be a cheater. Surely you don't do that.

<comment><USER49> I got out of drop-ship and pivoted to wholesale a year ago.

Agree with you on saturation, margins are tiny but some people are making serious bank, I know a couple 8 figure (gross) accounts

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So today is the day of the week I feel stupid for not being rich (yet) thanks to my skills in coding.

Thank you, @pyeu ;-)

<comment><USER52> Foremost you need soft skills to change that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I run one-man security consulting business. Pays well enough to live comfortably and provides enough free time to work on side-projects.

Six months ago I started transitioning from service to product oriented approach with online vulnerability scanning service [https://getroot.sh](https://getroot.sh) aimed at network administrators and webmasters.

I have another product targeted at penetration testers in works, to be released in couple of months.

<comment><USER54> How long did it take to get your first client and do you have any advice for someone who would want to become a security consultant without having a large network of business contacts?

<comment><USER53> Initially I advertised among friends and former co-workers that I knew needed this kind of service for their own infrastructure. They became my first customers pretty much right away, but my first organic users came couple months later. I marketed primarily by writing articles on LinkedIn.

For the second part of the question - I'd say do some original research and publish it. Hang out where other security people are. Still, the easiest way is to build street cred and professional network while you work for someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I built a daily technology briefing + community because I got pretty tired of the way technology sites work (just a vomit of news stories) and make about $2,200/month at this point, so I recently gave up my job to work on it. It's growing fairly steadily, because people really value not being advertised to, and that's been fantastic.

I'm also pulling together a bunch of disparate services to make it a great experience, including SSO to the community, paywalled content and a custom emailer that integrates deeply with the CMS. So far, so good, and I basically slammed it all together until it worked over the space of a year -- but the real work was three years of sending a weekly newsletter as well to build up an audience before I even launched this thing.

At some point I'm planning to sell the application I wrote that powers it, because there's a distinct lack of 'community in a box' platforms that can solve this problem. First I have to finish it, but that's kinda the end goal.

[https://char.gd/recharged](https://char.gd/recharged) if you'd like to try it! The code best-friends gives 25% off for three months.

<comment><USER56> What are some of the key things you've learned along the way? E.g. More community interaction helped grow the newsletter, etc.

I would be curious to know what your roadmap for the "additional features." What are the advantages you've found "slamming together" the system vs. having a custom system built?

<comment><USER55> Hey! Great questions, thanks! Well, so far:

1) Focus on the community, then the content. I thought the content would be some sort of mish-mash of opinion and really more long form stuff, but people prefer compact, quick takes, in 3-4 paragraphs. Makes sense, but hard to see as a maker!

2) Additional features is a great question! I plan a few different things:

\- Community integration with the newsletter

\- Integration with 'real-time chat services' like Discord, as I do think they serve a purpose

\- Web push for notifying of "big" news outside of the band of the slow newsletters for those that want it

\- Alternate delivery mechanisms for the newsletters (perhaps as simple, short FB Messenger pieces)

\- Calendar subscription for events in the industry

\- A bunch more I've forgotten already :).

3) Technically the system is custom built, I guess I'm referring to how it feels to have done that myself. I tried to hack it all together via existing stuff at first, but it was clearly not going to work, so I built a deep Craft CMS integration with my app to get where we are now. It's a great way to work because it's all built on top of relational content!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Working on a new view for Indie Hackers that will allow you to filter more powerfully. For example, revenue-generating businesses with a solo technical founder and no employees: [https://www.indiehackers.com/products?employeeCount=0&founde...](https://www.indiehackers.com/products?employeeCount=0&founderCount=1&techSkills=code)

</comment><comment><USER58> I do freelance development work and sell video courses focused on building and deploying web apps.

I started by thinking to myself "what would happen if I tried to make training videos?", slept on it and dove right into it the next day without knowing anything about creating videos.

Hosting fees and a hell of a lot of time are my only expenses.

</comment><comment><USER59> [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=idlewords](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=idlewords) 's pinboard.

<comment><USER60> That's [https://pinboard.in](https://pinboard.in)

<comment><USER61> And now [https://del.icio.us/](https://del.icio.us/) too :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Stock trading robots, everything on autopilot, makes much more money than my "real job" as technical team lead for big corp.

Truly lifestyle business running from the cloud and not looking for investor, customers or employees...

One day will leave to my kids to run...

<comment><USER63> What do you trade and how? No need for reproducible details, but useful to know something.

I have been writing options scripts (short puts) for a couple years and have had a lot of fun solving puzzles there.

<comment><USER62> Highly liquid US equities, using discount broker API to find, initiate, monitor and exit trades - everything written in Python and hosted on few VPS around the world (for redundancy) ...

Options are to complicated for me :-)

<comment><USER64> What books/blogs/forums/libraries/frameworks would you recommend to get started?

<comment><USER62> I cannot recommend anything concrete, all authors are selling either ideas that do not work anymore or just selling the dream...

No one will publish a working trading strategy and even someone crazy enough to do it, it will be arbitraged pretty quickly...

The best way is to buy stock market data and start testing ideas until you find your edge...

All that said, here are the books I usually recommend, more for motivation and inspiration:

The Asian Saga by James Clavell, reading as a kid on how to rule your life, business and create a dynasty...

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

More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby - on how to rule the world :-)

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

A Man For All Markets by Edward O. Thorp - basically the father of quant/systematic trading and one of the greatest minds of our time...

[http://www.edwardothorp.com/books/a-man-for-all- markets/](http://www.edwardothorp.com/books/a-man-for-all-markets/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I do employ a few people now, but in the beginning, it was just me for about 4 years:

OSREC - [https://osrec.co.uk](https://osrec.co.uk) Bx - [https://usebx.com](https://usebx.com)

Got started with OSREC because I could see a gap for a good suite of tools that could automate mundane data tasks in banks and hedge funds. Also, I did not enjoy my investment banking job.

Got started with Bx because many people complained to me about Quickbooks/Sage/Xero and I thought I could do better :)

<comment><USER66> this look great what is more profitable the online Batch processor or the accounting app? can you explain the technical side of things ?

<comment><USER65> Both are fairly profitable, however the bulk of our income is via HeavyMETL as we can get customers that are willing to commit to big contracts (>$1MM/year). Bx was a labour of love, because I too did not like the existing bookkeeping packages.

We're going to be releasing an improved version of Bx with some additional project management and task management functionality, so stay tuned! It's going to be a pretty awesome addition to the basic project management stuff on there already, so be sure to check back in a month or two :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I specialize in creating useful apps that help me, first and foremost, and then share them with the world.

I have released these two products: [https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com) [https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com)

Working on some apps that I haven't released yet dealing with some telecom API, I got the idea of having a phone number without having a phone number to stop scam callers from calling me. But that evolved, of course... I started a virtual number service that privatizes your phone number with many added options -- basically your phone number can become a very useful piece of software.

I released Call Me Private about 3 months ago on Hacker News ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15905375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15905375) ) and just started marketing it a lot the past few weeks.. so far, I've got about 12 customers or so. Since I've released it ... I've also had a few organizations contact me for some minor customization requests, which I was able to make happen. My early customers are definitely helping the product to evolve more to suit their needs... and what they are asking for.. I usually weigh whether it would be beneficial to that one person ... or many. If its able to help many, I spend more time on it. If just that one person.. I might or might not, depending on the usefulness of the feature.

</comment><comment><USER68> This is my story

I started a resume company focused strictly on ATS optimization immediately after college with my best friend after we noticed how many peers were woefully underemployed.

A year later, after mild adoption and the co-founder deciding to focus on his career, I moved to South Korea to localize the company which the goal of supporting Korean universities & to escape the competitive pressures of the US.

Things are going well these days.

[https://rezi.io/](https://rezi.io/)

</comment><comment><USER69> Currently doing ~$20K combined from [https://www.toofr.com](https://www.toofr.com) and [https://www.inlistio.com](https://www.inlistio.com).

Also have these in the hopper - [https://www.thinboxapp.com](https://www.thinboxapp.com), [https://www.enps.co](https://www.enps.co), [http://www.glist.io](http://www.glist.io), [https://www.voxloca.com](https://www.voxloca.com)

Idea is I'd love to cycle through them, sell whatever's working after a couple years. It takes time to find the right business at the right time so I advocate 'incubating' a project in the background, building SEO, seeing if it catches. It just takes time.

I'm polishing off a book about it now -- [http://www.parallelentrepreneurship.com](http://www.parallelentrepreneurship.com). It incorporates a lot of the wisdom in the comments here. (And I'm taking notes on the stuff I missed.)

</comment><comment><USER70> I ran a one man side gig for a couple years (farm management software). Got it to $200k and growing after 6 months in the market but I needed to bring the development in-house.

Could've used outsourced talent for all dev and customer support but interestingly enough the reason why I hired was "what happens to all of our customers if I die?". I felt like I owed it to them to put a team in place, albeit a small one.

<comment><USER71> How do you get in a market like that? We tried but failed because the owners didnt like the fact that we where from "the city".

<comment><USER70> I was doing consulting work in the space, saw a need, and built the product. I came into it knowing the traits of farmer, the lingo, etc. That and a good product have helped us gain trust

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Hi, I started and run park.io by myself. It is a place to backorder expiring domain names. I started it for fun and it grew into a business. You can read or listen to an interview I did on Indiehackers here: [https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of- park...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-park-io)

</comment><comment><USER73> Coollector Movie Database:

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

Small income, but profitable.

<comment><USER74> Looks great, will check it out in the weekend. Do you have any plans for an Android app which can read bar-codes to register DVDs? Have planned to make that for years but never got around to actually do it. Have tested several before but all have had major problems

<comment><USER73> I can't wait to start working on the Android app, but as a single-person shop, maintaining the desktop app is already taking most of my time. When you're alone, everything takes longer :(

<comment><USER74> I understand that, is the same reason why my version is still at the planning stage

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> [https://brandfountain.com](https://brandfountain.com)

I have curated a stellar portfolio of brandable domains geared to startup community, allows me to dev other projects without raising seed. I succeed by being flexible/sympathetic with early stage companies, expect to reach six digit sales on almost autopilot.

<comment><USER76> How often your domains are sold? Are those all inbound inquiries?

<comment><USER75> I rely on word of mouth and random visitors for sales. With very little time, interest or expertise (in marketing) my approach is quite basic - <USER2> domains that I would buy for my own projects and be humane with pricing. The extent of my customer strategy can be summed up in: if a customer has a good experience they will tell a friend. If they have a bad experience they will tell 10. I'm not trying to build an empire with Brandfountain, small is perfect for me as I am very busy with another project.

<comment><USER77> how do you price them? eg. I'm not sure how you would price cookry.com at 7k vs chefgram.com at 3k etc

<comment><USER75> Not 100% science but typically: length of name and number of words are biggest factors. Category can matter as well - eg 'crypto' names are very hot at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I think [https://apex.sh](https://apex.sh) is run solely by TJ Holowaychuk.

<comment><USER79> I didn't actually realise he started a company. The funny thing about this one is that you have to think, "Hmm... I'll start a company just like TJ. Now, all I have to do is be as good and prolific a programmer as TJ..." It's a pretty high bar ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> i am not he, but i believe that macej is the only person behind pinboard.in (which i love to pieces and pay for gladly)

<comment><USER81> That is correct (and thank you!)

<comment><USER80> you enable me to be even more annoying in conversations by emailing links to people on the spot!

i don't know if this helps you sleep better or worse at night but it's been really nice for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Breach Insider is a one person bootstrapped company: [https://breachinsider.com](https://breachinsider.com)

Been live for a few months now and enjoyed finding the balance between sales and producing new features.

</comment><comment><USER83> Additional discussion of one person businesses from about a year ago here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535)

</comment><comment><USER84> (Un)successfull one-person business is [https://botproxy.net](https://botproxy.net) (rotating proxy) Started couple of months ago as I needed such a service for my other project and I thought why not to make it as Saas. Now I have a dozen of active subscriptions and balancing around 0 in monthly profit while having to do a lot of work to keep things going. If I knew in advance all the stuff I know now would never start anything like this but now I feel sorry for the effort spent to just quit. literally everything went not as expected. So I warned you.

<comment><USER85> Care to elaborate on what exactly you didn't anticipate? Unsustainable unit economics? I guess bootstrapping anything alone is a stressful to get the wheels rolling. What keeps you from a) shutting down or b) experimenting with prices etc.?

<comment><USER84> Every part of the project went not as planned. Most bright example is billing. I was initially implemented everything using PayPal preauthorized payments API and only going live it appeared that this API only available to merchants with personal account manager, and to get one you need to already accepting more than 2500$/mo in paypal. So I have to re-implement it. And not only billing as subscription management also depends on billing. Then getting many IP addresses for outgoing proxies appeared to be much more problematic than I was expecting. Answering the second part of the question. I use it for my other project where I need to pull data from many websites on a daily basis. And I use it in my browser to change IP location and avoid country level blocks. I hope that eventually I can convert it into more or less profitable project, but the main lesson I learned from this is that when something looks simple it doesn't mean it simple in reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> $50k/month with my current business: Manypixels ([https://www.manypixels.co](https://www.manypixels.co)) I do work with many freelancers though.

<comment> jonathan-kosgei Hey vinrob, big fan!

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> [https://stratechery.com/](https://stratechery.com/)

Not exactly a conventional business, but I believe he does pretty well for himself.

<comment><USER88> Love that site! Do you know of any other ones who are doing that?

<comment><USER87> Not really.

Anything remotely close that comes to mind is phoronix, but that is in an different class entirely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Think about a product/solution/service that scales revenue without scaling directly with your own time. For example, tutoring would suck because the revenue is tied directly to how much time you spend. However, a tutoring portal where you connect tutors with students can scale in revenue beyond the number of hours you can put into it. In other words, you want something that makes money while you sleep.

</comment><comment><USER90> 10beasts.com Amazon Product Review site it was run by guy named Lukhman Khan and recently it got sold for some 600-700K USD.

</comment><comment> jonathan-kosgei I'm running [https://ipdata.co](https://ipdata.co) which is an IP Geolocation API. It's been 5 months so far with 20M API calls served last month. The project is not yet providing the majority of my income however there's been tremendous and very promising growth!

</comment><comment><USER91> Shameless plug: Revela Preço, an app to do price surveys (brazilian market)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.revelap...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.revelapreco)

Well, not profitable yet, but promising :D

</comment><comment><USER92> Newsblur and Overcast come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER93> I freelance in building Web Apps for companies so I can build free Web Apps in my free time. ' Guess I love building stuff. Last finished: [https://eddtor.com](https://eddtor.com)

</comment><comment><USER94> most impressive, builtwith.com, 2M / month

</comment><comment><USER95> I run [https://dndemail.com](https://dndemail.com) \-- do not disturb for your gmail.

I launched in 2016 and have solid growth. It is the 3rd web business I have launched. My first was in 1998.

</comment><comment><USER96> 4chan as well

</comment><comment><USER97> PlentyOfFish was run by a single guy for a long time AFAIK.

<comment><USER98> And it makes sense. Why would you want to continue running an online dating site after entering into a relationship? Not only would I think the motivation would mostly disappear, or at least drop off precipitously; but also, you have to think your significant other would always be kind of suspicious, and rightfully so.

<comment><USER97> He was single in the sense of the single person to work on.the site. I don't know what his relationship status was. His main motivation was probably financial, not finding a partner.

<comment><USER99> I can't tell if coolso was being serious or not. I imagined it was a clever pun and got a good chuckle out of it, but it did drag on a bit, so it could go either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> i just launched [http://startmydomain.com](http://startmydomain.com) as I want to quit the 9 to five grind.

The premise of the site is that you can create a coming soon website without any coding or even hosting

would love to get some feed back

</comment><comment><USER101> IMO these two are mutually exclusive:

> successful profitable business

> provides the majority of the owner's income

Building a business takes a lot of time & dedication. It's going to be very challenging to reach long-term stability and profitability if you go into it with your sights so low that you think "this will be successful and I can coast if it makes $100k per year."

Play to win.

<comment><USER102> They're not mutually exclusive. It depends on how much the owner values their income/free time. If you really value income, then its obviously nothing great. Go and get a job at GAAF. But if you value your free time, a $100k/yr business can get you a life of free time in ~5 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Any unsuccessful one-person online businesses?

How did it fail?

(I'm asking to dent out the survivors bias a bit)

</comment><comment><USER104> Heya! Depends what's your definition of "successful", of course, but would like to plug in CJL - job board for blockchain companies.

\- [https://cryptojobslist.com](https://cryptojobslist.com)

\- current progress [https://twitter.com/ksaitor/status/968690695031500800](https://twitter.com/ksaitor/status/968690695031500800)

\- will share revenue figures shortly, but TL;DR — it's ramen profitable

Been running it solo and launched in October 2017. Previously did a few other consumer+saas startups with a team, funding, etc — and this simple job board seems to be having way more traction and revenue than other funded projects with fancy apps that I've built before. AMA :)

</comment><comment><USER66> what about solo game makers like: Slither.io

</comment><comment><USER105> This article can be useful for you: [https://roobykon.com/blog/posts/86-what- is-a-marketplace-bri...](https://roobykon.com/blog/posts/86-what-is-a- marketplace-briefly-about-the-popular-topic)

</comment><comment><USER106> 1\. Ad scraping business. We scrap ads and expose the bad guys.

Let me tell you there are many bad guys injecting bad just because the ad exchanges do not care. Most of them do it because "no one would know". So, we just scrap ads and put them on display.

2\. We sell a subscription to our service where we charge $200-400 month for access to this data. Many malware researchers, ad agencies, regulators are subscribed to our data set.

3\. It's a private business, high 5 figure revenue. Scraping cost per customer is $10

<comment><USER107> I'm interested as a potential customer. Where can I get more information?

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> SmartPassiveIncome podcast had tons of stories about successful one-person startups.</comment>


Show HN: A Simple Resume Generator - <AUTHOR> https://hire-clio.now.sh <comment><USER2> That is a neat idea. The PDF generation doesn't work though. Firefox 65.0.1 (64-bit) on MacOSX.

I have the feeling it is a frontend problem, the PDF gets generated but never displayed (network request to [https://resumeserver.herokuapp.com/](https://resumeserver.herokuapp.com/) gets issued and gets a valid PDF as response).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback! It was a front-end problem. Should be fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of [https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume](https://github.com/hacksalot/HackMyResume)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I hadn't seen that. Very cool. I'm definitely planning on adding some more themes and supports for different inputs soon, so this is great inspiration. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a fantastic idea! Keep going.

Small nit: If I don't specify a hobby image, I still get a "hobby image" link on my resume. Is it possible to just list hobbies if the user doesn't want to provide images?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, images are now optional!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> HEY THATS MY FRIEND!! But seriously innovative idea and solid execution, even nontechnical people can appreciate</comment>


How will an RMB revaluation affect China, the US, and the world? - <AUTHOR> http://mpettis.com/2010/03/how-will-an-rmb-revaluation-affect-china-the-us-and-the-world/

<comment><USER2> "Beijing has pointed out many times that a contraction in the Chinese trade surplus does not necessarily mean an equivalent contraction in the US trade deficit. All it requires is an equivalent contraction in the rest of the world's net trade deficit. This could easily happen with an improvement in the trade balances of Vietnam, Mexico, Korea or anyone else, enough fully to absorb the reduction in China's trade surplus. In that case, the US trade balance does not improve, and the US gets none of the employment benefit of the RMB revaluation. China will simply import fewer jobs from abroad and some other countries will import more, or export fewer, jobs."

This is probably the most overlooked aspect of the debate. It's hard to argue that China's currency manipulation doesn't destroy manufacturing overseas - but is it American jobs that are lost? It's more plausible that China's rise comes at the expense of other countries like Mexico that specialize in low-end manufacturing.</comment>


Facebook Hack Puts Thousands of Other Sites at Risk - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/technology/facebook-hack-other-sites.html <comment><USER2> The NY Times sould really think about getting their headlines right. Facebook Hack is a very prominent computer language, a typed PHP, and it doesn't put thousands of other sites at risk. There's no serious flaw in the implementation of Hack announced in this article.

I thought they still employ fact checkers at such a big news organization. getting the headline right should be the most important task for them.</comment>


Ocean Marketing: How to self-destruct your company with just a few measly emails - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/27/ocean-marketing-how-to-self-destruct-your-company-with-just-a-few-measly-emails/ <comment><USER2> I m still shaking my head, the logical side of my brain has a hard time accepting that those emails are real and that someone would be so stupid. And then when someone that can mess up his life steps in, he does not see the error of his ways, he just doubles down on being a jerk to them. I am amazed that there are people out there that would act in such a manner.</comment>


Amex, Challenged by Chase, Is Losing the Snob War - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/business/american-express-chase-sapphire-reserve.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1 <comment><USER2> I have both the Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve. If I could only justify one annual fee, I'd keep the Platinum. The Centurion Lounges are second to none in the US and Amex's end-to-end ownership of its purchase/return/travel protection benefits is too good to give up.

I recently attempted to file a return protection claim with my Sapphire Reserve for a display cable that turned out to be faulty. I tried the Visa Infinite site, but Visa as an organization doesn't recognize the United States as a Visa Infinite country yet so I couldn't find anything relevant there.

Then I recalled eclaimsline, which was the site I used a while ago when I had the Sapphire Preferred. It asked for my first/last name and credit card number, and then did not show me the option to file a 'return protection' claim -- just purchase and travel protection.

After that, I went on Chase's website and dug through their documentation and eventually found cardbenefitservices.com, where I was prompted to create a new account and then verify my card number again. Upon filing a claim, I was asked to upload my purchase receipt and credit card statement proving the charge had hit my account. I waited one week and received an email in my spam folder that asked me to mail the item at my own expense to Visa before my claim could finish processing -- mind you, this is for a $20 display cable.

My experience with Amex would have been a three-step online form containing a very small number of fields followed by an immediate credit within 48 hours.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't you have taken it back to the place where you bought it? As a European, it seems a bit weird that you have to go through your credit card company to deal with this. So if you pay cash and something is faulty you are SOL?

Here the guarantee against faulty goods is a minimum of 2 years. It's on the seller, not the manfuacturer, to repair or replace it if something goes wrong. I'd expect most stores will just straight up give you a refund for something like this.

<comment><USER4> Sure you could try it, but it is very hit and miss.

Typically you will be bounced around from hotline to hotline until you are worn out, or they tell you yes/no refund.

With a credit card company that has a decent level of respect for you as a customer, you call them, dispute the payment, and the credit card company handles the rest, ESPECIALLY under $25.

<comment><USER5> When I have disputed, I'm asked if I tried resolution with the merchant first. I've never had the impression that dispute is a first resort solution. Many merchants actually want to please their customers.

<comment><USER4> That's fine, and when you run into a merchant that doesn't care, make sure you have a credit card company like mine that takes disputes seriously ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >"I don't think it would be American Express," one diner said. "I feel like that would be braggy, like I'm trying to prove I'm a big shot."

>Others nodded in agreement. "I'd probably use this," said another, pulling out a blue-tinged credit card. "An Amex says you're rich, but this says you're interesting."

Where did they find these people? When did using the CSR become a statement? Everyone I know got it for the free money, and uses whatever card gets the most points for whatever purchase.

<comment><USER7> I can't recall a single time where I or anyone I was with or near had ever commented on, thought anything of, or even really noticed what card somebody else was using to pay for food with.

<comment><USER8> People occasionally notice my USAA card, but it's more of a shibboleth for military families than for affluence.

<comment><USER9> I've noticed this too. I'm not actually in the military, but my grandfather was a doctor in the Navy and apparently we've been (literally) grandfathered in for perpetuity. The card has raised eyebrows in places I would not have imagined it would be noticed.

<comment><USER8> That's almost exactly my situation. My dad was in the Army, so I'm grandfathered in, as well as anyone in my immediate family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Over the last 5-ish years they:

(1) Lost US Airways lounge access from the Amex platinum (merger).

(2) Lost Continental as a transfer partner for MR (merger).

(3) Lost Continental lounge access from the Amex platinum (merger).

(4) Lost Delta lounge guest access.

(5) Saw serious devaluations in Aeroplan for MR.

(6) Saw serious devaluations in Delta for MR (no more 50% transfer bonuses).

(7) Saw serious devaluations in BA for MR (transfer 1:1 with 50% bonuses to 1:0.8 with occasional bonuses).

(8) No more points lending (you used to be able to transfer more than you had if you earned them back within a year, otherwise they'd bill you).

(9) Lost JetBlue co-brand card.

(10) Lost Costco co-brand card.

(11) Saw Plenti flop, and I haven't really heard much of Bluebird.

A few years ago, you needed 120,000 Amex points for a first-class round-the- world flight with no fuel surcharges and 2 stopovers in addition to your destination. That price has pretty much doubled in points and gone up 100x in cash. It's just not as rewarding as it used to be.

On the other hand, Chase jumped in, offered lower-fee cards ($95 for Preferred vs $175 for Amex PRG) with more valuable transfer partners -- especially before the United devaluation -- and large signup bonuses. They were friendlier, less stodgy and offered a better value proposition overall in 2011 with the Sapphire Preferred. Then they upped the stakes with the Reserve.

Amex should be worried.

<comment><USER11> It took some time to find out on Google , but I guess MR stands for Membership Rewards. Unless you're referring to the Mongolian airline, the Dutch travel agency or the Belgian political party using the same abbreviation.

<comment><USER12> Probably "mileage redemption", as in either exchanging points from the card for frequent-flyer miles to redeem for flights, or directly redeeming the points for flights through whatever interface it provides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article focuses on the emotional attachment to a card, but that's not the driver. It just comes out that way. I spend a lot of time on FlyerTalk where the decline of Amex has been discussed over and over. There were mistakes made on the revenue side, and on the rewards side. Three events basically tilted the entire balance away from Amex:

1\. Failed negotiation with CostCo and losing the CostCo credit business.

2\. The United and Continental merger that signed the death of the United / Amex relationship as all of that credit business moved to Chase and United was removed as a redemption partner, which was the number one membership rewards partner by a long-shot.

3\. The loss of JetBlue as a partner that demotivated Amex in the affluent NYC credit theatre.

There were many other mistakes made, but those three had a compounding effect on Amex's negotiating leverage to earn transactions, carry cards, and to offer valuable rewards that drive member sentiment.

That's it. Three moves, each on their own survivable, but in concert essentially destroyed a well-balanced equation.

The question is, how will they catapult out of this?

<comment><USER14> > The question is, how will they catapult out of this?

They could sign a deal with Amazon to provide a Prime card that gives the cardholder $0 Amazon Prime when they use the card.

EDIT: I'm not suggesting that this is the ONLY benefit, just something comparable to the previous Costco arrangement they had.

<comment><USER15> $80 / year is a terrible credit card reward compared to almost all other credit cards. It would have to be free Amazon Prime + 5% back on all Amazon purchases + $500 sign up bonus.

<comment><USER14> True, but I was searching for something comparable to the Costco deal they used to have. That perk was also pretty cheap (Isn't Costco membership in the same ballpark?)

But yeah, throw some extra points/cash back in there as well. I'd go for that in a heartbeat, and so would a lot of the demographic they're currently losing.

<comment><USER16> If I'm not mistaken, the Costco deal was a free membership _and_ it was the only CC Costco would accept - any other payment had to be via debit card. That bit of arm-twisting was valuable.

<comment><USER14> Yeah. No way in hell Amazon would agree to a similar setup. I didn't think about that aspect of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article doesn't say anything about using your card abroad or how widely accepted Amex is. I have an Amex and use it for all my subscriptions, and spending when I'm in the US. In the rare chance that I can't use Amex, I have capital one venture.

When I use Amex, almost universally people comment that my card looks cool and take it and play with it. But whenever I recommend Amex to someone, it is always met with "but I won't be able to use it everywhere", generally they are talking about the US, but the same sentiment applies abroad also.

Its true, when I am outside the US, I can't use Amex, I have to use my Venture card. How much of the drop can be attributed to the fact that now say in a country like Brazil, even people selling packs of gum from mobile tables accept MC and Visa? How many more millennials travel abroad? How many want to use the same card in whatever country the find themselves in and not have to worry?

<comment><USER12> Barclays is quietly working that segment of the market. They are (or were last I checked) the only issuer providing cards to people in the US which actually support chip and PIN (instead of only doing chip and signature).

<comment><USER18> When will they just ping my phone to confirm the purchase? Are they stuck in the sixties?

<comment><USER19> I don't want my CC company pinging my phone, a PIN is much more convenient:

PIN: Insert card, 1234, enter.

Phone: Insert card, wait for notification, unlock phone, select notification, confirm purchase, wait for confirmation to get back.

Plus, if you're somewhere without cell reception or your phone battery is dead, what do you do?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article seems delusional, either on the part of Amex or the reporter.

Chase isn't winning because Amex is too snobby or due to "cachet." They're winning because the Platinum rewards are inferior to the CSR, even _after_ the recent updates. In fact, Amex did probably the stupidest thing possible by increasing the annual fee precisely when they're under threat.

As much as I like the Platinum, it's hard for me to justify keeping it this year when the CSR is so rewarding. And that has nothing to do with wanting to avoid appearing snobby (after all, I do love the metal CSR).

</comment><comment><USER14> It's always a bit disconcerting to find out that a decision I _thought_ I made independently is actually part of some larger overall trend. This happens a lot to me.

For a decade before last year, I used an Amex card exclusively. Then I switched to a Sapphire card for the great signing bonus and better rewards. (It's also metal, and as much as I'd like to pretend that doesn't sway me, it does.) Now I find out that this is a "thing" and that I'm just another part of the overall trend.

Oh well. If Amex successfully counters this move, I'll happily return. Their customer service has been spectacular the few times I needed them.

<comment><USER12> I generally keep at least one miles/points-earning card around, because every place I've lived for the past half-decade has allowed me to pay my rent with a credit card (I'm going to spend that money anyway, why not put it on the card and pay it off the next day so I get something out of it?).

None of the places I've lived have accepted American Express, so all branded/points-earning Amex cards are basically useless to me.

<comment><USER21> Oh I wish I could do that too but the $45 credit card fee for $20 in points doesn't ever make sense for me

<comment><USER12> I used to live in a place where my rent -- for a nice apartment -- was about $1k/month. That's 12,000 points a year from putting rent on the card, and there are airlines where that's right around the lower bound of redeeming a flight.

If your rent is higher than that, of course, it becomes a better deal.

<comment><USER22> The way this all works is the merchant pays a fee to process you CC and the bank splits that fee with you. Gas stations are somewhat smart about this in that they charge you more when using a card since they're paying more for the transaction. However, it's annoying to consumers to charge a higher price depending on payment method. Not sure why gas stations are the only ones getting away with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > _"Or, more precisely, snobbery has to be hidden and camouflaged as something > else"_

Yes, just like this advertisement seems to have been hidden and camouflaged as a New York Times article...

</comment><comment><USER24> Chase's marketing team hit it out of the park with the Sapphire Preferred (and now Reserve.)

This is going to sound stupid, but the Preferred/Reserve lines are fun to use. They have a metal core which makes the card feel heavy. Cashiers would always comment on the card's weight. It feels satisfying when you drop it on the table at a restaurant. The perks aren't the best in the industry, but they're good enough, and the incredible amount of points you got when you switched over lowered the barrier to entry enough to make the move.

Without a doubt it's the "coolest" card in my wallet, and probably will be until I get an Amex Black (yeah, right.)

<comment><USER25> I have the reserve, and was disappointed that the latest Chase Amazon Visa is also metal.

If too many cards are metal, it becomes less special. The heft of the metal makes me want to spend more, but not if every card has the same heft!

<comment><USER26> When did that happen? I just got a replacement Chase Amazon Visa Signature a couple months ago -- it's not embossed, but it ain't metal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> More than two decades ago, I lost my Amex card (or perhaps it was stolen) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I dialed the _call-collect_ phone number on the back of a traveling companion's card, and explained everything to an Amex representative.

The next day they had a replacement card waiting for me at the hotel lobby. I still don't know how they pulled it off.

In that instant, I became a lifetime customer. AFAIK, no other credit card firm offers the same level and quality of service.

<comment><USER28> Chase should be able to do that kind of card replacement too.

Me, I cancelled my AmEx the second time they flagged my card-present $30 grocery store transaction as fraud. There was no other hint of fraud on the account, but my buying groceries 100 miles from my home (in California) was enough to trip their algorithm.

I could forgive the false positive, but AmEx's customer experience here is terrible. They declined the transaction and then called my call phone from an unrecognized caller ID. The call came from an Indian call center with very poorly trained staff reading a script at me to verify I had the card.

So here I am in a stressful situation: can't buy my groceries, embarrassed my card is declined. And they decide that's the time to outsource to some lowest- bidder call center. Talk about contempt for the customer.

<comment><USER29> Fraud declines can be really random. I put a lot of travel on my cards and in the last couple of years I had a decline at a grocery store while traveling and a decline at a gas station convenience store. Fortunately, someone else was with me for one of those and the amount was piddling with the second.

I now always carry a spare card from a different bank although I'm not certain I wouldn't have issues if I suddenly started putting big charges on a card I rarely use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I use AMEX because their anti-fraud and customer service is the best I've ever experienced.

I refuse to use Chase anything because of how poorly they treat their lower income customers (staging transactions to maximize overdraft fees, etc.)

When I'm someplace that won't take AMEX, I use Discover. If they won't take Discover I use my credit union Visa.

<comment><USER31> > I refuse to use Chase anything because of how poorly they treat their lower > income customers (staging transactions to maximize overdraft fees, etc.)

Yep, a true pain to explain to someone how pulling that stunt is legal. About the same fun as banks cashing checks in order to maximize overdraft fees.

AMEX also does the Bluebird cards which are pretty nice for poor folks since you can do direct deposit to the card itself and it has no charge refilling at Walmart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've got both cards and have traveled all over the world with them. I'm not giving up my Amex ever. They've saved my ass in big and small ways so many times and I just don't trust Chase to do the same.

I do love the way the CSR looks and feels though, and it's essential to have a Visa or MasterCard when traveling as so many places only accept those two.

Chase is doing great, I will keep both for the foreseeable future. It's going to take time to completely steal me from Amex though, they've been doing right by me for more than 10 years.

<comment><USER33> This reminds me of my friends who met an elderly retired couple on a cruise. They were Amex black card holders, and said that the biggest reason they carried it was that if something happened to them medically (the husband was a retired physician to boot), Amex would come through and get them to the best hospital in whatever part of the world they'd be in.

That kind of support and service can be a huge difference maker to people who have experienced or can perceive such niche cases.

<comment><USER34> Super interesting, sure, but the Centurion card ("black card") is much more elite - minimum spend, $7,500 just to get the card, etc. Great offering from Amex but a different league than the middle class cards like Chase Sapphire, Amex Platinum, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I spent five minutes reading the article, another several minutes to contemplate if I've been pranked by the "new york times", then spent another minute feeling... lost.

The auspicious "New York Times", to me, would have a standard to present more inquisitive spins into story like this. What a shame. I was waiting for the punchline then realized at the end that the punch was thrown, just never registered.

To summarize this article, it starts off with a claim that Amex executives are worried that Chase is taking more "young professionals". Then the article discusses why that happens in this paragraph:

> A credit card, mystifyingly, had suddenly become cool. And what really got > under Amex executives' skin was that Chase was succeeding by, essentially, > copying the American Express playbook and chasing the same up-and-coming > elites who had traditionally joined Amex's ranks.

"mystifyingly" being the key word here. There is no investigation, no speculation, no data gathering, no journalism. There is a claim that a Chase card "seems to be gaining preference" in the young professionals crowd. Why is this a thing? Why is Chase being preferred over Amex? Is Chase even actually being preferred over Amex? Is there a poll, at least?

The only paragraph that attempts to answer any of the questions is this disjointed one in the middle of rambles:

> "The message we send is, this isn't your father's credit card," said Pam > Codispoti, who created the Chase Sapphire Reserve after 18 years at Amex. > "For millennials, travel might mean taking an Uber to a hole-in-the-wall > restaurant in Chinatown, and then riding the subway to karaoke, and then > catching a taxi home. So we're going to give you accelerated travel points > on all that. This is a card for accumulating experiences."

Other than that, there's no presentation of facts, but a rambling of speculations and hearsay. I feel as if I've been served an advertisement for Chase on thin veil. Do I have to start vetting articles from the "New York Times" for quality too?

How disappointing.

<comment><USER5> You should absolutely vet NYT articles for quality. I canceled my subscription to NYT because they are not putting out journalism worth paying $35 a month for.

<comment><USER36> You were paying $35/mo for The Times?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I used to have an Amex card because of Costco's exclusivity deal with them. I only used it to shop at Costco because many other places didn't accept Amex and my daily driver card has better benefits. I didn't feel like applying for another credit card when the Costco deal ended, so it just ended up being turned into a Citi Visa that I pretty much never use.

<comment><USER38> The Costco Citi Visa gives pretty solid cash back percentages [1]. What do you use that's better?

1\. [https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/credit-card- details/citi.a...](https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/credit-card- details/citi.action?ID=Citi-costco-anywhere-visa-credit-card)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I hadn't heard about the Sapphire card until a few weeks ago when I read this WSJ story, "If You Have 29 Credit Cards, You're Probably a Millennial"

[http://archive.is/XEYJY](http://archive.is/XEYJY)

It details the efforts of someone who managed to get a Sapphire Reserve card after dressing up as a Sapphire Reserve card for Halloween and sending a photo of it to Chase:

> _"I'm kind of a credit-card—maybe junkie is not the right word—but I'm a > credit-card enthusiast," says Mary Xu, a San Francisco cybersecurity > manager. In pursuit of points, she spends more than $1,000 a year on annual > fees for high-end cards._

> _She was so disappointed to be rejected for the Sapphire Reserve last > October that she spent hours constructing a costume of the card out of > cardboard. She sent the bank a photo of herself dressed up, hoping for a > second chance. She was approved about three months later._

</comment><comment><USER40> There's a good discussion about this on the churning subreddit[1].

One of my hobbies has been maximizing rewards over the last few years. I've had the Amex Gold, but Platinum rewards have never looked good enough to justify it for me. I'll keep the CSR until something better comes along, but it's easily the best card I've had.

Part of Amex's problem is the ease of access to information about which cards are actually good. They can't rely on image anymore. I don't buy into the article's argument about the CSR making the purchaser "interesting" at all.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/65e347/amex_chall...](https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/65e347/amex_challenged_by_chase_is_losing_the_snob_war/)

<comment><USER41> Ironically one fringe benefit about having a CSR is people often mistake the blue metal Chase for a black metal Amex :)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Amex has two great perks that justifies the cost for me:

\- Excellent travel insurance

\- 15-20% discount on car rentals with Hertz and Avis, priority service including complimentary upgrades, and no extra fees for super cover

Additionally their fraud detection and customer service is great. If my card is stolen or there are unauthorized transactions, they'll sort it out immediately and get Anne's card in your hands within the day. As a European who travels a lot in Europe and across the Atlantic, there's no other card that offers the same.

Then there's all the rest, VIP access, airport lounges, concierge service etc. Those are nice extras.

I pay everything on my Amex. Some smaller shops don't take Amex, but most places I've been seem to accept it. The few times I have to fall back to a Visa or MC I struggle to recall the pin.

<comment><USER43> What about the scummy car rental insurance? Does Amex cover that?

<comment><USER42> Yes, this is what I meant by super cover. Essentially you just rent without any additional coverage and Amex will cover anything not covered by the rental agency's insurance. This saves a good $20/day at least, meaning if you rent cars for just a few weeks per year the fee will be worth it, when considering the discount as well. I've racked up about 7-8 weeks of car rental so far since New Years, and thanks to Amex I saved a bunch of money on it, probably more than the fee.

Another good feature is I've sometimes had to return the cars in different cities, and every time they waived the fee because of the preferred status as a card carrying member. These things add up for sure.

As far as I know, the insurance also works with _any_ agency, so not just Avis and Hertz, so there's money to save even if you go for a more "fun" agency like Sixt, with nicer cars.

Disclaimer: You'll want to verify all this with Amex though, but this is what I've been told and what I've read in the ToS.

<comment><USER44> This is pretty much spot-on. One thing, though, it's rental _cars_ ; that is, it doesn't cover _trucks_.

Got burnt by that last summer when I wrecked a rented truck (on my AmEx Platinum) on vacation for the girlfriend's birthday. :/

<comment><USER42> That's good to know, thanks! Although I wonder if that's universal, because the definition of truck is probably different in different countries. Care to share more of your experience?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I don't know what the perception is today, but Amex used to be known for outstanding (like, truly outstanding) customer service. I had a regular Amex and then a gold in the mid 2000s and I found that was no longer the case. They also used to stand apart from other credit cards, much more like old-school bankers used to be. When I was using them they started to act more and more like regular credit card companies. There was also an ownership change at some point iirc. I think they just lost their way, and along with it their differentiating value.

<comment><USER46> I've had nothing but outstanding experiences with American Express customer service, even in the past few years. Miles ahead of what I've experienced with Chase and other issuers.

<comment><USER45> I don't doubt it. They always treated me well on the phone, but when I needed them to actually fix a problem they fell on their face and thew up their hands like they were powerless. I ended up having to solve it myself which blew the whole point of using them. I may be an outlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The new Amex cash card is pretty solid with 6% back on groceries and 3% back on gas and department stores (and 10% on restaurants for 6 months), but those aren't exactly prestige categories. I use that for everyday spending and the sapphire card for travel.

<comment><USER48> Interesting. What card is this? Can you provide a link? Is there an yearly fee for this card?

<comment><USER49> Yes. There's a fee.

The non-fee version is only 3% at restaurants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is relevant to a decision I made today. I was deciding which travel card to get between the amex platinum and the chase sapphire reserve, and I went with the sapphire reserve. I felt the amex's perks were catered more towards business travelers doing expensive things, while the chase card was more focused on people who travel for fun. However, I do not understand why people think the sapphire reserve is not a snobbish card like amex: it has a $450 a year fee, which is almost as much as the amex platinum's $550 fee, is ~metal~, and is trying to capture the same group of people.

<comment><USER48> $450 yearly fee with $300 travel credit. This includes Uber/Lyft and public transportation. It's basically $150/yr, unless you don't use any of the $300 travel credit.

<comment><USER51> As an economy traveller, I didn't realize how much international trips were if I used a lounge for hops. The CSR comes with free access to a large number of airport lounges, which was a benefit I was surprised I used.

<comment><USER10> Amex lounge benefits are now the same as Chase, both offer a Priority Pass Select, and now AFAIK offer the same number of guests. Amex also offers access to Amex Centurion lounges which are among the better domestic lounges.

<comment><USER52> Amex also includes Delta, if you're on a Delta flight.

<comment><USER12> You can still get into a Delta lounge as an Amex cardholder, but Delta has been tightening up its lounge access generally for a while. The biggest change was introducing two-tier membership; Amex cardholders, and even Delta's own top-level frequent flyers, now only get the base lounge membership (or equivalent). This shows up in things like being charged $29/person to bring guests with you, where previously you got two guests for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I have both, and end up putting 60% of my spend on SPG Amex (Starwood hotels for sure, and then anything generic), 10% (Amazon) on the Amazon Chase Prime Visa (5% back...), 20% (dining and other bonus categories, merchants that don't take amex) on the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and VX on the VX credit card, IHG on IHG card, UA on UA card, etc.

Amex Platinum (MR) has pretty bad values for point redemption -- it's a good card to have for access to lounges and for certain airline tickets, but it's generally not the best return for most purchases. If you're eligible, there's a 2.5% back USAA credit card which is probably the cash-back winner, otherwise SPG seems to win for value, but I've seen some 5-7% return cases for the CSR too (Asian mileage tickets in C or F).

There's also the fact that personal Amex PLT is $550/yr (now), with ~$200/yr in Uber reimbursements spread out over the year and a few other things. The biggest benefit of PLT is the Centurion Lounge, which for US domestic travel is nice if you're in those airports, but for international it's Priority Pass Select on both CSR and PLT. CSR is $450/yr with $300/yr in credit for virtually any travel, so it's net $150/yr. PP Select is worth that alone, and a bunch of other benefits.

I'd drop Amex Platinum if I wanted to drop a card (and I actually just have the OPEN Small Business version; I don't have a personal PLT).

</comment><comment><USER54> Amex Platinum for the win. Customer service is the best and they make things simple. Have an issue, just give them a call. Don't want to call, website is simple to use. A few years ago my wife and I were in LAX heading to Dublin via London. My wife left her card at home. Oops. Gave them a call. "I see your hotel reservation in Dublin here. A new card will be waiting for you when you arrive." It took all of 4 minutes. 11 hours later show up to the hotel and there is an envelope with a new card for my wife.

</comment><comment><USER55> Amex flooded their signed-in experience with awful pop-ups: upgrade your card! get a personal loan! It's distracting when, as a user, I'm simply trying to see how much I need to pay.

I switched to Chase.

<comment><USER44> Mine (Amex PLT) is set up to simply auto-pay the full amount a few days before the due date. I haven't logged in to their web site in months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> While by no means is this an apples to apples comparison, but for me this debate has always felt like PC/Mac vs Unix/Linux computers. Yes, the latter may seem/feel cooler, but there is far more support with the former platforms and to me that's always been the motivating factor.

</comment><comment><USER57> What's the point of an Amex or Sapphire compared to a regular VISA or mastercard?

Disclaimer: I am european, Amex doesn't exist here and you can't pay anything anywhere with that. Never heard about Sapphire before today. Maybe you guys don't have VISA and mastercard on your side of the Atlantic?

<comment><USER58> Visa and Mastercard are the two biggest card associations in the US (American Express is another card association).

Credit cards are usually issued by a card issuer (bank) and are co-branded with one of the card associations. For example, the Sapphire card is a particular credit card issued by Chase Bank, but is a Visa card.

American Express (Amex) is a little bit weird in that they act as both the issuer and the association for many of their cards. (They are less widely accepted than Visa or Mastercard).

See this American guide to choosing a credit card[1]. Factors that people consider include interest rate, amount of signing bonus, rewards (such as a percentage cash back on each purchase or a percentage of frequent flyer miles on each purchase), yearly fee to use the card, and other services that come with membership such as warranty protection, concierge, discounts, and reserved tickets for events.

What cards are available to a person depends highly on their credit history and income.

[1][https://www.creditkarma.com/article/choose_a_credit_card](https://www.creditkarma.com/article/choose_a_credit_card)

<comment><USER57> Does this have something to do with the credit card vs debit card thing?

Because credit cards barely exist on that side of the Atlantic.

<comment><USER58> In the US, debit cards are ATM cards tied to a bank account that can also be used at a merchant; when the merchant charges the card, money is deducted directly from the bank account. Debit cards usually have no rewards or bonuses associated with them.

Credit cards, on the other hand, are connected to a revolving line of credit. When a merchant charges the card, the issuer is essentially loaning the amount of the charge to the cardholder. (With most credit cards, interest only starts accruing a month after the charge; so people who pay their credit card bills in full are not paying interest.)

In the US, credit cards were introduced as a convenient alternative to checks or cash before debit cards existed. Because of cultural momentum, rewards, and fraud protection, they are as widely used as debit cards, if not more so.

<comment><USER59> To throw in a bit of confusion, most US debit cards can also be run on credit card networks (mostly Visa or Mastercard, though when I worked as a cashier I saw a few debit cards that used Discover or Amex). The cash is still directly debited from your bank account, but that lets you use the card at places that do accept credit cards but don't belong to any of the dozen different debit networks (STAR, Pulse, CO-OP, etc.). This is also why most US-based online shops prefer credit cards since it's assumed that even if you don't have an actual credit card you have a debit card that can be run as one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is just me: I use whatever card I get the most points/benefits from for whatever scenario (travel, food, gas, groceries etc.). I couldn't care less what people think of me when I pull out my card.

It just so happens Chase has been pushing out cards that benefits my lifestyle the most.

*edit grammr

<comment><USER60> You couldn't care less

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I use Amex (Blue Cash Preferred) because I get more cash back. I don't fly often so getting actual cash for the sorts of everyday purchases that dominate my usual spending works well for me. Amex has the best deals for that. The thought that people will choose a card for its signaling to others or, even more ridiculous, for its "feel" and/or look just makes me think people need to step back and reassess how they live.

<comment><USER62> I'd also like to drop in and say my Blue Cash Preferred is my favorite card out of all of the ones I've collected over the years.

That 6% grocery cash back, ungh, so good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm interested to watch retention through the first year for this card. The most attractive aspect for myself and many was the sign on bonus which was recently halved ([https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/chase- sapphire-...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/chase-sapphire- reserve-cutting-sign-up-bonus/)).

<comment><USER64> Many are looking to churn (cash in and leave)...The rest are doing it for utility and/or status.

Read the SlickDeals thread:

[https://slickdeals.net/f/9036199-chase-sapphire- reserve-100k...](https://slickdeals.net/f/9036199-chase-sapphire- reserve-100k-ultimate-reward-points-w-4k-spend-in-3-months-1650-in-1st-year- benefits-expires-1-12-2017)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> In the past I have always just used my bank's VISA or Martercard offerings. Last year I joined American Express and I am very happy with the service, not having my card put on hold on long trips, and the web app.

I must admit that this article made me want to also try the Chase Sapphire Reserve but for now I probably won't.

</comment><comment><USER66> The Amex Platinum paid out over $2k in benefits on my honeymoon alone (2 free nights at a Four Seasons, upgraded rooms, free breakfast for 2 every day, and a resort credit) through the Fine Hotels and Resorts program. I don't always travel like that, but I did then and the yearly fee was more than worth it.

</comment><comment><USER67> The AmEx lounges are much nicer than the airline lounges... only bad thing is that there aren't more of them

<comment><USER52> If the rumor about an Amex lounge in Denver is true I'll drop Chase in a heartbeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I don't think smart wealthy people pay a dime in service fees. I gave the privilege of collecting transaction fees on my purchases to HSBC, who charges me nothing. It has all the usual premium card perks, though not the latest silly ones. I'll buy my own Uber credits.

<comment><USER69> Smart people wouldn't pay the equivalent of a 2% sales tax to a private corporation in exchange for gimmicks.

The best part is that they realized you can keep the people from finding out that they are being royally ripped off by giving every single 30 card toting person the special feeling that they are _the one_ getting back more than they put in.

<comment><USER59> Cash itself isn't cost-free for businesses. There's the extra time it takes to count change for customers, the mistakes cashiers make when counting change, there's the time it takes to count the register at the end of a shift, the cost of a safe to hold cash on-site, the risk of counterfeit bills (when I cashiered we'd check $50s and $100s but not $20s and lower since it would take too long), and the cost of transporting the cash to the bank (either in the cost of an armored car or the risk of getting robbed on the way to the bank (which happened at another location while I was cashiering, after that they switched to an armored car)).

<comment><USER69> Credit card processing fees in the EU are legally capped at <.3%

What you are talking about may be well be true but let's be very clear here that transaction fees above that number are _ripoff for gimmicks_ , not the equivalent of what cash handling would cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I've been finding Fewer and fewer places that accept Amex. Sometimes when you hand over an Amex they'll give you a look since you're costing them money. If hey really want to compete they need to lower their merchant rates.

<comment><USER62> I don't know anyone I do regular business with that doesn't accept all four.

<comment><USER71> Here in Australia it's probably 50/50 that any given merchant will accept Amex or Diners, and of those that do, surcharging up to around 3% (though I've seen up to 7% before!) for Amex is quite common, particularly at small businesses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Amex travel sight also gives great discounts btw. I once got a fairmont hotel room for the price of a mariotte. And it came with an upgraded room, free breakfast each day, and $100 to spend while at the hotel.

</comment><comment><USER73> I use Amex whenever I can because it gets me the most frequent flyer points, which in turn is because it has the highest merchant fees.

I also use Android Pay, which means nobody can even see what card I use...

<comment><USER74> I wish more restaurants would accept Android pay. Right now I only use it in Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and sometimes in some random gas station which comes as a surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I have a run of the mill Amex and definitely just use it for the perks. If my Visa card offered 6% on groceries I would use that too...

</comment><comment><USER76> The conclusion is not reasonable: what has competition in the credit card business to do with the end of the latest recession?

</comment><comment><USER18> How is this not a commodity market yet?

</comment><comment><USER77> Well, what makes the cards so great? Seriously?

* Collect miles? I prefer the Cash back I have with my CC.

* Zero foreign transaction fees is a nice feature.

* Create virtual credit cards is a good feature.

* Travel insurance? Have a better one that any CC could offer me, including air evacuation. Don't need that with my CC and also would be worried about the fine print.

* Lounge Access? If you are a frequent flyer you should have Elite or whatever status anyway, hence I don't need this either. If you really need a card with "lounge access", Diners Club is still available in some European countries for less than US$ 100 per year. (Dines Club Lunge access included)

If I miss something with my CC then it is bicoin access: [https://bitpay.com/visa/](https://bitpay.com/visa/)

If you need a "prestigious" card, try here: [http://creditcardforum.com/blog/most-prestigious-credit- card...](http://creditcardforum.com/blog/most-prestigious-credit-cards/)

AH, Just saw. 100 bucks for, at least previously, 100k miles is not so bad. Most "prestigious" cards I know have fees from 400-1000 USD

"Introductory Annual Fee of $0 the first year, then $95."

</comment><comment><USER78> I must be poor. I had zero clue at all that having an Amex was prestigious in any way.

<comment><USER79> This. I knew about the Centurion, but I considered their normal cards to be on the same standing as any other. I have their free Everyday card, because they're pretty much the only issues in the UK who still offer cashback.

<comment><USER80> And you are correct. Only the Centurion has any social signaling power (real, at least).

Any other Amex? It's just a credit card, who gives a shit.

<comment><USER53> Amex Corp Card with the name of a well-known and respected company still has some social signaling power, I think. (Like if the card said SpaceX under the user's name)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> That reminds me, I need to cancel my AMEX...

</comment><comment><USER82> LOL. Classic. You guys spend all your spare time talking about ad blocking and then what's left is spent on posting blatant advertisements to each other. Hilarious. The only thing missing from this is the 'press release' tag.</comment>


IMessages for OS X sucks - <AUTHOR>

Am I the only one who is really disappointed with iMessages on my Mac? For a start, it seems to like to reorder the conversations I have with people (meaning I can't see what they have just sent me). Then often I have to hit 'resend' because it fails sending a message the first time. I hope Apple get round to fixing this soon! <comment><USER2> I used iChat all the time until it was replaced by Messages. I've since been using Adium and haven't looked back.

Every single time I receive a text though, Messages opens on my Mac without my permission, often getting in the way of what I'm trying to work on. The rare times when I actually use it, the conversations are reordered and many are just missing.

</comment><comment><USER3> You are not alone. I can't decide if Apple is just oblivious to the fact that Messages has some serious issues, the issues are very deep and a small team is developing it, or they just don't care.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, it's terrible. Messages are out of order more often than not, or missing entirely.

</comment><comment><USER5> hate it

</comment><comment><USER6> It's almost a crap-ware. Doesn't look good. Is of no use, being iOnly.

FaceTime is a good app but being iOnly this one is pointless too. I am looking for a desktop alternative other than Skype.

Viber is a thousand times better, with it's desktop and extremely famous mobile clients. Wish other _truly_ messaging apps like this and WhatsApp would go desktop too.

PS. Google gonna support hangout on others clients like Adium after full transition?</comment>