Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/business/aldi-walmart-low-food-prices/index.html <comment><USER3> I'm an industrial engineer and geek out about Aldi frequently. Here are a few things I've noticed (and researched) which differentiate them from others.

-they have barcode on 5 or 6 sides of their products, and they're typically huge! They nearly never need to orient a product to scan it. Their scan speed is far faster than any other supermarket I've been at.

-if two products are very similar, they'll change the packaging in an obvious way. Blueberry and blackberry yogurt typically look very similar, but the lids are obviously dark and light purple at Aldi. They can glance down and count how many of each, scan one, then hit the number pad for the quantity. I haven't seen the number pad used extensively at any other grocer.

-they combine varieties (like flavors of granola bars) of product in the same box. This greatly reduces the shelf space required.

-depositing a quarter for a cart eliminates the need to pay people to collect carts

-they keep product the box from the manufacturer. This eliminates labor from unboxing and facing product.

-they don't have plastic bags. You can grab boxes (normally a waste stream) and take them home with you.

-they don't list a phone number for their stores. With as few as 2 people on site during the slow times, they can't afford to have anyone on the phone.

-their conveyor belt is far longer than most stores. You should be able to get your entire cart worth of groceries on the conveyor at once. This minimizes the slowness of people handing one item at a time to the next checker.

-They're big on turning inventory over. If they trial a product and it doesn't sell well enough, they have no problem simply not carrying it anymore. You can't always get everything set Aldi, but you can get 85-95% of items you need there.

-they wanted to avoid vendor lock-in, so they had two POS vendors develop solutions simultaneously, awarding the contract to the one which provided the best solution.

<comment><USER4> > depositing a quarter for a cart eliminates the need to pay people to collect > carts

What's the alternative? Growing up in Germany I've literally never seen it any other way.

<comment><USER5> In the US I have never had to deposit any money to use a cart. I'm not sure how that would even work, is it some automated machine that spits out a cart?

<comment><USER6> It's similar to the "SmartECart" luggage cart kiosks you may have seen at airports. Sliding a cart in locks it in place on a set of rails, depositing the money releases a mechanical catch on the end, allowing you to pull one cart out.

<comment><USER7> You might be thinking of this system used by Ikea. [https://youtu.be/JRXdlgBe8wg](https://youtu.be/JRXdlgBe8wg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarte_Carte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarte_Carte) looks like it might be the airport system you have in mind.

The usual European shopping cart system works with a coin deposit, chains and mechanical locks on each cart, as described in several other comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My sister has worked in Aldi in the UK for 15 years. She loves it.

She started as a normal member of staff - they expect people to pitch in - you're on the checkout, moving boxes, helping deliveries, etc. Nobody is immune from having to do work.

She's now an Area Manager and still pitches in when visiting a store - <USER2> doesn't walk around with a clipboard, she helps the staff to do their job.

The wages are so much better than other supermarkets in the UK, but they expect you to work for them. Our local Aldi has been closed for 5 months while they rebuild it. I miss it so much. The Tesco nearby is far more expensive and has staff just chatting. The Lidl is more austere but is more efficient and cheaper. As soon as it opens again i'll be doing 90% of my shop there.

<comment><USER9> I was running a table at a graduate fair for my company and stood opposite the Aldi grad scheme guys. The grad salary ofter 5 years (if you are accepted on the programme) was great (£75k) and they expected you to be managing multiple stores in an area. They had quite a queue of students.

[https://www.aldirecruitment.co.uk/area-manager- programme/our...](https://www.aldirecruitment.co.uk/area-manager- programme/our-area-manager-programmes/graduate-area-manager-programme/)

<comment><USER10> I find it so weird how in the UK and much of the rest of europe, store managers and lots of blue collar jobs get paid so much more than software developers, even at large companies.

<comment><USER11> Are you saying your software engineers make below 75k?

<comment><USER10> No, I live in the US. But from what I've heard about software engineer salaries in the UK, even at most large multinationals (except only Google?), it seems someone with 5 yoe as a store manager at Aldis in the UK makes (afaik) more than basically every software engineer with 5 yoe in the UK

<comment><USER12> I don't see why an area manager for Aldi stores shouldn't be getting paid a lot of money. It's not exactly an unskilled job, it just doesn't require extensive qualifications. You're managing large numbers of employees over several different stores.

Some days I feel bad about how much money I make as a software engineer. It's an _easy_ job. All I do is sit at a computer and write some code for a few hours a day. I don't have to manage employees or stock or anything like that, I just listen to music and hammer away at a keyboard.

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's easy for you and many HN readers, but it's hard for the average person. There aren't many people that understand how to program, and there are much fewer who understand how to program _well_.

At my tech company of around 30 people, even the most technically inclined employees don't really understand programming. And I think my developer colleague is in the category that cannot program well. (I would optimistically say that I can.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most of the stuff they're doing seems to be entirely commonplace for the supermarket chains we have here in Norway.

The coins for the carts.

Stacking crates instead of individual items.

Training every employee for everything (it's not uncommon to see a store manager operating the cash register).

Expecting customers to fill their own bags and charging for those bags.

Smaller selection.

The only unique part seems to be the tendency to promote the shop's own brand over name brands.

On a related note: Lidl tried and failed to get a foothold here in Norway with similar tactics. It didn't work. Perhaps because our mainstream store chains are already so similar to Lidl, except our domestic chains offer actual name brand products and the Lidl stores didn't, and I think that's why they failed. Also, people who are really desperate to save money can just go to Sweden to shop. It's not a very long drive.

<comment><USER15> Seems like most of the points you listed are a deterioration from the customer's perspective.

<comment><USER16> Based on my experience that's pretty standard for european grocery stores. No cashier in Europe is ever going to bag your groceries.

Despite bagging your own groceries being a universal experience I haven't yet seen a local properly use a self-serve checkout kiosk. Instead of scanning an item and putting it in a bag on the weighing platform they instead scan the items and put them on the weighing platform, then pay, then put the items in the cart, move the cart towards the store exit and then bag their groceries.

<comment><USER17> I tried to, but it's impossible to resist temptation to rearrange stuff in the bags on weighing platform. The machine then seizes with complaint about unexpected stuff in bagging area. So I gave up on that.

<comment><USER16> The first two times I used the self-serve kiosk the machine complained constantly about unexpected stuff, and I noticed that I had placed my bags up to the edge of the platform. Now I place them in the middle of the platform and the machine seems happy. Either that or the store adjusted the sensitivity on the machines, hope that helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I guess I'm a weirdo who likes shopping there. Compared to Kroger or HEB I usually walk out of Aldi with a bill 50% cheaper than the other stores. We have our own bags and a picnic like basket thing we keep in the truck for Aldi stops. Yes it's "generic" but my uncle worked for a big food company that made big brand food and "generic" is often just a label change over the brand name. I can see why the rich people would think it's like shopping for food at the salvation army. No selection, a quarter to get a cart, 4-6 isles, no in car delivery, you have to bag your stuff yourself. I'll take all of those inconveniences if it means I spend 50% less per trip to the grocery store to feed us.

<comment><USER19> > a quarter to get a cart, 4-6 isles, no in car delivery, you have to bag your > stuff yourself.

Europe.

<comment><USER20> I think I just started to understand why the US has such a low unemployment rate but so many are paid minimal wage...

<comment><USER21> The US is the epitome of bullshit, bureaucratic jobs. Medical billing, for example, is someone taking the list of procedures a medical office performs and plugs that into a computer so that the "codes" the office uses can match the "codes" the healthcare provider uses.

I know what you're thinking, that describes a LUT (lookup table). Yes, you would be correct, a LUT is an actual profession in the USA.

<comment><USER22> I've never encountered an example of a real "bullshit job" (but have encountered a lot of ignorance about what different jobs entail.) Dealing with medical billing codes is not just a table lookup. It's actually quite fuzzy and some judgment is required because the codes don't match 1:1. (Not does the procedure the doctor actually did match perfectly to any code.) (And you can be criminally prosecuted for not doing it correctly if you're talking about Medicare or Medicaid.)

Grocery bagging, likewise, is hardly a bullshit job. I shop at whole foods precisely so I don't have to bag my own groceries. (And a good bagger can do it far better than I can.)

<comment><USER23> How do you evaluate the quality of the bagging if you don't know how to do a good job?

Are they just faster?

<comment><USER24> In my experience they're faster, pack the bags with less wasted space (but not heavily, just good at fitting things appropriately), and importantly they're not distracted by dealing with the cashier for payment or coupons or whatever other questions may arise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's quite impressive how things have turned. Not long ago Walmart was about to disrupt the German supermarket landscape. They even tried to cut prices to below market cost to conquer Aldi, Lidl, and the other big discount supermarket chains. After a couple of years they gave up and left. Now Aldi appears to be "fighting back" successfully in the US.

The history of Aldi's efficiency [0] is pretty impressive. It actually started with two brothers nearly going broke with their small grocery store. Then they realized that if they'd reduce the diversity of goods they offer and instead sell only the most common goods in bulk, they could undercut the competition's prices. This concept was so successful that it led to a multi billion dollar business which is still dictating the prices of common groceries in Germany.

Still there are other supermarket chains that have adapted to the Aldi strategy and are actually causing growth issues for Aldi. Their concept is to offer basic goods at the same price as Aldi does, then upsell more special and higher price items while offering a better shopping experience. I guess that's what's going to happen in the US as well eventually.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi#History)

<comment><USER26> It's not uncommon in Germany to go to Aldi first, then buy everything that you could't get at the "full service" more expensive super market next door.

<comment><USER27> It's the only reasonable thing to do. REWE / Edeka / ... also have standard groceries (yoghurt, cheese, pasta, cans of tomatoes, corn, etc) from their discount brand which cost exactly as much as the Aldi product, but they are usually _vastly_ inferior in taste and quality. Just go to REWE and buy a can of ja! corn. It tastes like somebody yellow-painted puffed rice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So, "Aldi" actually means lots of different things. Two German brothers (Karl and Theo Albrecht) formed ALDI in 1946. In the 60s, they split the company in two, resulting in Aldi Nord (Theo) and Aldi Süd (Karl). In the '90s, the brothers retired as CEOs and transferred ownership to family trusts.

The companies operate in different geographical areas. Originally, the brothers split across the Rhine, but now Aldi Süd includes North America, Australia, and half of Europe. Aldi Nord operates in the other half of Europe.

The same trust that owns Aldi Nord also owns Trader Joe's (acquired in 1979), and they use similar operational values: (minimal advertising, limited selection, private label goods, work ethic, etc)

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

<comment><USER29> _"Two German brothers (Karl and Theo Albrecht) formed ALDI in 1946. In the 60s, they split the company in two"_

Brothers starting a company and splitting up later to produce two successful companies seems to be a German thing. The Dassler brothers did it too, forming Adidas and Puma ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas#Split_and_rivalry_with_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas#Split_and_rivalry_with_Puma))

Back to Aldi: it always surprises me that the two Aldi's don't get accused of forming a cartel. It is fairly clear that they agreed to split the market. I guess that doesn't get them into trouble because a) there are other large players and b) they can't be accused of doing it to prevent a price war.

<comment><USER30> AFAIK when it comes to (German) competition/cartel law, they're in some ways considered as if they were a single entity. There's a rule treating companies that openly strongly align like that as if they were commonly owned, so they can't pretend to compete with each other, presumably if one tried to buy an actual competitor the market position of both would be taken into account, ... So yes, it'd be trouble if they in sum started to dominate the market etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In addition to being the cheapest, I'm often impressed by the quality of some of Aldi's pantry staples. Specifically, I'm blown away by their onions. I buy a bag of onions every 1-3 weeks. Since I can't individually inspect every onion in the bag, I'm resigned to the fact that anywhere from 10-30% of the onions will be unusable when I start to cut into them and find the rot. This is true of pretty much every grocer I've ever shopped at, with some faring worse than others (I remember almost _half_ of the onions I'd get from an average bag at Target were unusable). Not so at Aldi's. I can buy a bag and every onion in the bag will have a nice, firm skin that feels fresh and tight when peeled, rather than old and slimy.

I suspect it's probably shelf life more than anything else--if they keep just enough stock of them that they're constantly being bought and restocked, they don't have time to sit on the shelf and wilt.

<comment><USER32> A friend of mine worked for a logistic company and he told me many times that dealing with Aldi was a nightmare for them because they were extremely demanding:

very thin profit margin, tough quality checks (when delivering the items to the warehouses the checks were done on many more samples and in a much more detailed way than what other supermarket chains did) and if the truck arrived at the warehouse anytime after the agreed delivery time you were basically screwed (ranging from at least having to provide a discount to the whole delivery being rejected therefore having to find another chain willing to buy it or just throw it away).

All this might as well explain (additionally to your "shelf life") the good & cheap onions.

I'm an onion lover - Go onions! :)

(ps: this is just a neutral comment - so far I mostly ignored Aldi, excluding the exercise bike I bought from them which is still working perfectly ~3 years later)

<comment><USER33> High standards and tight margins? Sounds like Apple.

<comment><USER34> Tight margins and Apple don't belong in the same sentence

<comment><USER35> I think they're referring to the suppliers perspective.

<comment><USER33> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think the point that this article drove home to me is that a lot of Aldi's "bare bones" mentality actually leads to a _better_ experience for most shoppers, even separate from the lower prices. For example, the comment from a customer about the store layout making it easier to get in and out with kids in tow. The Aldi store brands have a reputation for good quality without the "50 kinds of salsa" paralysis of choice. The register lines move faster because there is no bagging. Store employees are more helpful because they are cross-trained, etc.

I think this contrasts with a place like WalMart where employees are often less-than-helpful, so much of the products are low quality, etc.

<comment><USER37> The "50 kinds of salsa" paralysis is so real. Some shops have a great selection, everything looks tasty, exciting, worthwhile to buy but you can only buy so much. In Lidl, there is no problem of choice, because much less to choose from, you are relieved from having to choose. I prefer it for staples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Fun fact: one of the founders of Aldi was kidnapped in 1971. A ransom of $3M was paid. After he had been released he fought a court battle to classify it as tax deductible business expense.

Source: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandco...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9729434/Billionaire- Aldi-heir-Berthold-Albrecht-dies-at-58.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> As a German, I frequently enjoy tourists being unable to cope with the speed of Aldi cashiers. They have the possibility to begin scanning the products of the next customer while you are still paying, which adds additional stress if you are not used to it. If it takes you longer than one second to answer the mantra-like "Bar oder Karte?" ("cash or credit card?"), the cashier will stay friendly, but get visibly annoyed, because if you quickly say "Bar", she will actually begin to count out _the change she expects you to receive_ while you haven't even opened your wallet yet (for example, if it costs 17.95, she will expect you to pay with a 20 and count out 2.05)

I think Aldi is the best supermarket in the world, but it certainly is an acquired taste :)

</comment><comment><USER39> In the last year in my neighborhood Aldi and Lidl have opened up stores across the street from each other. Lidl announced they were building a store and the following week Aldi announced they were opening their store across from them in a space which used to be another grocery store.

Aldi should have been able to open long before Lidl but the renovation of the space took forever. Whenever I drove by the were ever at most a handful of workers and for periods of time no work got done.

Lidl had to wait until their proposed building gained zoning approval to start construction which was several months after Aldi began construction; however, whenever I drove by the Lidl site it was full of construction workers. They managed to open only 3 or 4 months after the Aldi when it should have been at least 8 months after.

During the 3 months before Lidl opened Aldi did good business due to their low prices but no one I spoke to was thrilled with the place. The inside was dark and uninviting. The vegetable and fruit selection was poor and in very bad condition. Often it was moldy or wilted. The selection was awful but everyone assumed that was part of what you traded for the low prices.

Lidl opened and the building is full of light and welcoming. There is a frequently changing selection of quality fruit and vegetables. In almost all product categories Lidl has more selection with prices similar and frequently lower than Aldi.

The Lidl has remained constantly busy since opening and the Aldi has become a ghost town. If the experience here is typical than Aldi is going to have a tough fight on it's hands as Lidl expands in the US.

<comment><USER40> > Lidl announced they were building a store and the following week Aldi > announced they were opening their store across from them

long ago, that was supposedly Burger King's strategy too: wait for McDonalds to spend the time and effort to research where to put one of their restaurants, then open a Burger King across the street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I live in Aldi's motherland and even if I could easily afford to buy groceries in other stores from major brands I usually go to Aldi first, buying the 10% they do not sell later somewhere else. Why? Because I blindly trust them. What they sell is usually good quality with a good taste (I even do not look at the prices). The juices they sell: perfect. The fruits they sell: mostly sweet (there is a fruit quality problem in Germany, as the country usually only gets second grade fruits because of the low prices eveywhere). Milk, joghurt, cheese: best quality. And I can actually remember where stuff is! So shopping is fast. This is in stark contrast to most other retailers who try to trick you into buying more by hiding stuff in unexpected places. Many years ago, someone told me something from behind the scene at Aldi. She was working for a producer of toilet paper and similar. She said: in contrast to other clients, we are not allowed to produce one lot without some people from Aldi being present. Before they produced for them, they had to call Aldi so they could have engineers at the factory to oversee everything that was done. She said no other customer did this. This really reinforced my trust in their Quality.

<comment><USER31> YMMV, but TP is one of the few things I _don 't_ buy from Aldi. We tried a pack and the wipes felt like they were rice-paper thin.

<comment><USER42> At least in the U.S., TP is one of the few things that's differentiated--they have 3-5 different ones, each a clone of a different brand like Charmin Ultra or Quilted Northern or Angel Soft. There's a little thing in the corner of the packaging that says "Compare to Cottonelle" or whatever. I took a photo of the one we like so I know which to get next time :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> IMO, what Aldi succeeds in is doing more with less. Aldi's aisles, stores, and product ranges are smaller compared to big grocery stores. However, Aldi leverages a 'curated assortment' of products to offer good quality items at a lower price than other grocery stores. There's also 1 "Aldi Finds" aisle in the stores which seems like it's to beta test potential items or offer short- term deals on limited items (? - just my guess).

The German discount grocery chains are really taking off in the US with Aldi and Lidl. I would like Rewe to come to the US next.

<comment><USER8> The 'curated assortment' bit is interesting.

If I go into my local Tesco, which isn't a huge ones, they've got about 15 types of coleslaw. The Lidl has 2. But they're nice ones. The cheapest is not awful, like the cheap Tesco one. The most expensive isn't ridiculously priced, but it is superb.

Baked beans - one type at Lidl, their own brand, but it's nicer than Heinz these days. The dishwasher tablets are half the price of the branded ones but better in my dishwasher.

I honestly love both Aldi and Lidl. They do have their gaps (you need to do ~10% of your shop in Tesco for these) but for the rest...

<comment><USER44> Lidl do have some shortcomings.

Other than a couple of wobbly bicycle racks out the front of the local store, Lidl UK are entirely car-orientated, in every aspect from location of the store to making pedestrians walk through the car park without pavements. That surprised me for a European chain.

My other main gripe with Lidl is that they don't do home delivery. I'm not going to walk 25 minutes to their store, dice with cars and then haul groceries home when Tesco will bring shopping into my kitchen for £4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Aldi is famous for paying managers a _lot_ of money. Far more than similar roles at other grocery stores. Not just 10% more, but in many cases 100% more.

Perhaps paying extra money for better brains leads to better decisions being made in the long run.

<comment><USER46> It is unusual for a business that is so cost focused to do that. Normally low margin businesses can't turn off that frugal mentality when it comes to rewarding staff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I used to work for the UK's largest Supermarket Chain. In 2012 when an ALDI was due to open close to a store I managed, head office sent in a delegate from the small "Continental Discounter" (ALDI/LIDL) team who explain that the ALDI brand was a cleverly worked phallacy, it wasn't cheaper, the products weren't better and customers didn't like it as much as people made out.

Six years later, the impact of ALDI and LIDL have effected fundamental change in the giant, Supermarket Chain, the whole corporate strategy seems to emulate what ALDI does well and there is a pilot where some of the smaller stores are rebranded under a different name and basically modelled on a German discounter.

ALDI and LIDL have changed the UK supermarket landscape in a fundamental way and customers seem to love it.

</comment><comment><USER48> Another thing: I'm guessing they don't have paid staff to bag groceries for customers like many US stores, but what they may have that's common in Europe but unknown in the US: the boat-tiller-like divider in the conveyor belt space past the cashier.

Customer A's things get rung up and continue to side A. When done with customer A, the cashier shoves the divider across so the belt now takes customer B's stuff to side B while customer A continues to put their stuff in their bag or their cart.

My DuckDuck-Fu is failing me to find a picture of this.

<comment><USER49> At least at the Aldi I shop at, they don't even have that. The cashier is at the very end of the line; the next thing past them is a shopping cart, and scanned items get placed directly into it.

When you're done paying, you wheel that cart away, leave the one you had in its place, and go to a separate counter where you can bag or box your stuff.

If you had a basket, you throw the basket in the cart, the cashier drops stuff in there, and you take it with you. Which, they didn't mention this in the article, but that's also nice - it encourages customers to put their baskets back in the stack by the door. Which, again, saves everyone time. Employees don't have to stop what they're doing to collect baskets and move them to the door, and customers don't have to wander around the checkout aisles looking for baskets stashed under the conveyor when the stack by the door is empty because things are too busy for that to happen.

<comment><USER50> "scanned items get placed directly into it."

More like thrown into it - or if you're lucky, dropped into it, at my local Aldi. You learn not to put canned goods ahead of bread on the belt so that cans don't land on your bread.

<comment><USER49> Aldi staff are pretty high-performing at what they're paid to do. So much so that successfully shopping at Aldi may be even more skilled a profession than working there.

It's part of the charm. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Aldis Checkout lines are always so long and everyone is buying a months worth of groceries when I'm there that i won't shop there most of the time. The staff are very fast but customers are slow to bag/move the items.

I don't shop in bulk, I buy groceries for one person and i buy a handful of items every few days.

The competitors in Australia (Coles and Woolworths) all have about 10-15 self checkout machines, so the chances that i have to wait for one to be free is small.

I accept that if i go to Aldi, I'll probably find most of the items i buy cheaper, but they are usually within 0-10c of the private label brands of the other supermarkets.

Aldis success has pushed down everyone's prices (to as low as they can get, while staying with their current setup). If you combine the faster turn around time, with the greater variety (I occasionally like trying new brands/items) of the "traditional" store, It's worth the ~10% premium (for me).

On a side note: Over here, Aldi designates only one lane (out of the two or three that are open) for purchasing of Alcohol. Can anyone explain why?

</comment><comment><USER52> Ah, the Americans have not forced Aldi on their knees and have them change the checkouts.

Finland used to have a oligopoly of pretty expensive grocery chains and no price competition. Until Lidl (another German chain very similar to the Aldis) entered some 16 years ago and started real price competition. Of course with their efficient checkouts.

The first years Lidl didn't do so well. Then they changed the checkouts to the less efficient local models (and some other adaptations) and started doing pretty well. They just learned their lesson that in Finland you can sell the same product with a 30% premium compared to Germany and accept some inefficiency. Of course they are still a bit cheaper than the incumbants.

Finns are very proud of having defeated a multinational giant (and don't see that they have to pay for it). Like Germans have defeated Google when it comes to street view, although that price if there is any is more difficult to measure.

<comment><USER53> Let me know when you find out what the price for the missing street view is;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The best quality/price laptops I've bought in the last couple of decades were from Aldi (their brands : Medion and Lifetec) It took 5 years for the competition to reach the same offering at that price. (That was in 2002, now it's less spectacular) I kept using these laptop for 5-7 years...

</comment><comment><USER55> It's strange to see this hit the US only just now. Chains like these are huge in Europe. In Belgium, where I live, Aldi isn't very big. They're being outplayed by a bigger local player: Colruyt. Aldi stores are usually pretty small while Colruyt stores are pretty large. You can see the staff driving around carts inside of the store to put everything on the shelves. They also always have a huge refrigerator room instead of seperate refrigerators. It allows for them to drive into these rooms so everything is faster as well.

Colruyt also got subsidiaries that have smaller stores for city centres like Okay which is just a tad smaller because it's in the city centres. Colruyt's own stores are often in smaller cities or around towns where there's plenty of room to build a store.

The reason Aldi is not very big in Belgium is because they're perceived as being lower quality. Perhaps it's because people don't want to change brands, but want to pay a lower price. They can get the same items/brands at Colruyt, but for a lower price. From personal experience I can also say that Aldi stores aren't as pleasant to shop in as Colruyt. This is because Aldi's aesthetics are pretty old. It feels like you're walking in some old store that's from the 90s or older. Colruyt and Okay stores feel more like you're walking into a warehouse.

Just my two cents. I just went shopping to Okay today and on other days I go to a Spar, which is also a Colruyt subsidiary, but a tad bti more upscale. Though not as upscale as Delhaize in Belgium. Delhaize is one of the more expensive ones, though you also get some more upscale items like freshly made juice, fresh sushi, fresh lobsters... compared to the others. They can be either owned independently or by the chain. The ones that are owned independently are imo better because they often have "home-made" food because they've got a bakery, kitchen, and butcher and it's of good quality. (I personally adore one of the Delhaize's bakeries at my parents' house.)

That's all. What a rant.

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow i didn't know that Aldi was in the US. Aldi and lidl keep opening stores like crazy in Europe, there must be like 15 of them in my city in France.

They are great on price, and the high end product are actually nice. But the rest is just average, and the cheese is really low quality (for french standard i mean) . The most annoying thing is that i can never find all the things i need. I just shop there for the basics : milk, egg, water, fruits and occasionally the tools they sell.

The really good thing with aldi (more than lidl) is that they purchase local food, and you can sometimes have really nice surprises.

<comment><USER57> For awhile I lived in a city with both an Aldi and a Trader Joes. Over all I prefer Trader Joes, but Aldi had some cheap products I liked. And it was a nice surprise when I found some random household item I needed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Got a friend who is overseeing manager of about 5-6 Aldi supermarkets in my area.

At the end of every day, every supermarket calls him with the daily results. He writes them down, takes a picture and sends that to his manager at the national HQ.

He just uses his phone and the occasional meeting to do business, there is no computer/laptop or system on his end.

Aldi is always portrayed as brutally efficient. So I was wondering what to read into this. Best I was able to come up with is that it's cheaper for them not to have an overseeing system to manage this.

<comment><USER46> I've seen plenty of corporates automate systems that don't warrant automation. Somehow development gains a momentum which nobody is able to stop. SAP sites seemed to be the worst for this.

<comment><USER59> Yes. When the org my sister worked at was trying and failing to automate vacation tracking, I was curious and asked some questions. As a software guy, I saw the frequent rules updates, hard to codify rules, increased effort to fix mistakes, smallish headcount, and expensive consultants... and said: This probably just does not make sense to automate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Just a quick alternative viewpoint: as a parent, I've been turned off by Aldi in the past.

Often with a toddler and/or car seat in hand, unlocking a cart (for example) is not just an inconvenience, it's a dealbreaker.

I'm into the pursuit of efficiency and low prices, but there are some real world benefits of "full service" grocery stores.

One being an nicer experience for the disabled (in my case, due to being a parent).

I'm guessing they don't have those motorized carts either?

Anyway, I'm happy that there are alternatives. We'll probably give Aldi another chance when our kids are older.

<comment><USER61> My kids are 3 and 5 and we've shopped at Aldi continuously since they were born. I'm not sure what you're talking about. Unlocking a cart takes almost no extra effort beyond what you'd expend to get one at any other store.

<comment><USER16> Unlocking a cart is a foreign concept in the US. Not sure if the parent is in the US but any grocery store that has locked carts there is doomed to fail.

<comment><USER36> The entire article is about how Aldi is growing like crazy in the US, and explains why they have locked carts. A far cry from "doomed to fail".

<comment><USER16> Props to Aldi then, they are definitely disrupting supermarkets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I am surprised that noone mentioned about the bottle collectors phenomenon in Germany. [1] Basicly you pay a deposit (.25 eur for plastic ones, 0.08 for glass.) for each beverage you buy and then sell those bottles back in supermarkets. This is maybe the easiest and most efficient way to force people to recycle. Are you lazy to do that or you don't have a place when you finish your beer walking in the street?[2] Then you simply leave the bottle next to a trash bin and in couple of minutes someone takes it to cash it back and call for a day. It's a serious revenue stream for a large group of low income people.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/02/german- cities-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/02/german-cities- bottle-collectors)

[2] In a country famous with rules and strictness, it is also surprising to see stuff which are not forbidden or no one simply cares, such as drinking on street or public transport, quite openly shopping and using drugs, smoking in bars etc. However some of these might be true only for Berlin, which became a island of freedom in the middle of Europe.

<comment><USER59> The drugs thing is only Berlin, at least in Germany. Drinking everywhere (though not at all times) is normal in all of Germany AFAICT. It's legal and nobody cares if you still behave.

<comment><USER63> Drug selling and smoking pot in the public (or even schools) is also not uncommon in other major cities in Germany eg. Hamburg, Frankfurt, Köln, etc. Hamburg has areas near the habour feeling quite extraterritorial in this respect. Munich I don't know; it's a much cleaner place than those other cities. Though drinking beer there and going to the _Biergarten_ is kind of their way of living, and it's certainly a relaxed place with respect to nudity, love affairs, and sex.

<comment><USER59> Definitely not Munich. But Hamburg, Cologne and maybe other places, yes, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> It's such a dump and yet, their wines and beers are pretty damn good. And they have cheap organic produce. Just got to eat that day.

</comment><comment><USER65> > _Aldi, which expects its customers to endure a number of minor > inconveniences not typical at other American grocery stores. Shoppers need a > quarter to rent a shopping cart. Plastic and paper bags are available only > for a fee. And at checkout, cashiers hurry shoppers away, expecting them to > bag their own groceries in a separate location away from the cash register_

Interesting glimpse into a parallel universe. Everything mentioned is standard practice in the parts of Europe I know, except the trolley fee is the equivalent of two to four dollars. Where I live, that fee works as intended, but I remember living in the UK more than thirty years ago - I regularly scooped several pounds by picking up abandoned trolleys in the Safeway parking lot and returning them to their designated shed.

As for bagging, I'd quickly turn hostile if anyone attempted to handle the goods I just payed for.

</comment><comment><USER66> Most of those things are easy to do and easy to copy.

But how do you find private label suppliers for 1000+ products, how do you know how to define great products, how do you verify that, and do you still manage prices low ?

That's a key skill aldi acquired over decades, and it's really hard to copy.

<comment><USER67> Most grocery stores have more private label products than Aldi. It isn't hard, most produces of product will put whatever label you want one (within what is legal) if you order a quantity.

<comment><USER66> So if I go to a grocery store, and buy only their private labels - would the products be great, as people here describe Aldi?

<comment><USER67> Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Private labels can set quality levels - for a price - if they want to. Most are trying to be cheapest and so they don't.

Private labels order from the brand names. Sometimes they order a different recipe, but often it is the exact same recipe as the name brand just the box is different. If there is still more pickles in the vat after making 1000 jars of the private label they will finish the vat into 17 jars of their brand. Sometimes a batch will not meet the brand's quality standards (taste) but it is still food safe so they dump it into a private label box with lower standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> > "New customers may be jolted at first by the experience of shopping at an > Aldi, which expects its customers to endure a number of minor inconveniences > not typical at other American grocery stores..."

The "unconvinces" listed are true. However, what I believe this article, and the rest of the "super market" industry is missing is that inexchange customers get simplicity and a sense of normalicy.

Aldi's success is as much about what they do offer (i.e., low prices) as what they do not (e.g., a ridiculous number of peanut butters that overwhelm your already saturated brain.)

My gut tells me there are lessons to be learned from this "trend" for other brands and products.

</comment><comment><USER69> > without compromising on quality

This might be true of the new American stores but is definitely not true in Northern Europe, they regularly have rotten fruit in the stands and I only once dared buying the frozen fish which led to a nasty case of diarrhea. This was back in my student days, when I realized paying 3% more for meat and vegs was worth the extra cost if you can avoid spending 2 days in bed because of a good price on salmon.

At the end of the day I can't really blame the store personal, they where 2 people running everything, at a size that usually see 8+ for competing chains and the wage was the absolute minimum allowed by law.

<comment><USER70> This is my experience as well in Germany. Fruits and vegetables are also quite tasteless. Some common items are simply missing. I'm afraid same will happen in US once the initial hype and attention to the details wear off and ROI considerations kick in. Or maybe it will work out great - Trader Joe's is an amazing example of that.

<comment><USER63> FYI: those looking for quality vegetables in Germany buy at the "market" (traditional place with sellers and producers coming with trailers once or twice a week). Maybe not anymore in Berlin, where this tradition may have been stopped during the time when the city was isolated from its surrounding agricultural suppliers (west), or vegetables were only available through "Konsum"-style socialist unit stores, if at all (east).

<comment><USER70> On our farmer's market prices are usually through the roof. We buy at Lidl where cheap produce is ok and there are also more expensive but still reasonably priced tastier options for most items.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It appears that the dupe filter missed this one. Can we merge with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19939376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19939376) ?

<comment><USER71> The domain is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Am I the only one here who doesn't prefer self-service?

Although I definitely appreciate the idea of having options for people who do not share my mentality, my ideal shopping experience is where I have to do the least amount work.

I don't want to have to put my cart up. I don't want to do self-checkout. I'm not going to tell a robot what kind of vegetable I want. I appreciate being able to call a store to resolve an outlier issue.

As a consumer, I will always be willing to pay extra $$ for what I suppose is now becoming a premium perk.

</comment><comment><USER73> I'm not surprised by the success, I am a bit by the praise for quality. I find Aldi has good quality....for the price, and their prices are pretty low....Aside from a handful of items I know are usually good at Aldi I find lots of items that the quality matches the low price.

I shop there for a few things but especially when I'm cooking I avoid Aldi and it seems like when I try something new it is pretty bleh. Pretzels that are basically dust with shape, etc.

I feel like the odd man out not being an Aldi fan but I suspect that has something to do with cooking.

</comment><comment><USER74> In Australia food seems very expensive in general, so having Aldi isn't so much about getting cheap food, but getting reasonably priced food. Although I think they generally stock less healthy foods, so you have to be careful with dips and things like that. But fruit, veg, meat, milk type stuff it's a winner. They also sell a lot of homeware on a rotation basis, so one week you can buy a drill, the next and air compressor, etc. I guess this works well for them as it creates scarcity.

</comment><comment><USER75> Nice thread.

Want to add that the founders of ALDI, Theo and Karl Albrecht managed to stay secretive throughout their lives (especially after Theo was kidnapped in the 70s). They managed to have almost zero photos or video recordings of them in public, despite both appearing on the world's top 10 richest people list quite a few times (they were the richest people in Germany anyway). They were like phantoms.

Also, Theo Albrecht loved collecting typewriters. Just sayin', as we are on HN.

</comment><comment><USER76> At least in the part of the US I live in, Aldi is just a much better place to shop then Walmart and the other grocery stores. I can just unlock my cart (which are never just hanging out in the parking lot), grab the food I need (which is always in the same location), check out, bag my food in my reusable bags (which Aldi pretty heavily pushes), and be done with it. The only store that comes close is the Walmart Neighborhood Market but that still isn't as cheap and nice as Aldi is.

</comment><comment><USER77> Wait untill you get Aldi mobile provider. In my country i pay 10eur a month for unlimited calls+sms and 20gb of data. For 15eur you get same but 50gb data. Simplest cell provider, no hiden costs, and everything is resolved online. They do not have offices where you register. You just but a sim card. And then they can either charge your bank account or you buy vouchers at Aldi registers - printed on the receipt paper. Its cheap and awesome!

<comment><USER78> What is your country?

<comment><USER77> Slovenia. Hot.si

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> WinCo Foods in some of the western US states attempts to drive down costs with some similar tactics, although not to nearly the extent that it sounds like Aldi does. Plus WinCo is employee owned, which I think is kinda cool.

In the western US states, I only see Aldi locations in southern California currently. It will be interesting to see how they affect other competitors as they expand to more cities out here.

<comment><USER80> As someone who has not worked in retail I don't know much about how "employee owned" actually manifests for WinCo employees (esp. shop floor non-managers), but it does seem like they have much better benefits than other chains. And it's quite cheap, so would recommend to Western US folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I find it remarkable how positive the tone is of this article compared to how a decade or two ago US mainstream media was wailing about WalMart killing mom&pop shops and corner grocery stores. I wonder why that is? If anything once this chain expands it'll drive all the remaining small grocers out of business, since it's considerably cheaper than even walmart.

<comment><USER82> Post-Walmart/2008 America is living paycheck to paycheck. It's harder to vilify those who undercut competitors if that means people get to eat this week.

<comment><USER81> I think America lived paycheck to paycheck well before WalMart. You could make the same argument for WalMart that you're making for Aldi here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I haven't seen this specifically mentioned about the carts, but the cart storage at Aldi is covered so the carts don't sit out in the weather and rust. They also don't get bent or have wonky wheels like most other supermarkets, probably because they're not getting inadvertently or intentionally hit by cars in the parking lot.

</comment><comment><USER84> I'm not quite sure what's "brutal" about Aldi's practices. They are thrifty. But that's different.

</comment><comment><USER85> I like Aldi but I wish they got rid of the weird weekly non-food stuff they have in the middle and used the space for more food.

</comment><comment><USER86> One of the things that drives me crazy at our local Albertsons is that it is very expensive in general but they change the price (reduce to reasonable) every week on one brand per category. Result is one usually (4/5) can't buy a favorite product without overpaying ~30%.

Hopefully Aldi doesn't do this, I know Trader Joe's doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER87> mwahaha! Americans encountering our unfiltered, brutal, German efficiency ... you better start learning how to pack your groceries at the checkout at German speeds ... see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LfkwjJdITA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LfkwjJdITA)

<comment><USER88> We have a place called WincCo here that has a divider. The cashier sends your groceries down one side and when they are done ringing your stuff up they slide the divider over and send the next persons stuff down the other side while you bag yours.

[https://i.imgur.com/K6A78XA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/K6A78XA.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> It would be nice if the US Aldi stores were similar to the current stores in Germany and Scotland I have seen. The ones I have been to in the LA area feel like how Aldi was 30 years ago in Germany. Super cheap but crappy products. Not like the European stores where you can find cheap high quality stuff.

</comment><comment><USER90> Fucking love Aldi. I'm pretty sure without them I would have literally starved to death. I can get food to eat for a week for like £10. The nearest Tesco to me (Crystal Palace) doesn't stock any basics stuff, and the larger stores seem to demand a car or nearly an hours walk.

</comment><comment><USER91> I wonder if eating food from these super cheap places will shorten your life span compared to other more expensive and focused on healthy places. Basically, sure cheap is good, but how less or more healthy are these cheap supermarkets comparing them to on quality and healthiness metrics?

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure what you mean... If you're buying fresh produce, there's not going to be any difference between stores unless one of them is spraying sugar & fat onto their tomatoes. And if you're buying nacho cheese tortilla chips, you're already going for something less healthy.

<comment><USER91> yeah, that's exactly what I mean! Fresh produce origins matter and so does handling and care!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I love all Aldi's! The main reasons are : 1. Time - I can be in and out in 10 minutes. 2. Prices - the prices are about 20 to 30% cheaper then the other major grocery chain near me.

Also, it's the only brand that I will praise to random people, that's how much I love it.

</comment><comment><USER93> You haven't been to the Aldi near me in the USA. They suck compared to other US supermarkets. BTW, Aldi in Ireland is unbelievable. I'm still not convinced it's the same company even though the names are the same.

</comment><comment><USER94> ' And at checkout, cashiers hurry shoppers away, expecting them to bag their own groceries in a separate location away from the cash register.'

Food4Less in the central valley of CA have done that for years. They are pretty cheap too.

</comment><comment><USER95> The uses of the words "brutal" and "fierce" are good examples of American xenophobia. Aldi pays its low-wage staff a living wage (far above the minimum required by law) in the UK and elsewhere. Walmart, no chance.

</comment><comment><USER96> For our family, Aldi + Instacart has measurably changed our lives for the better. Not having to go to shopping with toddlers and still paying a reasonable amount for groceries has been amazing.

</comment><comment><USER97> related (in the UK): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19341448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19341448)

</comment><comment><USER98> I'm a huge Aldi loyalist now. Alongside the low prices and decent quality food, a major bonus is that I can do an entire weekly shop in about 20 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER99> _It's not uncommon to see luxury cars in Aldi's parking lots_

There's something that bothers me about that caption I just can't put my finger on what it is.

</comment><comment><USER37> How similar is Aldi and Lidl? There is only Lidl here where I live. They seem very similar conceptually.

What are the tangible differences, which one do you prefer?

<comment><USER56> They are very similar in size or product. Aldi has more local food products than lidl, but lidl has a more interesting "aisle of shite", with their own brand of tools/garden equipment. I keep watching this aisle to expand my toolshed :)

Here is a great website to avoid missing the famous parkside tools: [http://offers.kd2.org](http://offers.kd2.org) (it also shows aldi stuff)

<comment><USER37> Actually that aisle is well known to me. It feels like a hidden gem. I plan my visits to Lidl after following their offers on this aisle :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> When I went in Poland, I wasn't a fan. But I recently visited a Houston store and it's terrific! They're really onto something.

</comment><comment><USER101> I like them. Quick to find items and quick to check out. Sure, the selection isn't the best, but I can find most everything I need.

</comment><comment><USER102> Yeah, the three other grocery stores in a mile radius around our local Aldi are all quaking in their boots. It's just been exhausting, wondering if every day is going to be the last day you open the doors. They've each only been able to complete one renovation in the last two years, and I'm sure they'd double the number of auto-check out lanes if it weren't for that meddling Aldi!

In other words, I haven't exactly seen anything "upended" yet.

</comment><comment><USER103> I like ALDI - i just i wish they would stock WeetBix HiBran - other than that it's a pretty cool store.

</comment><comment><USER104> Expensive cars in the Aldi's parking most likely means a fat car loan, not an indication of wealth.

<comment><USER82> Getting a fat car loan is much easier if your credit is good, you aren't in debt, and your income is relatively high. It's an indicator of relative wealth.

<comment><USER53> 2019... and we still measure wealth in terms of car size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> Do the keep the meat, dairy, bread, and produce on the back walls like every other grocery store?

</comment><comment><USER94> Aldi vs Grocery Outlet Flame War!

Funny how two grocery store stories appeared on HN within a day of each other.

</comment><comment><USER106> >Shoppers need a quarter to rent a shopping cart. Plastic and paper bags are available only for a fee. And at checkout, cashiers hurry shoppers away, expecting them to bag their own groceries in a separate location away from the cash register.

This just described how I've been shopping here in Sweden since the 90s.

</comment><comment><USER107> The one in my area is crap, many of the items are stale, and there is no produce.

<comment><USER108> I live in a major city and 10 years ago it was like that. It's only recently, after a neighbor said it had changed, I went back. They have fresh produce there now, and it's good quality, and cheap. The selection isn't huge, but it has like 90% of what I want.

<comment><USER107> Yeah this one is still like that :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> For some, I think the low cost is a reason to shop at Aldi, but I found the experience too brutal. It was like shopping at a Goodwill grocery store, too tedious for me.

<comment><USER110> For me it's not the cost and the 'brutal' is what I want, products stay where they where the last time you where in, the signage is clear and the product choice is decent cheap, good and not expensive.

It's basically what I want a shop to be, somewhere to buy stuff not an 'experience'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> "brutally efficient" \- I'm surprised cnn.com is still permitted on Hacker News, with manipulative headlines like that.

<comment><USER26> Eh? What's manipulative about it? I'd call it descriptive and evocative, even.

<comment><USER111> It suggests that Aldi is winning by unfair measures, exploiting workers and what not.

<comment><USER26> Oh ok, thanks for clarifying. Interesting - I didn't interpret it that way (unfair, exploitative), as in brutal violence, but rather as stark and focused, as in brutalist architecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> How USians see Aldi.. [https://youtu.be/mXHJN1nsJ1Y](https://youtu.be/mXHJN1nsJ1Y)</comment>


Google acquires Postrank.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.postrank.com/2011/06/postrank-has-been-acquired-by-google/

<comment><USER2> This is the first time I've ever heard of Postrank. Can someone provide a brief of what they do and why google would buy them?

<comment><USER3> One of the reasons could be its founder/CTO, Ilya Grigorik. Check out <http://www.igvita.com/>. He is brilliant.

<comment><USER4> Ilya is amazing. I wonder if this means that some Ruby will be creeping into the Google ecosystem.

<comment><USER5> Congrats to Ilya. His personal blog has some of the most inpiring articles in Ruby/AI and technichal stuff in general: <http://www.igvita.com>

<comment><USER6> Thanks guys! Rest assured, I have no plans on retiring from keeping the blog going -- it's what got me here in the first place!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't use PostRank but I read all of Ilya's articles. His articles are awesome. He is awesome. Congratulations. You deserve a pay day.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, congratulations PostRank! I remember hearing your pitch at one of the WatStart meetings when I lived in Waterloo, back when you were AideRSS.

This is also seems like a smart move by Google. They want to "get more into social" (whatever that means), and PostRank has been aggregating and analyzing social interactions across the web for longer than most.

<comment><USER8> Not to mention they have a solid team. Lots o' technical chops there. Interestingly enough, they're mostly a Ruby shop if I'm not mistaken.

<comment><USER9> We are indeed!

<comment><USER10> Will it be now, you will be rewriting everything in Python or Go? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow!! This is amazing!

Huge congratulations to Ilya and the crew at PostRank. Consistent and best-in- class execution. Awesome job and hope it was a huge pay day :)

I know it's hypocritical for me to say but rather unfortunate they're moving to MV. Would be nice to have some rich young people in Waterloo to act as investor/mentors.

<comment><USER6> Thanks Omar! Definitely couldn't have done it without all the support from the local community and friends - Waterloo is an awesome place.

<comment><USER12> Who`s going to host our hackathons now?

Also, congrats!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congrats! Keep pushing for Waterloo interns hiring ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> Congratulations Ilya. I first saw postrank (aiderss) at an Amazon AWS meetup years ago and grabbing a beer with you guys. Google's a great company of super smart people and you guys will fit right in.

And please continue blogging!

</comment><comment><USER15> Great to see a company out of Waterloo get some well-deserved recognition. Definitely agree that it's sad to see them all get moved to MV, but such is life. We still have Kik and RIM though :)

Kudos to them!

</comment><comment><USER16> Well deserved. Postrank has been the best example of usage of EventMachine.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this the same guy who made vimgolf? And is it in any way related to <http://www.vimgolf.com> being down right now?

<comment><USER6> lol! No, apparently vimgolf _just_ hit the limit on the free mongohq account. Upgraded - back to normal. Enjoy the golfing! ;D

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It was only a matter of time before Google started using Cassandra... :)

(Re [http://webpulp.tv/post/4184040219/scaling-postrank-using- rub...](http://webpulp.tv/post/4184040219/scaling-postrank-using-ruby-and- eventmachine-with-ilya))

<comment><USER19> I hope their first job will not be to rewrite it all in C++ or Java on top of some proprietary Google storage. :)

<comment><USER20> Hopefully they will be rewriting in Go ;)

Interestingly many rubyists seem to be joining the Go community lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What will this mean for the users of the service? Will it be shut down in the future?

<comment><USER6> We've suspended new signups for the moment, while we figure out what lies ahead. Having said that, for all existing users, the service will continue as is! Stay tuned for more.

<comment><USER22> So you sign an acquisition deal without discussing what "lies ahead"? I guess a "We can't give much details for now, ..." would be sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is something reasonably similar to PostRank in PHP: [http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/want_to_do_something_similar_to_po...](http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/want_to_do_something_similar_to_postrank/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice to see another Canadian Company get acquired!

Go Canucks Go!

<comment><USER25> Really? It's nice to see our best engineers moving down to California?

<comment><USER26> Meh. Maybe Canadian companies should do a better job at retaining talent. I love my country (Canada) but so few startups and creative agencies are appealing. That's not to say they don't exist but there's just so much more opportunity and money down south.

<comment><USER25> If you don't find startups and creative agencies to be appealing, why not start your own rather than complain about it?

<comment><USER26> I did. I moved to the U.S. and started my own.

<comment><USER25> Suffice it to say you don't _really_ love your country, you just like the _idea_ of it/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone have a API key from Postrank they don't use and wouldn't mind parting with? Really need something like this.

</comment><comment><USER28> Shouldn't the headline be "Entire Postrank team quits and is hired by Google"?

<comment><USER29> You're assuming that it's a talent acquisition, while I think their product is a great cultural match for google, which had always been about data. Guess, time will show.</comment></comment>


Clojure's Default Reader is Unsafe - <AUTHOR> http://www.learningclojure.com/2013/02/clojures-reader-is-unsafe.html#post-body-2898830171141471587

<comment><USER2> Clojure's reader is designed to provide the types of tasks useful for Lisps; specifically to take a string and convert it to data structures. However, like most Lisps Clojure has some special syntax that does various tasks at read- time like the #= tag that might not be safe to use as a webform processor, but it's critical to the way that Clojure works.

In Clojure 1.5 there are EDN functions that handle a subset of the Clojure syntax and parse strings into data types like numbers, maps and vectors (and others). It's meant to deal with data only and not "reader forms". I wrote a Ring middleware to handle EDN data and recently ported it to use the new 1.5 EDN reader.

[https://github.com/fogus/ring- edn/blob/master/src/ring/middl...](https://github.com/fogus/ring- edn/blob/master/src/ring/middleware/edn.clj#L15)

It looks almost exactly like the old clojure.core/read-string except it will not execute any dangerous code.

<comment><USER3> Anything that can turn strings into symbols is dangerous code. Symbols can't be garbage collected, and an attacker can conduct a denial of service by forcing you to load unlimited numbers of uniquely-named symbols.

<comment><USER4> Symbols can be GCed as of 1.2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is an excellent write-up of the state of the world with Clojure 1.5: <http://clojuredocs.org/clojure_core/clojure.core/read>

In short, don't use read-eval at all if you want safe reading. Use the clojure.edn alternatives to read data safely in those circumstances.

<comment><USER6>
      ;; The particular issue of executing arbitrary Java constructors used
      ;; in the examples above no longer works in Clojure 1.5 when
      ;; *read-eval* is false.  Even so, you SHOULD NEVER USE
      ;; clojure.core/read or clojure.core/read-string for reading untrusted
      ;; data.  Use an edn reader or a different data serialization format.

From that comment it seems like the Java constructor loophole has been closed. With that gone, I don't understand why the reader is still dangerous. What am I missing?

<comment><USER7> I was wondering this too, and deliberately tried to break something using the clojure 1.5 reader with _read-eval_ false. (Makes a change from building things all day!).

Result:

        user=> (binding [*read-eval* false] (read-string "``````````x"))
        OutOfMemoryError Java heap space  clojure.lang.RT.cons (RT.java:570)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8>
      ;; especially since read-string will be fixed in clojure 1.5 so that
      ;; binding *read-eval* to false around it will make it safe, as far as

In clojure 1.5 with _read-eval_ bound to false, the reader is still unsafe for malicious input. Since the Clojure reader must be able to construct arbitrary Java objects via their constructors, any constructor can be called from the reader even with _read-eval_ bound to false.

<comment><USER2> So you wouldn't want to use the reader if safety is needed. Instead you would use the EDN data functions.

<http://clojure.github.com/clojure/#clojure.edn>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In short, use an explicit serialisation format (edn) instead of read. Which mirrors the advice for JavaScript of using a JSON parser instead of eval.

</comment><comment><USER10> Glad I ran across this this week- I would have most likely ended up with a security hole in an app otherwise. (I had thought _read-eval_ =false was an adequate safeguard...)

</comment><comment><USER11> executing code you didn't write is unsecure. news at 11.

...am i missing something? isn't this the same problem as with evaling json in javascript?

<comment><USER12> Lisps separate the notion of reading strings into data structures, from evaluating those data structures. So it would be easy to assume that read- string was safe to use, but there were actually some lesser-known features in the Clojure reader that allowed code execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is basically what got Ruby with its YAML reader, isn't it?

EDIT: I'm not familiar enough with clojure; is read-line supposed to be safe?

<comment><USER14> Not really, read-line is more or less equivalent to python's input method. It reads raw input and tries to evaluate it. Passing false makes it safer for reading data structures, but it will still try to execute Java constructors so that your data is correctly initialized. To be safe you need to use other methods i.e. edn(extensible data notation).

edn limits what is allowed to a safe subset of what read-line will allow, all of the base clojure types and collection types (maps, lists, sets, vectors) are allowed, Java isn't.

<comment><USER7> > It reads raw input and tries to evaluate it

Not quite. It reads raw input and tries to build a syntax tree from it. Unfortunately reader macros in clojure allow all sorts of objects to form part of said syntax tree and arbitrary-ish code to run at parse time to instantiate them. But the main job of the reader isn't to evaluate code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm feeling vindicated for this comment now:

        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5258993

As more people start adopting Lispy languages, it will be important to build up a cultural awareness of what's dangerous. Things like not evaling code is obvious enough (I'd hope), but avoiding read less so. That seems less like "avoid eval" and more like "avoid gets".

<comment><USER16> You feel vindicated over this vacuous comment article? Let me sum it up for you: "It turns out if I set a safety variable, then unset it in a way that most of my audience won't recognize as assignment, I get votes up on hackernews."

Cultural awareness of read-time evaluation is as frustratingly absent now as it has always been; same as strcpy vs. strncpy. The only difference now is that we have increasingly more programmers with very little experience in charge of large software projects.

<comment><USER15> The people on HN are a big part of those defining the future of Clojure and other languages, so I'm glad to see an article like this raise awareness of something that will bite many as Clojure grows. Lines like these suggest the set-then-unset bit is part of a broader issue:

        ;; By a weird coincidence this week I wanted to read a file of data
        ;; coming from a web app, and I was about to use Clojure's reader to
        ;; do it.

It's disappointing to see that some Clojure practitioners are more interested in downvoting my comment and minimizing that issue rather than educating people about it.

<comment><USER16> I didn't downvote your comment, but I hold your sentiment in low esteem.

We don't stress over this for the same reason we don't stress over strlen- style errors. They're considered part of the basic education for the language. If someone does do this, they are operating below the expected standard for the language.

There is only so much a language and environment can be expected to do for you. Your understanding of _trivial_ concepts like, "Loading code from untrusted sources is dangerous" is not an unreasonable bar to set. It is only an "issue" if you are fundamentally misinformed about writing software in interpreted environments.

<comment><USER15> It's bizarre that you can think something is "the expected standard for the language" but also not worth pointing out. How are people supposed to learn it?

There are incompetent programmers that no effort can reach, sure, but there are also junior programmers who are just innocent and haven't yet learned all the implications of what they're doing. I think it's important to teach these people, whether re Ruby or C or Clojure or whatever. That people treat such teaching with disdain makes me think they are misled by their defensiveness. It's not an insult of Clojure to say that (as in any language) there is stuff worth warning people about.

<comment><USER16> > How are people supposed to learn it?

By understanding the halting problem and the implications thereof? This is not Clojure-specific, it's part of any dynamic eval tool.

> It's not an insult of Clojure to say that (as in any language) there is > stuff worth warning people about.

This argument might hold some water if the presentation of the information was not couched in a different way. It is clearly not that. And you are clearly more concerned with being right than teaching people, from the words you are choosing to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> this looks like an interesting alternative <https://github.com/clojure/tools.reader></comment>


WHAT DID I DO WRONG?? ONLY 4 DOWNLOADS - <AUTHOR>

I created an app for Blackberry Z10 powered by BBM, and its the one and only that can do that!! Still I do not have traction!! https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/30105887/?countrycode=CA&lang=en <comment><USER3> Is there a trial version or do a version that is free for x number of days then needs to register (paid for). Otherwise be hard for people to try it out, bit like buying a walkie talkie radio and having nobody to talk with effect.

Consider selling as buy one get one free, give to friend then that way it is usable right then as somebody else to sync with.

But cross platform would add so much as the target audience for this are in general migrating away from blackberry or on their to do lists.

Also landing page for app description seems a bit uninspiring too me and the initial displayed screen shot picture hardly sucking me to even look at the other 7 out of 8 screenshots.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some suggestions: 1) Pick another platform. Where I work just finished a year long migration off Blackberry, and I know we're not the only ones. 2) Don't rely on Blackberry to do your marketing. Getting in the app store might be enough on iOS if you really were the "only app that does" something X. On Blackberry you are going to have to get folks looking for you first, and then the link to the store. Even Blackberry fans are rarely browsing the app store - usually if they're on there it's to find something specific.

Hope this helps...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys thanks a lot for the feedback. I will move to iOS but I'm scared about the competition that exist plus learning an entirely new language from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER5> caps lock. really annoying

<comment><USER6> bigd is right. When I read text with random caps, I turn off.

Consider having a native English speaker edit and structure your copy - <USER2> don't understand some of the text.

Further, I'd recommend reviewing your design. Because the screenshots have lots of quirks (such as bizarre use of fonts, weird alignments), I _immediately_ have trouble trusting the app with anything to do with my team. App design is crucial.</comment></comment>


Mobile app startups are failing like it's 1999 - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/2012/08/15/mobile-app-startups-are-failing-like-its-1999 <comment><USER3> I'm a product manager that oversees several hundred apps over roughly 25 stores on 8 platforms (Android, iOS, BlackBerry/QNX Windows, Symbian, Bada, Brew, J2ME).

We are do a steady 2.5 million in sales per year, aiming for 4m next year.

The problem is that startups in the Valley are extremely narrow minded and aesthetically snobbish in their mobile approach.

1) There are 1 billion feature phone users around the world who have perfectly usable app stores.

2) You need to launch in more languages than just english, and on more app stores than just the US market -- Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese at a minimum.

3) Apps that are not SAAS are throw away, impulse buys. They should be developed with that in mind.

4) Apps have a short lifespan and sell based on timeliness.

5) If you want guaranteed profit in mobile, build mobile extensions for established brands, don't try to build the next Angry Birds or Apple App clone.

6) Design matters, but not that much. Touch interface has made UI far more visceral, but the sale happens long before the user judges the design

7) IAP -- its icky but it works

8) Try lots of stuff rapidly and fail fast. 2-3 month cycles. You can get up to about 10 apps a month if you have a larger team and a good process.

Finally, this is nothing like 1999. Companies were failing with no product, spending 1 year + and not even launching. There were late round fundings for companies that literally had products that were figments of their imagination.

Now two guys in their garage can build a hit app with two macs and no funding what-so-ever. Don't confuse a highly active, easy to penetrate market with a bubble.

<comment><USER4> The artist in me finds your shovelware business model sad, although my inner accountant nods approvingly. I guess profitability trumps a lot of other concerns, since you can't put out too much software if you're bankrupt.

I don't understand your point (6) - intuition and a small amount of experience tells me that users judge software overwhelmingly by its design - can you elaborate on this?

<comment><USER3> My inner artist actually struggles a lot with it as well, however it has allowed us the runway to invest in larger, higher quality projects.

Regarding (6): Users judge by design, if design is all your app has. If you are providing an enormous amount of content thats of value to the user, design becomes secondary.

For example, 2 of our highest performing apps (about 70-100k per year) have poor interfaces, but killer content that specific users really want access to.

<comment><USER5> Regarding (6): Spot on. "The lower your product is on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the crappier it can look." [http://engineering.gomiso.com/2012/02/01/youre- overthinking-...](http://engineering.gomiso.com/2012/02/01/youre-overthinking- it/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This has been brought up before [1].

I believe that currently, the biggest problem in mobile is discovery. I can't remember what problems were prevalent in 1999 but it could have been discovery on the web as well. If you're a startup, life is going to suck for you developing on mobile. You have a name recognition problem on top of developing on a platform where discovery is inherently broken. It will be tough to get those organic installs because on Apple, those are driven largely in part to your placement in the rankings, and there's less to do with SEO on the App Store as there is on Google. So I think success on mobile can be had in only a finite number of ways:

1) You buy your way to the top and hope your customer LTV > acquisition costs (See all mobile games)

2) You spam the hell out of your users on other distribution platforms (SocialCam)

3) You're lucky and you develop a truly great product that thrives on mobile (WhatsApp, Camera+)

4) You can succeed with mobile being a utility, but not the essence of your business (Uber).

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4172261>

<comment><USER7> I'd contend that discovery is a problem faced only by app creators, not app consumers. This makes solving the "problem" difficult, since it's hard to convince the consumer to venture out into non-app store venues to look for hidden gems.

<comment><USER8> Try finding a good "when's the next bus?" for London on Android, and then tell me that discovery isn't an app consumer problem!

<comment><USER9> Is your issue that they aren't available or that you can't tell which one is good?

<comment><USER8> There are far, far too many, and 95% of them are not very good. Even if you wanted to evaluate them all to try them out, this is actually quite hard - <USER2> searches start returning a mix of completely unrelated apps and relevant apps after a small number of results.

<comment><USER9> Don't know what your specific needs are, but I did a quick search and came up with London Transport Live ([http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/transportati...](http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/transportation/london- transport-live_bnnzt.html)), which from a quick play seems to do what I'd expect a transport app to do.

I know that the specific app isn't your point - it's more about the general question of discoverability, but I rarely find too much difficulty finding at least one reasonable example of the kind of app I'm searchig for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The answer has been simple for me: start on Android. The ability to push new fixes to live within a few minutes is a godsend. There is still the overhead of getting people to update the app after the download, but this can be easily remedied by in-app notification for a one-touch update experience.

I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume that if you hit product/market fit on Android, you probably hit it for iOS. Launch MVP on Android -> get first 1k guinea pigs -> pivot, iterate, pivot, iterate -> achieve product / market fit -> spend 3 months creating a beautiful iOS app.

<comment><USER11> What about the Android fragmentation problem? In the words of MG Siegler today:

" _The problem is that all of these different devices require testing for each and every app. They all create a different Android experiences — some in subtle ways, some in big ways. Some run certain Android apps, others don't. Some apps work fine on one device then are buggy as hell on another one. Sometimes this gets fixed, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the popularity of that device and the resources the development team has._ "

[source] [http://parislemon.com/post/29497373610/im-not-sure-fred- wils...](http://parislemon.com/post/29497373610/im-not-sure-fred-wilson-truly- understands-the-android)

<comment><USER12> If your whole goal is to use Android as the platform to build your MVP, you can probably live with limiting your app to, say, only ICS and up to begin with. This cuts down drastically on the fragmentation issues. Even though Gingerbread is still dominant, 1K "guinea pigs" is not an unreasonable goal on ICS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Isn't it just a little ironic that this is coming from the same guy who said: "You should aim to hit 100 million active users, and get an off-the-shelf monetization solution later" Really? "Just get 100 million users and slap ads on it bro" is good business model advice?

Who's really 'acting like its 1999' in here?

</comment><comment><USER14> I think what would really help if Apple had a Fast Track app approval system where developers could pay $300 to get an update approved within 2 days. Developers could use it as often as they wanted.

This would allow developers to iterate more quickly. Insanely more quickly. And would increase the odds of a startup finding product/market fit before running out of funds.

The current 10 days or so of waiting is really killing the iterative process.

Also, app ratings reset for each new update so developers tend not to want to update as often as to not upset their ratings... at least some developers. They need to fix that by not having ratings reset.

<comment><USER15> It's hidden on Apple's site, but a developer can ask for an expedited review. Bugs, upcoming marketing dates, conferences, etc... all are reasons that can get an app review expedited.

<comment><USER14> But Apple makes it clear that it's an exception. Last year we got our first expedite request approved but our second one denied because we had already used up our first. Both were for critical bugs.

<comment><USER16> Bet it taught you a lesson a bout testing properly though.

<comment><USER14> No, we tested rigorously. It just makes us really scared to release an update.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was around during 1999 and the three key differences are:

1\. The audience for the web was very small, in fact most homes were still using dial up in 1999 since cable modems hadn't even taken off yet

2\. Launching a startup took quite a great deal of money in 1999, today it's a mere fraction of what it use to cost

3\. The economy in 1999 was pretty damn amazing, but the negative side of this is that there was a great deal of dumb money floating around

</comment><comment><USER18> Two points

1\. Yes, most startups failed in 1999 and most startups are failing now. This isn't unexpected. Anytime, there is a boom in startups, most of them are going to fail.

If the first 10 startups succeed there will be 100 more. If the first million startups succeed, there will be 10 million more. Ultimately, most of them will fail.

2\. imo Andrew is mistaken in assuming that the failures are due to startups having a _"super high bar for initial quality in their version 1"_.

If anything, I'd say that the quality of many apps is too low, Many of the big-name apps are often unstable and crash (not just in the V1 version, but in later versions as well)

<comment><USER19> Average number of small businesses that fail in first two years is 40%, with 5% from bankruptcy and 20% from failure to return a profit.

References:

1\. Main article by David Maloney [http://ezinearticles.com/?Small-Business- Failure-Rate—9-Out-...](http://ezinearticles.com/?Small-Business-Failure- Rate—9-Out-of-10?&id=5089437)

2\. Study 1: Shane, S in the study 'Startup Failure Rates – The Real Numbers', 2008 <http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html> 3\. Study 2: Headd, B in the study 'Redefining Business Success: Distinguishing Between Closure and Failure', 2002 <http://www.springerlink.com/content/u5218354gk84k205/>

4\. Study 3: Phillips, B. D., and B. A. Kirchoff (1989). "Formation, Growth and Survival: Small Firm Dynamics in the U.S. Economy," Small Business Economics 1, 65-74. [http://grips- public.mediactive.fr/knowledge_base/view/483/fo...](http://grips- public.mediactive.fr/knowledge_base/view/483/formation-growth-and-survival- small-firm-dynamics-in-the-u-s-economy/)

5\. Do small businesses have high failure rates? Evidence from Australian retailers. [http://www.allbusiness.com/buying-exiting- businesses/exiting...](http://www.allbusiness.com/buying-exiting- businesses/exiting-a-business/587648-1.html)

<comment><USER18> These numbers are interesting, but the profile of a tech startup is very different from that of a typical "small business".

Accountants and manicurists and dentists and consultants run small businesses they start making money from a very early stage.

Tech startups have a much higher failure rate. The flip side is that these small businesses (accountants, gardeners etc.) don't have the same shot at massive scale/success that tech startups have. Andrew isn't talking about small businesses, his post is about tech startups

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems to me that there are two kinds of apps: the "top 100" apps and "the rest." If you have a killer smashing out-of-the-ballpark idea that will be "top 100", go ahead and be a startup.

For the rest, it seems to me that App Store economics just don't provide enough profit for overhead (personnel and investors needing return on investment) of the traditional startup. One or two-person self-employed shops survive. Great news if you want to be self-employeed and have a good idea; Terrible news if you were planning on winning the startup lottery.

EDIT: Need to point out the above is opinion unfettered from the constraints of fact. I welcome news of facts which refute my guesses.

</comment><comment><USER21> Nice post by Andrew Chen. Unfortunately, apps are more like Windows app that require installing than web-based apps which can be iterated quickly and without users taking an action.

The other problem is that mobile apps have no "linking" to benefit from cross- linking. WWW spread like wildfire for a reason - it made it so easy to discover new websites and reduced the friction of installation to zero.

<comment><USER22> Apps have ads linking to other apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The article would make a stronger argument with examples of these failures.

<comment><USER24> I'm too polite for that :)

<comment><USER25> Citing examples isn't necessarily rude. Present it like impartial analysis. That helps the audience actually learn something from the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Off-topic: Marketing Is Everything (that includes marketing to the right people who can support your project - investors, advisors, early customers)

When I read the article, I immediately noticed (in the picture) not the Socks.com puppet but the sculpture behind the puppet. The sculpture was called "Puppy" I believe. It was brought to you by Damien Hirst, the _brand_ behind 'Beautiful Union Jack Celebratory Patriotic Olympic Explosion in an Electric Storm Painting' (2012)'[1][2].

The world's richest artist ($300+M net worth). He is the Madonna, the Material Girl, of the Modern Art world. The person responsible for those inscrutable titles for artwork.

Why is he the world's richest artist? His personal brand. A Marketing Genius (overused, by appropriate here).

He is/was original[3][4].

To be fair, he is using his personal wealth to help create and endow an art museum.

[1] [http://www.complex.com/art-design/2012/08/damien-hirsts- flag...](http://www.complex.com/art-design/2012/08/damien-hirsts-flag-for-the- olympics-closing-ceremony)

[2] <http://www.damienhirst.com/news/august/olympics>

[3] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2012/07/20/is- dami...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2012/07/20/is-damien-hirst- the-worlds-most-misunderstood-artist/)

[4] [http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-01-18/art/damien-hirst- died...](http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-01-18/art/damien-hirst-died- gagosian-spot-paintings-dots/)

<comment><USER27> That piece is by the artist Jeff Koons, not Damien Hirst. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons#Puppy>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For those startups that do iterate and deploy rapidly and often is that they forget that there is no instant update on mobile devices. You can't do QA by looking at statistics of your iOS users experiencing bugs.

<comment><USER29> You do have some options though. We use <http://www.crittercism.com> for bug reports in both Beta and live versions. Testflight also has introduced its SDK for live apps, which also and for our app we user Both do symbolication of crashes so you can find out what breaks.

<comment><USER28> Sure, but the problem is not finding the bug, it's using your users to find it. You can't rapidly deploy and iterate in minutes on the Apple App Store like you could with a web app. This is somewhat better on Google Play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is why you should build for Android first, like I do. You can make changes and push the update as often as you want. It doesn't get you the 'cool' crowd (as here in SF nobody installs my app as they all have iPhones) but it does let you iterate... once the product works, then I'll build for iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER31> Are they really failing? I can agree that many are spending too much time perfecting apps - but I haven't yet heard many stories of companies going belly up. Maybe others have?

I'm definitely expecting a pretty big fallout from all the funded startups of the past 3 years, but haven't yet seen evidence.

<comment><USER11> The media and company never spin it as a failure, but what do you think all these small acqui-hires are?

<comment><USER24> +1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The answer of course is to start more Facebook-style social network startups, that leverage the cloud, and mobile connectivity, to enhance advertiser dollars and deliver maximum value to venture capital investors through distributed advertising channels.

<comment><USER33> ottaboy! maybe you are right after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm currently working in a small/mid sized company, on a iOS product for the iPads as of now, which isn't even submitted to the App Store yet, but already has its target user base and is developed in close relation with them and makes a LOT of money.

So, my point is that, its not mobile startups in general that fail, but bad business models. One thing, you can probably be sure of is that, if a startup wants to make the next angry birds, either it will immediately succeed in finding a niche in addictive gameplay or more likely fail a few times before succeeding.

The world is not binary. The market is just fine. Visibility is the only issue with the stores. But other means of marketing always exist.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've played around with writing a couple of mobile apps (iOS and WP7) in my spare time. I think of this as a hobby since I have a day job. That said, I have this mental block -- for me, a mobile app does not make a viable startup. Sure there are apps that do quite well -- iTeleport comes to mind.

Other apps like Instagram, Groupme, and a few others have more of a platform feel rather than just a self contained app. Foursquare is another example of an app that is becoming more -- using the acquired data for recommendations, etc.

Do others thing similarly?

[edit] - NOTE - I make the above statement in the sense of trying to figure out how to justify angel/venture backing for what is strictly a mobile app.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think you mean, 1983. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983)

A lot of people made outsized returns on the first generation of mobile apps because they were entering a vacuum. And that has encouraged a lot of people to chase the same "easy money". But the market has evolved and matured and the easy money has been taken. So a lot of gold rush mobile efforts will fail. Nobody should be surprised by this.

</comment><comment><USER37> How about people who are not using the App Store as a monetization vector at all? Ie I'm talking about people who sell apps to big corporations and the like. I would imagine that that is a completely different ballgame?

Is anyone here in that situation?

</comment><comment><USER38> An app is barely a strategy; having a sustainable and profitable business model is. App is a vehicle, and in some ways vastly superior to web in reaching out to people, use of context and focus.

</comment><comment><USER39> I thought startups did pretty well in '99 and only started crumbling like dominoes in 2001…?

<comment><USER40> It's meant to be ironic. See: [http://allthingsd.com/20120716/marc-andreessen- says-nows-the...](http://allthingsd.com/20120716/marc-andreessen-says-nows- the-time-to-build-companies-like-its-1999/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Took them long enough!</comment>