Facebook is a Ponzi Scheme - <AUTHOR> http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/facebook-is-a-ponzi-scheme <comment><USER2> The core feedback loop that would make that analogy mostly coherent doesn't exist. Facebook ads do not convince people to buy Facebook ads.

A better argument would be that Facebook's valuations are being driven by large amounts of investor money injected into the Zynga symbiote, who throws nine figures a year at Facebook to continue identifying new pieces of brain matter to feed to their mad cows. I don't think that is a great argument, both because Ponzi schemes are not the kind of racketeering one should be worried about if one is worried about there, and because I think that Zynga is probably sustainable. They may be the only business on Facebook whose advertising is sustainable... but that would, by itself, justify a gigantic valuation for Facebook. (Perhaps not any particular valuation.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey patio11, thanks for the thoughtful analysis of my article.

Your logic makes sense, assuming in fact Zynga does have sustainable profits, which might be true (although I guestion whether simple web games are a defensible business, competition easily cuts it).

But, assuming that is true and you are right, does that still justify Facebook's valuation if it is entirely dependent on one company, Zynga? I would conclude that Zynga would be worth quite a lot, but that would make Facebook's position quite a bit weaker, do you agree?

Also, the feedback loop is that Facebook's valuation and success spurs people and investors to start companies and then advertise them on FB. This has been my experience talking to many (not all!) would-be entrepreneurs and investors in new york and the valley. I'm interested in learning about different experiences you may have had.

<comment><USER3> "(eMarketer estimates Facebook took in) $740 million coming from major marketers like Coke, P&G or Match.com... Interestingly, Google itself was the fifth-biggest advertiser for the same period, as it was looking to market its Chrome web browser. " <http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=148236>

It's very hard for me to look at a company doing $740 million in revenue from the likes of Coke and Proctor & Gamble and say that it's not sustainable. I'll admit it's possible they are all just blowing their money away, but that seems less and less likely.

<comment><USER4> Right, I think the article misses one of the purposes of advertising. Coke doesn't target ads at people googling "soft drink". Facebook seems like as good a place as any for the kinds of subliminal advertising that Coke does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It is fundamentally different from the ad platform that is Google. People go to Google to find something they need, possibly ready to buy, which a good percentage of the time can in fact be solved by someone's ad. Facebook ads, on the other hand, annoy users. They yield no real value, and thus no profits. "

Err -- television ads also just serve to get in the way and annoy users, when they want to sit and relax and do something completely different from hunting- for-stuff-to-buy.

But last time I checked, most TV channels are still running ads, 50+ years on.

<comment><USER6> TV doesn't run ads to the extreme right margin of whatever else on screen you happen to be watching. If it did, TV advertising wouldn't be worth any money, either.

<comment><USER7> a.) Not really relevant, the point is that TV shows that adverts can work even if they're not being shown somewhere where viewers are actively looking for something that might be advertised.

b.) There are plenty of websites out there which are profitable through advertising without the logic of "viewers came to the site to look for something". Maybe that's a better example. Again, you could argue that facebook adverts aren't identical to those found on most sites, but that doesn't change the fact that website advertising _can_ (and often _does_ ) work.

<comment><USER6> Advertisements work when they get people's attention. Google advertisements get people's attention because they're relevant to what the user is looking for, TV advertisements get people's attention because they take up the whole screen and are often funny or dramatic in themselves, Groupon emails get people's attention because they're actionable coupons that users really want to get, and "GOLDENPALACE.COM" painted on the back of a streaker at a professional sporting event gets people's attention because, hey, a streaker! Facebook ads are virtually hidden in a margin on the edge of the screen where users are more or less trained to ignore things.

<comment><USER7> I completely agree that Facebooks adverts are very badly implemented.

However, that doesn't take away from the fact that it is _factually wrong_ to say that adverts don't work on websites where the users aren't already looking for what the adverts are promoting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ponzi scheme is overheated rhetoric. That refers to an investment scheme where new investors pay off old ones.

Nobody pays Facebook advertisers anything. They only pay Facebook. Its a pyramid scheme, but thats a horse of a different color.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not _literally_ a ponzi scheme, as I state very directly in the article. The point is that it is bad in exactly the same way that false returns in ponzi schemes are and through similar mechanisms.

Paul Graham takes the same line of reasoning in declaring that Yahoo is a "de facto ponzi scheme". <http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html> .

Finally, and I didn't write this in the article (yet), but it's clear that it's acting much more like a literal ponzi scheme with the recent Goldman investment. Accel partners has mostly cashed out to new investors ([http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/19/accel-facebook-chunks-of- st...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/19/accel-facebook-chunks-of-stock/)), and I personally know of some major top investors who have cashed out of most of their stock in Facebook. They rode the wave and have sold on to new investors. Goldman is (literally) banking on the public investing later at an even higher valuation at the IPO they will be running themselves.

<comment><USER9> _One reason they were excited was Yahoo's revenue growth. So they invested in new Internet startups. The startups then used the money to buy ads on Yahoo to get traffic. Which caused yet more revenue growth for Yahoo, and further convinced investors the Internet was worth investing in._

Facebook doesn't have this feedback loop.

<comment><USER10> Farmville & friends?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is definitely way off base. He's taking a sampling of people who don't know how to optimize ads on Facebook and suggesting that they perform poorly for everyone. There's a reason that his ads were unprofitable: someone else is making money (profiting) and able to bid higher because they can monetize the same market segment he was targeting more effectively.

<comment><USER12> Do you know that people are making money off Facebook ads for a fact?

I'm not necessarily agreeing with the author as much as I'm trying to point out the fallacy of believing every ad platform is effective. Your argument seems to be "if the ad is failing it must be the ad that's ineffective". But that logic only works if we're sure the platform itself is an effective ad delivery system.

This author's theory is that Facebook is not an effective ad delivery system and your comment doesn't really offer evidence to disprove that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Facebook may have not yet found its cash cow, but it has a huge potential. A few ideas from the top of my head:

* They could compete with Groupon (Or buy them). Groupon is an inherently social business, and Facebook can enjoy it. * They could compete with Skype and other VOIP service. Perhaps replacing telephony. Almost everyone has facebook, and you already have you friends inside, seems like a pretty direct step (After all, people come to facebook to communicate). * They could replace photo sharing websites (Flickr, Picasa...) if they just improved their photo's app (e.g. being able to view high resolution images). * They have the potential to become the internet ID for everyone, so that you could log in to almost any site with facebook.

I can probably come up with many more... I think the real question is whether Facebook can execute or not.

<comment><USER14> You are simply listing all the internet services and arriving to the conclusion that people will use it because they already have a facebook account.

They will not replace Flickr. Anyone who cares anything about photo sharing or has slightest knowledge about sharing photography will not diminish the value of services like Flickr. First of all "just being able to view high resolution images" is not as easy as you think it is. Can Facebook truly scale providing support for it? Will people who share pictures on facebook even care for those things? Wouldn't you rather have ease of album creation over viewing exif data? Flickr and Facebook are different. I think Flickr cannot be replace.

They have the potential to become the internet ID but would you want to create a Facebook profile to have an ID? Many people would rather support things like OpenID. And would you want to login to sites using your Facebook ID, where the website could really scrape info about you?

They can compete with Skype just as GTalk is trying to or countless other messengers are trying to. But I am sure there are many who prefer Skype over these services in the offices and at home.

<comment><USER13> While I agree with your comment, note the following

All the problems you have mentioned are engineering problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Facebook is a way I can have pleasant conversations with my friends. I post to them links on Facebook security and ad-blocking (with hat tips to HN, fairly often), and we all lock down our privacy settings tightly and ignore ads and time-wasting games. We have fun conversations together, mostly about submitted links, rather like the best comment threads on HN except with a broader range of topics that fits the commonalities that can be found among my diverse group of friends. (The HN participants who are on my friends list have seen examples.)

I can't figure out how Facebook will monetize, long-term, just as I couldn't figure out in the 1990s how AOL would monetize, long-term. AOL has been a dying property for a long time, but it was the platform on which a lot of free riders formed lasting friendships that have turned into real-life, face-to- face friendships. I'm perfectly content to be a free rider on Facebook on the same terms. Monetizing Facebook is a problem for Facebook's investors--it is not my problem. When Facebook eventually dies, as it surely must unless it comes up with an appealing way to monetize, I will move on with hundreds of good friends to the next new Internet thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Inside a somewhat breathy post there is a superb point about why "stick some advertising on it, that worked for Google" is not always a solution:

 _People go to Facebook to interact with their friends. It is fundamentally different from the ad platform that is Google. People go to Google to find something they need, possibly ready to buy, which a good percentage of the time can in fact be solved by someone's ad._

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ErrantX, thanks, I hope it's not too verbose. It's actually pretty dense for how many points I cover.

What ends up happening is that people repeatedly bring up the same strawmen, so I try to address the most relevant justifications and opposing viewpoints.

You're right, the _fundamental_ difference between search ads and social ads can be a whole interesting blog post on its own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anecdotes like this ("$100 in ads bought 1 book! It's the ad platform, not my product!") are slightly annoying, and saying 'ponzi scheme' 4 times in the first two paragraphs doesn't make it so.

Our startup has had a large amount of success with Facebook ads. Their segmentation makes it easy. In fact, Facebook ads are so successful it's becoming a danger. To some extent, we are reliant on them as a lead source and that's a really bad situation to be in.

But yeah, post a sensational title, reinforce that title 4 times in the first two paragraphs and then at the end say something like this:

>> Yet, their value and growth continues because they can use that money to grow their user-base more and assert profitability (in this sense it's not quite entirely a ponzi scheme, but there is no closer idea). It's possible that they do not even realize that they are like a Ponzi scheme.

What? It's not quite entirely a ponzi scheme?

There's a difference between an ad platform that doesn't fit your customer acquisition model and a ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER18> What sort of business are you in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think even tying Facebook to Ponzi is insanely absurd relative to what Facebook has done for users. Surely the high valuation is bubble like and I'm not a particular fan of its valuation either, but Mark Zuckerberg's team continues to contribute to the online community with easier way to connect & share, and that's ultimately priceless. In my opinion, if Facebook wanted to monetize, it can tenfold its revenues easily considering the amount of users it has. But the company continues to place users before hand and refuse to compromise user experience for money, and THAT IS VERY DIFFERENT , or opposite if you will, from the Ponzi Scheme. Ads are not suppose to be 100% effective, and that's the foundation every marketer needs to know. They have to be prepared to throw lots of money into a marketing strategy, and accept the fact that it might fail. Facebook ads deliver relevant adds that might interest users to add values for users. It delivers what it promises. The effectiveness is just a downside that all marketer needs to consider when they advertise.

</comment><comment><USER20> The technical terms you're looking for are demand generation vs demand fulfillment. The former is that pepsi ad where you suddenly feel thirsty, and the latter is the coupon in your spam snail mail. Facebook is the former and Google is the latter.

What you might not know is that demand generation spending is 10X demand fulfillment. You should definitely take that into account when assessing facebook.

Also, the reasons users like facebook is unrelated to their ad platform. I would say that alone makes it not a ponzi scheme.

</comment><comment><USER21> While I don't think I would go as far as to call Facebook a "Ponzi scheme", I do agree that Facebook has been lackluster about monetizing their huge user base. The author is right in pointing out that people rarely go to Facebook to research or buy a product. Unlike Google or Amazon, Facebook is not about consumption, it's about reconnecting and taking a break.

While I am by no means an expert in the field, they need to remember what they are and focus on that. Far more promising a prospect is the revenue sharing they do with companies such as Zynga. This model exploits all that Facebook does well: high retention to the site, and a high return rate. They need to stop focusing on ads as a form of revenue and monetize their social aspect creatively.

<comment><USER22> Why is this down voted? It seems a thoughtful comment that brings interesting ideas to the discussion. This is not the only case, other good comments are below 0 in this thread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Facebook promises big returns on ad spending, but delivers nothing. Yet, their value and growth continues because they can use that money to grow their user-base more and assert profitability (in this sense it's not quite entirely a ponzi scheme, but there is no closer idea)._

In other words: not a Ponzi scheme, just an ad platform that is ineffective for some kinds of campaigns.

</comment><comment><USER24> When I started with Facebook advertising, I was getting a CTR of 0.01, after spending about 6 weeks trying out various optimizations my average CTR is around 0.12, my best CTR for a campaign has been 0.4.

On my site the bounce rate from Facebook clicks is 25% lower than the site average, and the the average user visits 4 pages per visit.

And I'm targeting software developers. A group more likely to be ad-resistant than many other groups.

You have to know how to optimize a Facebook campaign in-order to be able to make an effective one. Facebook's problem is that they make it easy to run an ad campaign, but not easy to run a good campaign.

</comment><comment><USER25> The big assumption of this article is that Facebook has to rely on Google- style in-the-margin ads as its major revenue source. I believe Facebook has the potential to bring a new form of online ads, for example, a new interactive game-like campaign that virally spread across the friend network with those participants given incentives like Facebook credits.

It's rather limiting to think Facebook as an advertiser like Google. The real potential of Facebook is way beyond this. Facebook is not just connecting people to their friends. It is a middleman - a platform that connects customers to vendors, fans to artists, and gamers to game developers, and there could be much more than these. Think iOS as a platform that connects mobile users and app developers and how it has worked out - and would have worked out even it was a standalone company. Maybe someone will develop an Amway-style direct selling platform on Facebook. Maybe someone could develop a CRM and compete with salesforce.com for SMB. Or maybe a Priceline clone with social features would emerge. And good thing is Facebook does not need to do all these. It just need to inspire a developer community around it and evolve its platform to support new possibilities.

It's gold rush again, and like last time - it wasn't the gold miners that get rich; it was the people who sold the miners and other gold rush followers the tools and supplies they needed.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm quite tired of these posts, but HN appears to love them.

If you don't like a company, don't invest in it, and don't use it's products. But it's not your duty to scare other people away, especially not by reading tea leaves.

First, any ad buy is a gamble. Perhaps investing $100 in ads on Facebook can result in $1000 in sales. But the payoff here has everything to do with your own business, and nothing to do with the Facebook platform. Literally: mind your own business.

Second, I am interested in the thoughts of long term Facebook/Twitter/etc employees. These are people with actual knowledge of the roadmap, revenue, and vibe inside a company. Everyone I personally know at Facebook is extremely happy and bullish about their career there. Ask a friend that works there if it is a Ponzi scheme and watch his reaction.

I am interested in constructive advice about how you are building a successful startup.

I an not interested in these hit pieces from casual observers. I think the small portion of bloggers, commenters, etc. that try to knock Facebook down are having sour grapes. Are you really more confident in your own business acumen than Zuckerberg's? Is your business model perfect, with bubble free growth unto eternity?

But ultimately, there's nothing constructive here. What am I supposed to take away from this article?

The PG Yahoo article is a totally different beast. He was inside the machine and is offering his intimate business knowledge. This article is useless. Yet HN eats it up for some reason...

Disclaimer - I am not at all affiliated with Facebook but I was at the YC at FB event last week and it was fun.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm not sure how much this adds to the conversation, since I think it's a pretty common experience, but I honestly can't recall a single thing advertised in facebook. I don't have AdBlock running, I've just developed a complete blind-spot for the right margin of facebook. I don't see how this could be very effective long-term. Conversely, I have clicked on ads in Bing, Google, and Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER28> This has been discussed before, 267 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293119>

</comment><comment><USER29> It seems that the author is attempting to make a case against ads themselves. I'm not convinced there is anything in the post that is Facebook-specific, or couldn't be swapped out with 'Adwords' or 'radio ads' or even 'billboards.'

He makes a case that they are not like Google's ad platform and then goes on to only account for a small subset of Google's ad platform (the part that is on Google.com search). Facebook ads are really much closer to Google's ad platform on (for instance) gmail.com or any non-google website, but he ignores these.

Most of his post could have replaced "Facebook" with "Billboard" or "radio ad" and be written in 1920.

As an aside, I have clicked on Facebook ads. Mopeds are listed as one of my interests, and two months ago there was an ad from Honda for the new Elite 110cc. I had no idea that they brought the Elite back. Targeted Facebook ads actually _informed me_ of that.

It goes without much saying that the vast majority of ads are never clicked on or even noticed. But that's the case with Facebook, adwords, billboards, and so on.

<comment><USER12> I think you missed his point (though I can't really blame you because he has a peculiar writing style).

The way I read it he has two basic points.

1\. Facebook ads are different than Google ads (or other web site ads) because you go to Facebook to interact with friends while you go to the rest of the web to find information. So ads can fulfill the user's purpose on Google by providing information but they're just getting in the way of the user's purpose on Facebook.

2\. Facebook's growth hides the fact that the ads don't work. Because from a revenue standpoint its hard to distinguish return customers from new customers and only return customers signal a successful platform. So people see Facebook successfully selling ads and assume the platform works when in fact its being driven by a stream of new customers who try it and fail.

<comment><USER30> *Facebook ads are different than Google ads (or other web site ads) because you go to Facebook to interact with friends while you go to the rest of the web to find information.

This is a false argument. If I interact with friends I talk about stuff I am interested about. There you have your connection with ad. Even just mentioning someone's look or hair color could immediately trigger an ad for something related to it and commercially interesting.

<comment><USER12> Well it isn't a "false" argument it's an argument you disagree with. But your circumstantial evidence (that you click on ads) is no more or less compelling than his circumstantial evidence ("that he doesn't"). The question boils down to which of you more accurately represents the public at large.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is an old article. Looks like the date is wrong, or he republished it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293119>

</comment><comment><USER32> As one of the sibling responses points out, it's not a Ponzi scheme.

But it's certainly a completely useless advertising medium, from my limited experience with them for a few months. We spent hundreds of dollars of advertising on an iPhone app, and I don't think even moved the needle once.

<comment><USER33> I wouldn't call it useless.

I remember in university we could reserve a small budget (25-50$ to advertise our events for software students (SOEN/CS) and spend it on Facebook because of the amazing targeting. We could ask that the ads only be send to people from our school who had their majors put in and hadn't yet graduated. That's perfect targeting and it actually worked pretty well. Better than papering the university walls with flyers that's for sure; no one ever read those.

<comment><USER32> Yes, it's certainly well-targeted, and we used their demographic targeting to the ultimate degree. It still didn't do us any good.

Do you have any sense that people saw and acted on your ads?

<comment><USER33> Yes. Most events would have 1-2 (out of maybe 50 or so that showed up) that were new and we'd ask them how they heard about it. Most was from word of mouth, a small amount from Facebook and I don't remember anyone saying it was because of a flyer.

Though one thing I don't remember asking was whether "Facebook" meant Facebook ads or the other strategy for promotion on Facebook: create an event, invite everyone and tell all those people to invite everyone else.

<comment> shock-value If you spend $25 to advertise on Facebook and get just one conversion (new event attendee in your case) that wouldn't really be effective advertising at all unless you would be making at least a $25 profit from that conversion (not including the advertising expense). I realize that in your case you aren't out to make a profit, but you can see how from a business standpoint advertising on Facebook makes no sense in this scenario for most products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What's with attacking the big boys at HN these days? First a wave of Google's-on-the-ropes, now Facebook?

Honestly it may be interesting news to hackers, but that's a lot of bandwidth that could be spent talking about startups. Just sayin'.

</comment><comment><USER35> this is the most BS post ever... I know many people that made a fortune with facebook ads... Maybe his friends lost money with facebook ads but that does not mean it is a ponzi scheme or anything evil... learn to optimize and split test your ads to reduce your cost then come back with something smarter to say ...

<comment><USER36> > I know many people that made a fortune with facebook ads...

by acting as an intermediary, as in the example given, or by actually selling goods or services that Facebook users want to buy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The author is making the false assumption that no one is successful with Facebook ads, no one is. I know many people who have been extremely successful with Facebook ad campaigns for pennies on the dollar.

</comment><comment><USER38> Author makes a false assumption that Facebook will never improve their ad platform.

As it stands right now, sure, Facebook ads suck. They're all the way to the right, and they're tiny and unremarkable.

But right now FB is focused on growing their platform. Why wouldn't they be? It's not like they're beholden to any public shareholders. Once that changes, and those shareholders begin to pressure them, FB will turn their attention to ads. How could any sane business owner ignore that?

EDIT: Deleted my sub-response to Tom b/c it wasn't phrased well. I'm not interested in the author's _contention_ , because whatever point he's making assumes that FB won't improve their ads. He even says:

"Mark Zuckerberg might have a fit of brilliance and then announce a revolutionary ad platform that somehow actually works on social networks. My guess is not."

FB is a company with 1000 bright engineers and a strong data team. I'd be shocked if they didn't know how poorly their ads are performing, and I'd also be shocked if they weren't working on a better ad platform right now. Dismissing a company with FB's user base, funding, and engineering team with a ridiculous quote like above isn't a compelling argument.

<comment><USER12> Actually the author's contention, true or not, is that Facebook will never be able to improve their platform because people don't go to Facebook looking for information they go there to interact with their friends. So Facebook ads will always be something that's "in the way" and more of an annoyance than a benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> So...anecdotal evidence that the ads run by the OP and his friends aren't good on Facebook. I guess that's better than nothing for a company which isn't publicly listed, but my estimation of Facebook's value didn't change much based on this data.

</comment><comment><USER40> "Mark Zuckerberg might have a fit of brilliance and then announce a revolutionary ad platform that somehow actually works on social networks."

I'm not sure it would be altogether brilliant for Facebook to improve their advertising to be action-oriented as opposed to passive. People use Facebook for events and will soon use it more for Q&A and eventually "what ___ should I buy?". I think it would be common sense at that point to have ads targeted to a user's planned action, just as in the past ads have been targeted to very specific demographics.

</comment><comment><USER41> Google had the same issues with AdSense in the early days but was able to tune the product to normalize value to an acceptable rate. For example, at the network level you can apply discounters per site depending on the ROI of ads on this site vs network-wide to reward the higher quality sites on the network. I'd guess that Facebook will make a move towards advertiser value at some point and find some way of discounting around performance, or allowing for differentials based on the demographic being targeted.

</comment><comment><USER42> Big brands like P&G have begun buying lots of Facebook ads, and they seem quite satisfied with the results of their campaigns (at least satisfied enough to ask for more...).

</comment><comment><USER43> "They spend hundreds or thousands or more on Facebook ads. At the end of the first run, they see bad ROIs."

I've heard this argument but have yet to see any substantial evidence.

</comment><comment><USER44> Facebook's real potential is getting their ad platform on other peoples websites. It's advantage is how easy it is to target specific demographics.

They have already started getting their code onto other people sites with the Like button and all the share buttons; the next logical step is a Facebook ad platform like Ad Sense that can target specific demographics. This will make lots of money.

</comment><comment><USER45> I know a group of affiliate scam artists who were making great money with facebook ads two years ago. I still the ads they run, so I assume they're still making money.

There are plenty of people who drop $1k on Google ads and end up with nothing to show for it too. Just because it doesn't work for some people doesn't mean it doesn't work for others.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Now, it is possible that some extremely niche businesses have found limited utility from ads (for example, BustedTees and social games may be the lucky few)."

Um, I don't know that I'd refer to to social games as an "extremely niche business". Also, social commerce/group buying sites have received incredible ROI from advertising on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER47> When I saw the article title I thought maybe it referred to how Facebook is slowly tricking you to turn over all your friends contact names and emails and then you convince them to turn over theirs, etc.

Soon Facebook will know more names and email addresses than gmail and unlike Google it has no problems selling them to advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER48> AdSense ads could arguably be put in this same boat (when I'm reading a blog am I looking for products?), and yet they provide more click-throughs. Why? Because they look like natural links on the page to many people. Perhaps Facebook needs to make its ads less obviously ads like Google does.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think depends on what your selling. If it's an item that's related to a user's profile (location, favorite bands, movies, etc) you can do quite well. I always click on adds for new albums or concerts for bands I have listed. Much easier for me than setting up alerts on a third party site.

</comment><comment><USER50> There has to be a better business model than simple display ads for something as amazing as the social graph of all humans. The question is: what?

The Facebook Credits virtual currency stuff also has huge potential but I just don't think Facebook has found their "AdSense" yet.

</comment><comment><USER51> The ad model is truly dying, and I agree that facebook's current revenue model is a placeholder, but facebook has so much cash that they can buy a real business when one comes along. Perhaps that is the idea...

</comment><comment><USER52> This is a bit harsh, FB got a good traction and its run by some very smart people. I actually see them as a force in the communication space.

</comment><comment><USER53> Windows is a platform for desktop applications.

iPhone is a platform for mobile applications.

Facebook is a platform for social applications.

Why would the latter not be marketable?

</comment><comment><USER54> In my opinion this argument is flawed because of one important false assumption. The Facebook of tomorrow will not be or function as the same Facebook of today.

Do not make a mistake in thinking the same model or whatever you define as a _social network_ will function the same in the future.

Facebook will do everything it can to preserve large cash stable and market leverage so it can morph its business into whatever it deems necessary or market demands of it, again and again.

</comment><comment><USER55> In that whole thing, there's no numbers or names to back anything up. There's one hyperbole ($100 spent in ads to sell one book) and a bunch of really vague "people I know..." rhetoric.

Also, the author does not know what a Ponzi scheme is. Facebook Ads might be unsustainable, but it's not a bona-fide confidence trick of any sort, just like the VC dot.bomb burst at the turn of the century wasn't a confidence trick.

</comment><comment><USER56> Facebook ads perform well for me. So your argument that they don't perform is not true for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER57> maybe the people viewing your ads don't care about your book!

</comment><comment><USER58> Wall Street is a Ponzi scheme. Facebook is just overvalued.

</comment><comment><USER59> See Google, circa 2003:

"Those little ads? Nobody clicks on those!"

</comment><comment><USER60> This guy could use the same argument that all online ads are ineffective. Why focus on Facebook? Because it's hip to do so?

</comment><comment><USER61> disagree - awareness may have different metrics but definitely is valuable

</comment><comment><USER62> I jokingly asked a friend of mine that works in finance if he could securitize a pre-IPO company for the purpose of shorting them.

He immediately understood that I meant Facebook and after chuckling he actually paused thoughtfully.

Fingers-crossed, but I think his current fund is too conservative for that sort of thing.

<comment><USER63> I don't understand any of that (finance n00b). Can you let me in on the joke?

<comment><AUTHOR> Goldman will soon be offering the public the ability to, basically, buy Facebook stock through an intermediary.

The author would like to make a similar investment, but make it a short, basically sell, bet that the value of the stock will go down, through an intermediary.

<comment><USER64> In Michael Lewis's _The Big Short_, some of the people buying CDSs (unregulated "insurance") on mortgage backed securities that they didn't own did the trades with brokers that had never done it before, but figured it out.

All it takes is a willing accomplice with the right connections.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Traditional masculinity' labeled 'harmful' by the American Psychological Assc - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/health/ny-news-traditional-masculinity-harmful-psychological-association-20190109-story.html <comment><USER2> Very disappointing to see things phrased this way. Yes, certain aspects of traditional masculinity - suppressing emotion, hypercompetitiveness, risk seeking - are harmful. So are certain aspects of traditional femininity - submissiveness, excessive concern about appearance - and I don't remember an APA warning about that.

Putting 'masculine' or 'feminine' at the center of this just isn't constructive. Address the behavioral syndromes themselves, maybe note in the text that they're traditionally associated or correlated with gender roles, but FFS don't get all gender-essentialist about it. If nothing else, it just triggers all the MRAs and gives their leaders a talking point to rile up the regressives some more.

<comment><USER3> "Suppressing emotion" is just another word for emotional maturity. Should we all be like babies, crying all the time, screaming when we're hungry, etc? An adult should recognize that while some emotions are useful, others are not and learn to accept and transcend them, and also that even the useful ones are sometimes useful to other people as well, but at other times only useful for the person having them and there's no need for them to be shared and burden other people.

<comment><USER2> Suppressing emotion is like level two on a five-point scale. Sure, giving your emotions free rein like a kid (level one) is worse, but suppression causes problems too. Those emotions will find a way out, whether it's suppressed anger turning into depression, suppressed fear turning into impotence, etc. There are literally thousands of books and scientific studies of this stuff. Read some.

Learning to _deal with_ your emotions is the mark of true maturity. Suppression is itself a manifestation of fear, and denial of that fear. As with anything else, it's better to solve problems than to turn a blind eye.

<comment><USER4> Suppressing emotions is one way to deal with them.

Some people find outlets, some just suppress them. Maybe you have a different definition of what "suppress emotions" means?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where is the Times getting these quotes in their article? I can't find nearly any of them in the actual APA Guidelines document :

"traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful." - This sentence is is not in the guidelines.

"conform to traditional stereotypes about men's emotionality" is not in the document, however :"in part because internalizing disorders do not conform to traditional gender role stereotypes about men's emotionality." is in the document. Though not a large misquote, it is still a misquote.

"Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males' psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health," is just straight up not in the document.

"despite social forces that can harm mental health" is also not in the document.

I've no idea where the author, Jessica Schladebeck, is getting her quotes, but the linked document that is in the article doe not have them. What am I missing here? I've not parsed it in detail yet, so my apologies, but it seems that a few of these quotes are just made up out of whole cloth.

<comment><USER5> Ok, _The Atlantic_ [0] has a MUCH better report on the APA guideline. It seems that the _LA Times_ author cribbed a lot of her article from there. For instance the quote of :

> traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and > aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.

comes from the APA's _Monitor_ Jan. '19 edition [1]. The context of the quote seems to indicate that _some_ recent research has taken the tack that masculinity is harmful and that such a bent in the research should be corrected. The full sentence in the _Monitor_ piece is:

> The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional > masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and > aggression—is, on the whole, harmful.

Read the rest of _The Atlantic_ article for a better take on the APA guidelines going forward. It's _real_ journalism.

However, I'm going to soapbox a bit here:

This whole exercise has been a real eye opener for me. The very inflammatory quote was a bit much and so I idly opened the linked document. Seeing a fair few pages of text, I just tried to Ctrl+F for the sentence, to get a quick way to see greater context on the quote. I could not find it.

I tried some permutations on that sentence. Still nothing. The more I looked, the less sense everything made. Yet many of the commentors here on HN and in a fair few other sites I visit, were _outraged_ at the APA. Many of the comments on this article are greyed out, downvoted, calling on feminists, political bents, conspiracies, etc. Other sites are equally as bad, just really crazy stuff that the _actual_ APA guidelines have nothing to do with. I've re- skimmed them and, honestly, it's fairly good advice for practitioners, though not really 'brass tacks' advice. But it seems that nearly none of you actually read the guidelines before commenting. It seems that YOU (yes you, the real person reading this!) barely skimmed the _LA Times_ article, let alone dug into the APA guidelines at all.

And the author, Jessica Schladebeck, really played with journalistic standards by confusing quotes from the APA guidelines with quotes from the APA's _Monitor_. Now, if you look at her output on a typical day [2], she writes about three 2000 word essays on a multitude of events and topics; she seems to have no specialty or 'beat'. 6k words per day is a full time job, that is for sure. But I cannot excuse the total lack of copy editing at the _LA Times_. I know they are going through a fair few issues of their own [3], but _come on!_ , this is simple stuff yall.

Has journalism _really_ sunken _that_ far for a real, actual, major US newspaper?! Jesus, no wonder we are in the pit that we find ourselves as a country. I'll say that I have been surprised, shocked even, at the level of discourse in this country, in my local community, my work, and even in my family. I've always wondered why that was. Now I know the answer.

The information we digest _really is 'fake'_. Jessica Schladebeck's article dances on the line of journalistic ethics. Honestly, I feel that it merrily crosses right over that line. It's pure 'clickbait' dressed up in the veneer of a 'real' newspaper. I expect this kind of crap from _Buzzfeed_ , but the _LA Times_?! I mean, they actually printed this and sent it out on broadsheets?! How little _do_ they pay per line?

What is going on?! Now, I thought that HNers were a _bit_ above the hoi polloi, but no. You all just like to argue over imaginary differences. You all made up these points of view from whole cloth and then took sides in an argument that had no basis at all in reality. Some commentors bemoan :"disappointing to see things phrased this way", yet the APA never phrased things in that way and bemoaned it themselves (it seems to me). Others state they are "glad it's finally being treated in this way", yet the APA is not treating masculinity as toxic and their discussion is nuanced in the _Monitor_. Others still question the APA via: "encouraging men to achieve success in life is harmful?", but that statement cannot be pulled out of the APA guidelines, and can barely be pulled out of the _LA Times_ article itself.

Quite literally, you all are 'playing yourselves'. So stop it.

Stop trying to get in fights on the internet. Stop skimming articles. Stop being smug. You're not getting more information faster. You're getting all but lied to and you are lying _at_ each other. Internet karma points do not matter. It feels like so many 4th graders trying to come up with book reports on the spot [4]. So, if you commented in this thread about this article, it's time you took a note from John Green [5] and took a sabbatical from the internet. It's not helping you, it's hurting you and those around you.

[0] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/tradition...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/traditional- masculinity-american-psychological-association/580006/)

[1] [https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce- corner.aspx](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.aspx)

[2] [https://www.latimes.com/author- all/?fn=Jessica&ln=Schladebec...](https://www.latimes.com/author- all/?fn=Jessica&ln=Schladebeck)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Modern_era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times#Modern_era)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo45o69HaKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo45o69HaKI)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoHkvc3DA3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoHkvc3DA3o)

<comment><USER3> thank you for a thorough and thoughtful reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This makes a lot of sense, and I'm glad it's finally being treated in this way.

There's 100% nothing wrong with being a man, and there's nothing wrong in taking pride in it. There is, however, a ton of societal pressure to do dangerous, harmful things to ourselves to "prove" our manliness/masculinity. Ignoring pain and sickness because fear of being weak, taking a lesser role in the development of our children because it's seen as girly, harassing women because it's "what guys do", doing dangerous stunts to impress the guys; these are all harmful behaviors that are all rooted in a need to appear masculine.

This _is_ toxic, and we need to recognize that without getting defensive over it just because it's what we know. We can do better for eachother and ourselves and recognition of this fact is a necessary first step.

<comment><USER7> Whether you like it or not, people of both genders will be competitive. Ultimately, this is why socialism fails. The incentive to compete essentially disappears. If everyone is forced to be paid the same, why try harder than anyone else? The goal then becomes to game the system as much as possible, where the ruling class accumulates wealth. However, the mere accumulation of wealth is not itself a productive endeavor.

You need only look to the former Soviet Union and republics for evidence of this.

<comment><USER6> Competition isn't bad, but harming yourself in service of competition is. You can compete without endangering yourself and harming others. You can be the best without having to play the "I'm manlier than you" game.

<comment><USER8> >> _You can compete without endangering yourself and harming others. You can be the best without having to play the "I'm manlier than you" game._

Play without keeping a score so the loser is not "hurt" emotionally?

<comment><USER9> It sounds like you were reading a subtext that isn't there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Traditional masculinity:

 _" Conforming to the norms of the "masculinity ideology" can result in suppressing emotions and masking distress in young boys as well more risk- taking and aggressive behavior and a lack of willingness to seek out help."

"traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful."

"Despite its warnings, the APA also encouraged men to embrace the positive aspects of traditional masculinity, like leadership and courage."

"Men in the United States also commit an estimated 90% more homicides than women and are also much more likely to be arrested for domestic violence."_

Testosterone:

 _" Most studies support a link between adult criminality and testosterone"

"Most studies have also found testosterone to be associated with behaviors or personality traits linked with criminality such as antisocial behavior and alcoholism."

"Studies have also found administered testosterone to increase verbal aggression and anger in some participants."

"Testosterone is significantly correlated with aggression and competitive behaviour and is directly facilitated by the latter."

"The rise in testosterone levels during competition predicted aggression in males but not in females."_

I can't help but notice that many of the attributes that fall under the umbrella of "toxic masculinity" are behaviors that appear to be correlated with response to testosterone. Although we can a identify biological basis for these behaviors, why do we insist they are a social "constellation of standards"?

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

<comment><USER11> People have varying level of testosterone in their bodies. Different bodies react to the same hormones differently. There are a lot of variables that contribute to who we are and how we experience life. Traditional gender standards push all sorts of people into certain boxes that a lot of people don't fit into comfortably and that causes a lot of people hardship. This is just recognizing a certain pattern that is generally harmful towards people subjected to it. It's fine to be competitive. It isn't okay to pressure people into being competitive because they "should" be to fit into their assigned role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the face of ecological collapse, diminishing living standards, and increasing authoritarianism I fail to see how stoicism is anything but healthy. To overcome challenges in the present and future we need fortitude, calmness, and patience rather than panic.

<comment><USER13> While it might not seem so, stoicism, in the sense that is discussed in this paper, is not really synonymous with fortitude, calmness, and patience.

It is more along the lines that there is a natural order that is good that a person must conform to. I would argue that it's something closer to heteronormativity in personal belief.

<comment><USER14> I really get annoyed by the mixture with the different definitions of stoicism. One would avoid using it in a paper if it causes confusion

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So would (self) pursuit of being physically attractive (high muscle mass / low body fat) and intelligence (eventually leading to earning power to support yourself and a family) equate to "eschewal of the appearance of weakness"?

I'd like to hear the APA's answer to this.

<comment><USER16> Probably. And both can definitely be contributors to psychological strain. So, in my view, it's not unreasonable for the APA to say that.

In fairness, I don't see this as the APA saying that these things are inherently harmful. They're saying that they can be causal to mental health issues so psychologists should be aware of that.

I guess I may have interpreted that incorrectly. Clearly the article interpreted it differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance > and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.

This really sounds like an attack on masculinity. One must never forget, the age of information with all it's flaws and good was brought upon the back of a structure who's main building block atleast in terms of values were masculine values which I think is independent of gender/sex

<comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, if someone agrees with the statement that competitiveness is "toxic", I want to know what search engine does that person use because I'm honestly expecting that person to use a terrible engine like Ask Jeeves.

Without competitiveness we wouldn't have Google or Duck Duck Go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is straight up sexist man-hating bullshit. It should not be tolerated any more than any kind of gender inequality.

</comment><comment><USER20> "achievement"

So encouraging men to achieve success in life is harmful?

<comment><USER21> I have a hard time with people who believe everything in life is a competition. At work, they have to get ahead. At home, they still have to get ahead. When they eat breakfast, they have to do it better than you. We need to teach people to work towards society's ends, rather than their own.

<comment><USER22> That would be a "pathological" form of competitiveness

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Constraining people via arbitrary norms is harmful. Putting people into tidy little boxes is harmful to those that don't neatly fit in their assigned box.

The smartest HR person I ever worked with once told me "Your standardized people processes work well for about 80% of your staff. The other 20% is where enlightened, thoughtful management comes into play."

</comment><comment><USER24> Has 'non-traditional' masculinity been studied long and extensively enough to do an outcome comparison with the 'traditional' one ?

</comment><comment><USER25> > You have to have strong women in order to deal with masculine men. That's > why masculinity is constantly being eroded, and diminished and dissolved > [..] because it allows women to be weak. If you have weak men, then you can > have weak women. And that's what we have.

\- Camille Paglia

<comment><USER26> YES. This is why it's so important for men & especially women to learn how to communicate and defend boundaries. I've observed the wonderfully healthy communities you can build when men & women are strong together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Standards that were adaptive when society was much less connected are no longer adaptive in todays world.

This is an attempt by the APA to improve treatment for problems they see in their field including the much higher rates of suicide and violence that men in our society express.

It's an unfortunate fact that as with many other aspects of our broken culture there are plenty of people willing to take advantage of people who have maladaptive psychological issues.

A certain Canadian youtuber peddling hyper-masculine value systems via books and seminars comes to mind. The equivalent of scientology for those who feel less than secure in their masculinity.

</comment><comment><USER26> "(masculinity)...marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful."

As a 20 year practitioner of the primal dominance game of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I'd like to address dominance and how it is completely mid-understood.

Dominance is not the act of dominating other people. It is people allowing themselves to be dominated. A key characteristic of alphas is that they are indomitable.

Since people perceive dominance instead of indominance they view it as a scarce zero-sum resource.

If I dominate you it's because I either accidentally transgressed your boundary or we have boundaries that conflict and we haven't negotiated new boundaries. Just going about my business people grant me dominance but this is not something I actively do, it is on them.

When people label dominance as bad, this tells me that they have poor boundary establishment and enforcement skills.

What are your values as an individual. From that, what are your boundaries? Are you willing to unflinchingly communicate those boundaries?

Are you willing to _attempt_ to defend those boundaries from transgression? Can you incrementally develop indomitability and eventually read as dominant?

Some who believe they have zero ability to defend boundaries will retreat to the surrender of the boundary-less feminine. This might work, but I think it is more productive to metaphorically die defending boundaries than not have them in the first place.

The unique magic of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is that even if you are powerful with clear boundary establishment, for years and years you will utterly fail to defend those boundaries.

Knowing you may fail to defend boundaries but trying anyway is a key to next level masculinity.

One of my precious jobs as a coach is to show men that they can die well. When I think they're ready, usually after 1-2 years of training I will show them that they are _almost_ completely powerless. From the outside it looks like I'm torturing these men because I never fully checkmate them so that they can quit by tapping out. I encourage them to keep moving, keep trying, try to keep a clear head and act well despite the fact that it's utterly hopeless.

This human condition is hopeless, but act well in accordance with your values anyway.

This quote by Rickson Gracie sums up the process:

"Where there's discomfort, there's fear," he said. "In these very tough positions, you're in a little piece of hell. And through this daily suffering, you learn to survive in these situations. You have to find comfort in uncomfortable situations. You have to be able to live in your worst nightmare. Jiu-jitsu puts you completely in the moment where you must have complete focus on finding a solution to the problem. This trains the mind to build that focus, to increase your awareness, your capacity to solve problems. Sometimes, you don't have to win. You cannot win. But that has nothing to do with losing."

</comment><comment><USER28> As an outsider: are these guidelines of any consequence in practice?

</comment><comment><USER29> This is sexism. People should avoid labels such as "masculine" or "feminine". How would we react if they said, for example, "traditional jewishness" (is considered harmful)?

I think feminist movement is actively hurting itself by adopting divisive labels such as "toxic masculinity", "patriarchy" or even "feminism". We have gender neutral way of talking about these phenomena, there is no need to invoke gender.

<comment><USER26> If the labels describe an interesting pattern then we shouldn't fear them.

<comment><USER30> the formula for small "c" conservative language-policing among post-critical folk seems to be:

1) identify a criticism of some traditional power structure (masculinity)

2) hijack the critical language and turn it on itself into a contradiction (anti-sexism is itself sexist)

it's the same formula for everything from "atheism is itself a religion" to "anti-racism is racism against white people".

to me it just seems like a very childish defense mechanism, like if nobody is allowed to talk about the problem then the problem will just go away.

<comment><USER29> This is a big misunderstanding.

You can criticize power structures in gender-neutral way. You can say, for example, "social hierarchy" instead of "patriarchy". You can talk about "movement for gender equality" instead of "feminism". You can talk about "being asshole" or "taking too much risks" or other trait instead of "toxic masculinity".

I actually agree with the feminist critique (for the most part), I think where they are wrong is putting people into gender boxes. And I don't think other movements for equality (for example, movements for racial and sexual equality) do this to such extent.

<comment><USER31> > You can say, for example, "social hierarchy" instead of "patriarchy".

If you're afraid to even _name_ the social hierarchy that we have, why would anybody expect you to be willing or able to put in the hard work of fixing its problems?

<comment><USER29> I am not sure what you mean by "afraid to name it". I don't want to mislabel it. Just like it's not Jewish, or heterosexual, it's not male either.

We know there is one mostly based on wealth and income (if you're in the West), and then there are many local ones based pretty much on managerial position that people have in various companies. In general, it is culture- specific.

I personally think we would be better off without social hierarchies (in short, money shouldn't play role in politics and economy should be organized as cooperatives), and I don't see mislabeling it as "patriarchy" helping in any way to achieve that goal.

<comment><USER32> Wait, so how is patriarchy _not_ referring to male genderedness?

If something is a result of or related to the phenomenon of patriarchy (as that term is understood by a majority of folks), I don't see how labeling it as such could be construed as mislabeling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There's no science to be found here, only the assertions of what is essentially a religious ideology. Pretty disheartening.

<comment><USER34> One of the reasons there's no science to be found here (in this thread) is that no one is bothering to actually read the APA guidelines before lashing out with their reactionary rage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I call BS on their assessment. #MeToo bandwagon.

Like it or not, men and women are NOT (edited omission) built the same way, and that includes more than just their private parts. What's harmful, aggression for example, can be dealt with without calling the entire masculinity harmful. The rest (stoicism, competitiveness, dominance) is what helps drive humanity ahead

<comment><USER35> Except they're not built the same way? There's significant differences in psychological and physical factors.

<comment><USER8> I meant NOT built the same way. Sorry

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sounds like bs to me. Just some more far left rhetoric disguised in another insidious semi intellectual garb.

<comment><USER37> Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, or break the guidelines by name-calling in the sense described at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

If we take the name-calling out of this comment, there's nothing left. That makes it a bad comment for Hacker News.</comment></comment>


Japan makes a rat robot specializing in making other rats depressed. - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/medical-robots/ratbot-beats-on-live-rats-to-make-them-depressed

<comment><USER2> If you bully rats, they get depressed. That's far more insight than I think they're going to get from the drug studies.

<comment><USER3> And I'm led to ask what the rat model is really a precursor for...

Seriously, though, this is something I continue to resent about much of the contemporary dialog around bullying: It fails to acknowledge and address the point that _bullying works_ \-- or it has in many traditional social and societal contexts. That's why/how it continues to exist.

If researchers can use it to reliably induce depression -- albeit in rats -- that's really something to think about.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you keep your blog separate from your portfolio website? - <AUTHOR> Hello.
I have a portfolio website (that I link in my resume). I've been thinking about doing a monthly blog about (opinions, interesting things, etc.).
Do you have a separate site for your blog? Or do you have a section on your portfolio site? Or do you do something else?
Thank you <comment><USER2> Over the years I've had a personal site that focused on my portfolio and skills, and eventually I would have the desire to blog and feel out of place writing about non-technical things. So I just switched the focus of my personal site. Now the homepage is a grid of blog posts, but all of my work is still readily available on other pages. I like to write about whatever interests me, not just what I "should" write about considering my technical profession.</comment>


Xinu: More Stats For Any Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/14/xinu-comprehensive-page Xinu is a service that provides a comprehensive overview of page statistics and data that leaves cookie-cutter sites such as Popuri for dead. <comment><USER2> Unfortunately it seems that Xinu's site is down at this point. I tried Popuri just now and they both seem like mashups of screenscraping/public api content. Not too hard to do, but still interesting.

Both of these sites seem somewhat parasitic: they exclusively use other people's content. Are these other sites really benefitting from their data being used like this?

Not really sure what those kanji mean together. Taking the characters' individual meanings I'd make up something like "inside the letter", but its probably idiomatic Chinese and means something completely different.</comment>


Here comes the e-book revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Mobile+and+Wireless&articleId=9127538&taxonomyId=15&pageNumber=1

<comment><USER2> I hate it how everyone focuses on Amazon's Kindle. I think it's one of the weakest ebooks out there. And certainly the most proprietary.

There are tons of ebooks out there: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook_reader> and I think the iLiad should get more headlines: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILiad>

<comment><USER3> You think? What about it makes it weak?

It has access to an online Amazon store. It has free wireless Internet from anywhere. It's owned by the largest online book store on the planet and it integrates into their products. If you need to convert to a format that works for them, they give you a free email address that converts instantly, or for ten cents you can send it right to their book. Physically it's beautiful: the form is one of the best I've come across for any device.

The iLiad looks ugly. It looks clunky and generic and the interface looks just as bad. If you want good press make something that's a joy to use.

<comment><USER4> I completely disagree with you regarding the Kindle's physical form; I think the Iliad (and every other e-book reader I've seen) is far ahead of it in terms of design.

When I'm reading an e-book, all I want in front of me is a large screen. However, the Kindle sacrifices screen size to make up for a built-in keyboard. 99% of the time that you are using the device you won't have any need for a keyboard, and the Iliad's 8 inch screen would serve you better at those times than the Kindle's 6 inch screen.

For me, the ideal form factor for an e-book reader would look like one of two things:

1) A larger iPod touch with something close to an 8 inch screen.

or

2) An EeePC with a swivel screen so you could use it in e-book mode, similar to the OLPC XO.

Right now I'm using an OLPC XO as an e-book reader, and although it doesn't have as nice a form factor as the Iliad or the Sony Reader, I do consider it significantly nicer than the Kindle. Of course, the low price doesn't hurt either.

<comment><USER3> The keyboard is incredibly useful. I annotate things that I read, and I'm grateful that they've got a keyboard. Meanwhile, the screen handles text well enough that on the small setting, one page is about equivalent to a page in a book.

You can't compare a laptop to a Kindle. You just can't. The electronic paper that it uses is in a league of its own. I can see comparisons to Sony's e-Reader or the iLiad, but if you can deal with a laptop for reading you're nowhere near the intensive reader that would benefit from something like a Kindle.

I haven't used an iLiad before. I've never heard of it. The picture Wikipedia showed makes it look ugly, as I said. However, the Kindle is significantly better than the e-Reader, which is the only other one I've heard to be a legitimately good product.

<comment><USER4> You're right that most laptop screen's aren't good enough for reading e-books, but the OLPC XO is an exception because of its special display. Granted, that display still isn't as nice as e-Ink, but it is good enough for serious e-book reading.

<comment><USER3> What display does it use? I didn't know it used a special display.

<comment><USER4> It's some sort of special display that was created just for the OLPC. It has an adjustable backlight. When the backlight is turned on all the way the display looks like a regular laptop display, but when it is turned off all the way, then the display looks like an e-Ink display.

Unfortunately, it does not compare with the e-Ink displays in terms of low power usage, but it is good enough for long reading sessions without straining your eyes.

<comment><USER3> huh! Very neat. I'll have to look for that and see how it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am finding more and more technical books available as PDFs and that is pushing me towards getting an ebook reader. When I am using a book for reference I want to be able to see it and my screen at the same time (not the book on my screen).

Interestingly, I think that if I buy an ebook reader I will read more for leisure as well.

From where I sit, the EVDO on the Kindle is appealing (esp since I hear it has some RSS capabilities). However, the PDF support seems frustrating.

Hopefully the original Kindle will see a drastic price drop (even if only on ebay). That way I can see if I like it without spending so much money. (We must be in a recession if I am scrimping on new tech toys.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there any place to publish and sell your own eBook online? I've had this idea but the PDF creator seems like it'd be difficult to code. The iTunes App Store type business model seems ideal for this.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.lulu.com/> is one of many, many. There are books sold in iTunes App Store today. Many I've seen are just lame repackaging of public domain texts.

<comment><USER6> These places seem like they're more targeted toward producing physical products. I'd focus on digital. Still think it's a viable idea for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny how much I'm reading about this problem right after reading Siracusa's piece: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and- fut...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and-future-e- book.ars)

I, for one, can say that I was inspired to download "Stanza" after reading that, and have already finished H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" thanks to it!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

<comment><USER3> Stanza is icky. I use it on my Mac to convert stuff for the Kindle, and it does the job but it does it poorly.

It's especially bad on the iPod touch. Reading on something that small is possible, but it's a _dread_.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. I was pretty impressed at how readable it was on the iPhone. The biggest problem with copyright free e-books is that they are 100 years old, and mostly boring. Not all, but most.

<comment><USER3> Wow, you need to find the right 100-year-old books. Literature was if anything better then than it is now.

On the iPhone you get blurbs. I have the same problem with Classics on the iPhone. It makes reading feel cramped. Stanza is even worse: it has awful margins, and it has no support for making paragraphs feel good. It's functional but unpleasant.

<comment><USER9> I guess we can disagree on the quality of old books. There are a lot of great classics. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't argue that only new books are worth reading, but if there are 500,000 100+ year old books available, I would still argue that 499,100 wouldn't be interesting to almost anyone outside of maybe research purposes. But hey, that's 100 free interesting books, right?

<comment><USER3> To be fair, if we publish 500,000 books a year _now_ , less than 100 will be interesting. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Will file sharing etc. become as big a problem for the book industry as it became for the music industry?

Howo are writers going to earn their income in the future?

<comment><USER11> 99cts books, sell a million and you're done.

As long as they try to sell ebooks for $20 or $50 they will fail miserably.

iTunes is about the right spot between price and convenience.

Make it expensive and I'll pirate it.

Make it affordable and put it at my fingertips and I'll pay for it to avoid the hassle of viruses or bad copies wasting my time.

<comment><USER12> Everyone knows the value of $1, however I don't think we see a song on iTunes as having a cost because it's less than a dollar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Who is doing the interesting things in startup space to solve the publishing problem, particularly the college textbook problem?

<comment><USER14> any innovation in this area is going to face hard opposition from the textbook publishers. you could encourage professors who are writing the new textbooks to use a new distribution model, but you will face a lot of resistance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If anyone is looking to get an e-book reader for CHEAP (to see if you'll even enjoy reading a book without paper), I bought my wife an eBookwise at Christmas. Her (and I, haha!) have been enjoying it since. It's old-school (still uses smartmedia cards!) but gets the job done, and I didn't pay with an arm and/or leg.

</comment><comment><USER16> No more ebooks please. Can we have something a little more interactive that makes use of the wonderful hardware we have now?</comment>


Hacking Foursquare: Taking over the White House...from North Carolina - <AUTHOR> http://chronline.posterous.com/hacking-foursquare-taking-over-the-white-hous

<comment><USER2> I especially like the anecdotes about people who get so offended at "stealing" mayorships. I did something similar last fall, but didn't make an automatic script. Just made a series of buttons linked to various venues, and instead of actually going out I clicked a button. It's the perfect way to look really social when you don't feel like being it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the problem with "check in X times and get this deal" type of specials. There's no good way to check the integrity of a check in, by design.</comment>


WhereIs – A Serverless Slack command to locate your colleagues in the office - <AUTHOR> https://lew.im/2018/09/whereis-slash-command/ <comment><AUTHOR> Find the GitHub Repo [here]([https://github.com/LewisLebentz/WhereIs](https://github.com/LewisLebentz/WhereIs)).

Any feedback would be appreciated, it's the first time I've open-sourced a project.</comment>


Cleaning restaurant floor for $1000 per night - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/agf5c8/cleaning_restaurant_floor_for_1000_per_night/ <comment><USER2> I am a master diesel engine mechanic by trade, and $100/hr is the lowest shop rate ive seen for a journeyman mechanic. I havent earned less than $150/hr since getting my ASE certs.

That having been said, it (like floor cleaning) is not easy work. Personal protection and safety is critical. Slips, trips, and falls are the #1 killer in these jobs

The video talks about de-greasers and gloves but shows the guy wandering around in a pool of degreaser with tennis shoes, no gloves and short sleeves, so im guessing he hasnt had a major accident yet. Degreaser is a base, so it is very slick. It reacts with fats to form soaps, so it only gets slicker. Do not wear keys on slick surfaces, or youll be picking them out of your leg after a fall.

The idea that any of these blue-collar jobs "print money" is laughable. We get overtime, sure, but we can also get canned quickly if we dont agree to take it on. Expect to work nothing but third shift as a floor cleaner. expect guys like me to yell at you when you move a rack or a tool chest and dont put it back exactly where it was before.

To anyone whos thinking of doing this, Scrub your driveway every day for a week and see if its still appealing.

<comment><USER3> The lesson here is to do your job with passion. This man loves his job, otherwise he wouldn't be posting and making videos about it.

It's the same in tech. If you don't have passion, you'll bounce around tech companies, never moving up, always making money, but never enough. But it's the passion that gives you the edge to deliver something 1% better than the next guy, and so you get the big bucks.

Be passionate and the money will follow.

Edit: uhh did I say something wrong? Why the downvotes?

<comment><USER4> You're probably getting downvoted because the idea that a passionless developer can't deliver good solutions is stupid. Lots of developers are passionless about software development and deliver software "better than the next guy".

<comment><USER5> Passionless developer here. Can confirm. All that matters is that I'm the best available option. I grew up with the Linux community and agree with Stallman on pretty much everything, but I still generate a mountain of proprietary software for pay.

Feels bad, but I gotta eat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A couple notes, as my father owned and sold two carpet cleaning businesses.

$100/hour is actually fairly standard/reasonable. My father always shot for $150/hour as his standard rate (he had no employees). 30 years ago he wasn't making this but for the last 10-15 he was.

The assertion that his supplies and overhead are essentially "nothing" is hilariously naive. I watched his video, he has equipment, not to mention the other costs of running a small business (insurance etc.) I get that he's just starting but it's just silly to assume no overhead if you're looking to emulate.

Reading further, he says "I think you can get started for less than $15k". Expect to spend at least that every year.

Cleaning floors is hard work. Much of my father's focus in the later years was spent on reducing fatigue, and streamlining the services offered. It's good, decent work, but not easy physically and mentally (worrying about equipment failure)

Lastly, my father worked for _some_ restaurants. The % of restaurants that _never clean their carpets_ is huge. There's a good chance that most of your local restaurants have never cleaned their carpets.

<comment><USER7> Less than $15k seems questionable. He has a van to carry the supplies around. Sure, you can lease or borrow, but there's $5k (for a used beater) to $20k (for a new Transit Connect cargo). Two commercial buffers at $1000/each (less used). Good shoes, heavy duty work clothes, another couple hundred. It adds up pretty quick.

Then you add insurance. No idea what that costs, but between risk of injury and liability, it's probably not pennies.

<comment><USER8> Then you add the health risks of traveling all the time (driving is the riskiest activity most people take on, and more miles means more chance of collision. Also the health risks of having to sit many hours in a car, although could be negated if you are able to get a workout in on the job.

The biggest risk of all though is that there's a much greater chance any injury can ruin your income potential, as opposed to office or desk jobs where many times you can still keep working. And overtime, rote physical activity will wear away at the body, especially bending over or being on your knees and carrying heavy things on your back.

Health is wealth (quite literally too in the USA), and if you have an option of being well paid without sacrificing it, I suggest taking it.

<comment><USER6> Carpal tunnel almost killed my father's business completely. He used a "wand" with a trigger that sprays water/soap requiring him to squeeze his hand hundreds of times per job. After 20+ years of doing this, his wrists and forearms were shot/inflamed. He required surgery, and was able to resume work.

Image of wand: [https://www.worldwidecleaningsupport.com/media/catalog/produ...](https://www.worldwidecleaningsupport.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1800x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/w/h/wh982.jpg)

<comment><USER8> It's a shame we don't have more public health efforts to inform the public about the long term damage from repetitive motions. Especially when the person willing to do long term damage to their body is heralded as a hard worker, and the person that protects against it by working diligently and not over exerting themselves will be punished by not getting work. Similar situation with office work and skipping on sleep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked in various restaurants for about 7 years before becoming a Software Engineer.

I knew the floor cleaner of one of the larger chains I worked for. He was making $100k+ cleaning 5 or 6 restaurants and this was during the height of the recession. He put maybe 60k miles or more a year and had to get a new car often. The work required him to work 7 days a week overnight. It was extremely hard for him to hire reliable people. His marriage failed in his late 40s due to the hours and never having a vacation.

He did not like the work and it was very backbreaking. The overnight hours ruined his marriage and friendships. Once he had enough money he was going to retire to Costa Rica. One thing he did like was getting new trucks after about 80-100k mikes.

<comment><USER10> This guy broke his back to buy multiple new trucks which is almost...tragic.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your- wor...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your-work-truck- say-about-you/)

<comment><USER11> "and if he can't drive with a broken back, at least he can polish the fenders."

Billy Joel, "Movin' Out" (1977)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movin%27_Out_(Anthony%27s_Song...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movin%27_Out_\(Anthony%27s_Song\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He makes it look like it's easy. There are a lot of different outfits competing in the same space, a whole industry set up to clean restaurant Kitchen Hoods, Grease Traps, Floors, etc and it is super competitive. The only plus is your costs are not super high (pressure washer, mops, buckets, hoses, and vacuums). Detergent can be purchased as you need it. Labor will be difficult with employees calling sick, not showing up, not doing a good job, etc.

The most successful part of this industry were the outfits making their own soaps, detergents, etc and providing them to the cleaner/cleaning companies.

There is no easy money unless you know someone who can help you get some big contracts. Otherwise you will be chasing the same nickle the other 10 guys are.

</comment><comment><USER13> my father in law did commercial HVAC work as an independent and his wife did the books. He made 250k/year before retiring.

The work was very physically demanding though. He wanted to hand the whole business to his son but the son wasn't interested. Ironically, his son is a phd at the University of Chicago studying ancient turtle teeth, or something like that, and can barely pay the rent for his apartment.

</comment><comment><USER14> High school my best paying job was assembling busses for Chance Coach for $18/hr (in 2002 dollars). I mainly installed windows, seats, and A/C units. This was not easy work, it was not in air conditioning, and coworkers didn't like working with "a kid". I truly appreciate my SE career now though and I think it taught me a lot about resiliency and getting your hands dirty.

</comment><comment><USER15> A buddy of mine owns a commercial carpet cleaning business in the NYC metro. His company operates at around 20% profit after salaries, benefits, equipment repair/replace (replaced all generators this year), chemicals, garage rent for his 3 trucks, etc.

I'm not saying you can't get away with less equipment, staff, etc, but you aren't able to scale the work up.

<comment><USER16> That's sounds pretty great and you could probably replace yourself, leaving you with some nice residual income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lots of talk about professionals earning more than this. But you can do this kind of thing with no education at all. Right out of school. All you have to do is, be willing to get your hands dirty.

One of the best business models is, selling something that is mandated. Like cleaning restaurant floors (health and safety rules).

<comment><USER18> Willing to get your hands dirty, wrecking your health, and never having time to socialize because you sleep when others are awake. Nightshift work is associated with all kinds of health problems.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_working#Health_effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_working#Health_effects)

<comment><USER19> In a previous life I earned good money doing re-modelling in banks and office buildings. Because these businesses needed to stay open with minimal disruption, a lot of work was done at night and weekends.

I never got used to switching from day to night and days off were spent mostly sleeping.

Eventually it came to an end, after about 8 years, and I returned to the land of the living, working 9-5. The adjustment was difficult and the drop in income wasn't much fun either.

I ended up changing jobs every few weeks because there was always some reason to leave and eventually I just stopped working altogether. I didn't know it the time but I was drifting into a severe depression that lasted several years and ended with me living on the street.

I can't say for sure that working nights for so long set me on that road but I have a strong suspicion that it was a major factor.

I got lucky after a short while, got back into work and it's all just a bad memory now. I do wonder where I'd be now though if I'd just stuck to working days, like most people do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Restaurant knife sharpening is another small business that prints money.

<comment><USER21> Do they bring the equipment in and sharpen on-site or do they bring freshly sharpened knives and take the dull ones to be sharpened? Seems like if you had enough initial capital you could buy a ton of new sharp knives, swap them every day, and then spend a whole weekend day doing the sharpening of the knives you rotated out. Then you could keep your 9-5 M-F and make some cash by working a pretty low stress weekend day.

<comment><USER22> I worked in kitchens for about 10 years and the most common model I am aware of is to pick up the knives weekly and drop some other ones off. I assumed the knives belonged to the sharpening folks. They were garbage knives, but garbage knives are as good as your $300 tempered Japanese knife if you sharpen them.

<comment><USER23> While you can get a good edge on a knife made with garbage steel, the edge goes away quickly.

<comment><USER24> Those cheap restaurant supply knives he's talking about can hold an edge just fine. They _look_ cheap because they have that plastic handle, but they are very durable in my experience.

<comment><USER25> Durable yes, good edge retention? Not so much. Restaurants like this tend to prefer softer more durable steels, like that found in your classic Henkels (usually refereed to as German stainless). A chef's personal knives tend to be a very different style. Usually modeled after the Japanese style of knife (very thin stock, very high (62+) hrc). And the steel tends to be either carbon steel or vg-10 or better for stainless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I know a guy in Sacramento with a lawn mowing business. He hirs high school guys and pays them minimum wage. He has 4-6 teams going 4 days a week, and he clears $300K a year. His expenses are 6 trucks, 40 riding mowers, and gas. His employees tend to be high school burn outs.

<comment><USER26> Perhaps I should add he's a mid-50's immigrant from Vietnam with a giant extended family, and he's their only earner. The guy works his ass off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> don't understand why they would pay $100/hour to have floors cleaned when restaurants pay employees $15/hour or close to minimum wage for low-skilled work. is cleaning floors so difficult that it necessitates a specialist who charges $100/hour?

<comment><USER20> Because of laws stating you have to professionally steam clean kitchens/floors at X intervals, this guy probably is doing a few dozen restaurants per month on a weekly basis not the same one every night.

Normal non grease/kitchen specialist cleaning is ten cents per sq.ft per month or so for cleaners so even cheaper than having your own employees do it, with liability protection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > It usually comes out to no less than $100 per hour

So the person works 10 hours a night?

<comment><USER16> Across their team, sure. In the Reddit thread, the OP said he has employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice to see /r/entrepreneur get linked here. If you can get past the wantrepreneur BUY MY EBOOK spam bullshit there's a lot of good information in that sub.

I especially like the more location-sensitive, small business posts like this one. I like to think that someone can provide good advice and someone else from a totally different region can apply that knowledge in their own community, which is a net gain for that local economy.

r/EntrepreneurRideAlong used to be another one, with a specific focus on starting a cleaning service in 27 days.

<comment><USER30> > wantrepreneur

I'm super curious... when does a wantrepreneur convert to an entrepreneur? Like... if you call somebody out/knock them for being a wantrepreneur but calling themselves an entrepreneur, you are "hating" and it "fuels them" until they "finally make it"

How many actually make it though?

<comment><USER29> In the context I provided, I think a wantrepreneur is anyone presenting themselves at a far higher value/position than they are in reality, usually in a matter that is detrimental to others.

I know starting a business is all about "faking it until you make it", but there are tons of braggarts talking about "wielding influence and connections" (because they purchased 20,000 twitter followers) or "becoming a product visionary" (because they hopped on the instagram/twitch/dropshipping bandwagon at the right time and have no redeeming differentiation). Usually these personalities are just annoying, but sometimes these people have hostile intentions.

I personally call myself a wantrepreneur occasionally, as someone who is interested in the culture and community of founders, but who hasn't actually delivered a product yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Many posts here mention the physical difficulties of the floor cleaning business, presumably from moving heavy equipment, etc. One person mentioned carpal tunnel syndrome from repeatedly working a valve on a spray wand.

So there might be even more money here for someone who can figure out how to solve these problems: lighter tools, ergonomically designed handles and triggers, etc.

</comment><comment><USER32> As they say, "Where there's muck, there's brass".

</comment><comment><USER13> The way to do it is bill $1000/night but pay someone $50/night to actually clean the floor.

</comment><comment><USER33> I love this sort of thing.

One of my favourite things to read about are entrepreneurs (although they were doing this before they was even a name for it) in an industry that seems simple to outsiders (say, freight haulage) and building a business out of nothing. No fancy education, no world-changing technological insight, just pure hard work and business smarts to see where the opportunities lie, when and how much to bet, and building on each success to make a bigger one.

It's not romantic to most people, so these kinds of stories don't get heard much, and there's a sneering snobbery about people who, when they got rich, don't have a good story which complies with the enlightened public's idea of a "genius" \- they tend to assume rich people must be academically brilliant, or they could only have got rich doing something unethical.

Read up on Marks and Spencers (first retailer in UK to pass £1bn in profit), founded by a poor Polish immigrant and a cashier. There are tonnes of stories like that, much better inspiration than a lot of the SV Ivy League grad gets showered with VC money story (which, incidentally, feeds into the mistaken notion that there are only opportunities for the rich and well-connected under capitalism).

</comment><comment><USER34> The beautiful thing about business opportunities is that you can create them by mastering a niche.

And once you do, You can charge a lot more.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm interested in learning how to do this.

<comment><USER36> It's a business, so you'll have to figure out some of it yourself. Otherwise it would be a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "where's there's muck, there's money"</comment>