India lifts ban on cryptocurrency trading - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/03/india-lifts-ban-on-cryptocurrency-trading/ <comment><USER3> Successive Indian governments fail to realize that protectionism and capital control in reality have the exact opposite effect of what they intend. (after- effect of British raj once bitten twice shy)

They tried to stop capital flight but instead people just started doing Peer to peer FIAT transfers (WazirX owned by Chinese Binance) and trading via offshore LLCs.

India needs to stop being a nanny state... In fact in a truly free market Indians will often outperform global peers.

Being able to accept payments in crypto is a blessing for Indian firms looking to corner the global blockchain services and consulting market.

<comment><USER4> Indian being a nanny state is an understatement. The govt simply has (and always had) a high distrust of its citizens (emanating from the british raj). Things have improved somewhat but as recent as 2015-16 you had to get your documents attested from a pretty high ranking govt officer for simple stuff in life and then also bring in the originals. If it was an online form, you'd submit it then print it and then send it by post. It is not a hard task to imagine the govts attitude when things get complex and require nuance to fulfil.

On top of that the society in general has become cynical. The media is constantly negative. This just leads to a vicious cycle where the govt just becomes more distrustful of its citizens. I don't know who came first - <USER2> cyncial govt or a cynical society. But right now its a catch-22 which frequently impedes progress in the country. Even for the situations where the society and govt manage to break this deadlock is not celebrated and acknowledged much. They are simply outgunned by the negative stuff and India being as large and diverse as it is, negativity is aplenty.

The current ruling party (for all its other faults) managed to improve this somewhat and at the same time managed to create another set of problems - chief of which is creating a state of you vs me (in every fucking conversation and discourse)

Indian state (or the society) simply can't shake off being a nanny.

<comment><USER5> "Indian being a nanny state is an understatement"

To a non-Indian who's never been there, that sounds odd, because "nanny" implies to me a level of control that I didn't think existed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is worth noting that the initial ban predated by a couple of months to when they replaced all currency bank notes : [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37906742](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37906742)

It had also removed higher value bak notes two years prior: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/29/india- replac...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/29/india-replaced-its- currency-wipe-out-illegal-money-stashes-now-central-bank-says-it-didnt-work/)

Both initiatives born out of curtailing criminal activities of various kinds at the time.

So the crypto ban happened during this period and may well of been born out of that initiative against crime more than anything else and now that things have settled down, the need for the ban became moot.

At least that is my thoughts upon this.

<comment><USER7> > Both initiatives born out of curtailing criminal activities of various kinds > at the time.

It is a well-accepted fact that demonetization was a sham at best, a scam at worst.

> So the crypto ban happened during this period and may well of been born out > of that initiative against crime.

Again, what peculiar crimes exclusive to India are you alluding to that are suddenly _extinct_ now? The ban was lifted because a successful court petition ruled the government is paranoid at best and out-of-touch with reality at worst wrt crypto.

At least, that is my thoughts upon this.

<comment><USER6> >Again, what peculiar crimes exclusive to India are you alluding to that are suddenly extinct now? The ban was lifted because a successful court petition ruled the government is paranoid at best and out-of-touch with reality at worst wrt crypto.

I wasn't alluding to any particular crime and the article does mention some forms, though perhaps better explained by: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- asia-india-37974423](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-37974423)

As another reply outlined, this did not impact the organised level of crime and only the middle class and below, as sadly most initiatives seem to effect, however well intended.

<comment><USER7> The article you cite was written just after demonetization was announced. It simply speaks in the tone of hope and optimism from a journalist far removed from the ground realities. The aftermath since then has left no doubts that demonetization didn't do anything to curb any sort of tax crimes, whatsoever [0]. Heck, a well-respect economist at the helm of the most important financial institution in India, the RBI, resigned, _possibly_ in protest [1].

> As another reply outlined, this did not impact the organised level of crime > and only the middle class and below, as sadly most initiatives seem to > effect, however well intended.

Yeah, exactly: That's text-book sham.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation#Reactions)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghuram_Rajan#Controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghuram_Rajan#Controversies)

<comment><USER8> Could you cite more primary sources? It looks like India related entries on Wikipedia were totally hijacked by paid wiki moderators[0]. Now I cannot trust any India related entry on Wikipedia

[0][http://www.opindia.com/2020/03/delhi-anti-hindu-riots- wikipe...](http://www.opindia.com/2020/03/delhi-anti-hindu-riots-wikipedia- bias-edits-dbigxray-investigation/)

<comment><USER7> OpIndia is a Brietbart-esque website. I trust the Wikipedia moderators more than OpIndia "journalists", who, not long ago, called for "war to defend the Hindus".

The systemic way in which the neo-facist government is taking control the narrative by tarnishing trust in institutions that have stood up well to scrutiny is unnerving.

> Could you cite more primary sources?

I'm pretty sure any primary source that doesn't fit a narrative would be dismissed as non-trustworthy because OpIndia wrote an "investigative" piece that refutes those sources, or because a prominent right-wing person tweets questioning the legitimacy and dismissing it as "fake news"? The incumbent is playing abhorrable politics.

> Now I cannot trust any India related entry on Wikipedia.

Sure, trust OpIndia instead? The standard bearer for journalistic ethics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Echoing a comment below, with the fed lowering rates again it seems like loose money is here to stay for a while. I wonder if this will help eventually push adoption for cryptocurrency. Now I'm not a crypto-currency nut, quite the opposite, and I generally think blockchain is pretty useless, but you do have to acknowledge digital currency is finding uses in venezuela and a pocket of other countries where trust in the monetary system has completely collapsed. Continual low rates and high debts will for sure not wipe out trust in the financial system overnight but it definitely doesn't help

<comment><USER10> Being harder money isn't enough. Orthodox money has the spiritual backing of the world order - the industrial-era concepts of hegemony and warfare unto imperialism.

Blockchain tech needs to show some real, actual functionality - a complete and cognizable web3 stack - in order to be a critique on the level required to actually change (or replace) monetary systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good. There is finally some competition to the Hawala monopoly, for squirreling away India's wealth (it also doesn't involve sending slaves to the Middle East for counterparty trades).

</comment><comment><USER12> I think cryptocurrency trading is one of those things like drinking that is counter productive to ban even if you don't like it much. Better legal and regulated.

</comment><comment><USER13> Crypto trading garnered everyone's attention when Bitcoin kept rising upto $20k and there was a huge FOMO.

During that time, there were a lot of Get Rich Quickly scams around Crypto trading. Coupled with 24x7 online trading, a lot of people were losing a lot of money. Taxation (for those who made money) around Crypto weren't clear either.

An exchange ran away with the money. There was also the money laundering aspect. The Govt also wanted to curtail cash usage (Demonetisation happened) and track the transaction trails.

Not saying if they are right but some of these reasons were triggers for the original ban by RBI.

Casinos are banned in majority of Indian land and i'm wondering if the reasons are the same. Would be interested to know what the Supreme Court thinks about that in the current world.

</comment><comment> ur-whale I was curious why they banned it in the first place. From the article:

        "At the time, RBI said the move was necessary to curb ring-fencing of the country's financial system."

        "It had also argued that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies cannot be treated as currencies as they are not made of metal or exist in physical form, nor were they stamped by the government."

The second argument is beyond weird as most currency isn't material these days, including India.

It's also worth noting that the ruling doesn't seem to have had any kind of effect on Bitcoin's price.

Maybe the news is too fresh ... time to buy !

<comment><USER14> No country is recognising them as actual currencies, because once you do it, that opens a whole lot of other issues for the country, suddenly they could lose control on their money supply and that's a potential threat to their sovereignty. It's much easier and safer to consider them as assets.

<comment><USER15> If they had ever approached even the slightest level of acceptance of gold they would have been okay as assets.

Now its more like betting at the track. Except that the track is probably more regulated and insiders are less crooked.

<comment><USER14> For now I agree, right now it's pure gambling. However it's still pretty early to say what will happen in the future about the cryptocurrencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The title probably should say that the Indian Supreme court quashes the ban on crypto imposed by the Government. It is most likely that the Government will appeal against the ruling, because they seem not in favour of having crypto.

</comment><comment><USER17> Crypto is the future regardless of regulation, denying it is like the people who denied the internet taking off and social media would take off when we had MSN back in the day.

Good on India for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what impact this will have on the value of various crypto currencies?

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that COVID-19 was just confirmed there.

<comment><USER20> It almost certainly doesn't. COVID-19 is looking more and more tame by hour as cases resolve and fatality rates drop. There's fewer active cases today than yesterday, and fewer still than the day before. We're 34% off peak number of active cases. Cryptocurrency is as scammy as always. Not sure one would distract from the other.

<comment><USER21> > COVID-19 is looking more and more tame by hour as cases resolve and fatality > rates drop. There's fewer active cases today than yesterday, and fewer still > than the day before. We're 34% off peak number of active cases.

Source?

<comment><USER20> [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) which lines up with the Johns Hopkins dashboard posted here recently.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter debate on Google paying teachers up to $2500 to teach girls to code - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/454294451855175680

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the first things I noticed as I skimmed over some of the tweets was that if the discussion had been started with a blog post that detailed all the arguments at the start, some of the back and forth elaboration of points (as well as the bickering and insults) could possibly have been avoided. But of course, that's just me looking at it in hindsight. To Zed, maybe it was just something that he saw and quickly tweeted about, without giving a second thought about what could ensue afterwards.

Also, I think this is on point[1].

[1]: [https://twitter.com/_s_e_r_g_e_/status/454783233377312770](https://twitter.com/_s_e_r_g_e_/status/454783233377312770)</comment>


Trump says he will ban TikTok in the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53619287 <comment><USER2> Already discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016938)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why tho

From article: "US security officials have expressed concern that the app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, could be used to collect the personal data of Americans."

/s Fun days ahead. s/

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty skeptical he can get this done via executive order, although there seems to be a bipartisan anti-Chinese mood in Congress, so who knows?

<comment><USER5> _> Pretty skeptical he can get this done via executive order_

The president can (effectively) order CFIUS (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) to review ownership on national security grounds, and if they determine that it constitutes a security risk CFIUS can order that it be divested.

This happened with Grindr last year[1] and the sale was closed in March.

1\. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a- exclusive/excl...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-grindr-m-a- exclusive/exclusive-u-s-pushes-chinese-owner-of-grindr-to-divest-the-dating- app-sources-idUSKCN1R809L)

<comment><USER6> Your example involves ownership of a US company ("West Hollywood, California- based Grindr" LLC).

Availability of an app for download is something quite different.

<comment><USER5> _> Your example involves ownership of a US company ("West Hollywood, California-based Grindr" LLC)_

TikTok is also incorporated in the United States (TikTok Inc.) as a subsidiary of ByteDance. Their original acquisition of Musical.ly was reviewed by CFIUS last year, but I don't know the result (or if this is a continuation of the same review.)

<comment><USER6> Interesting! Did not know that.

... still, whatever happens with the US subsidiary should not, IIUC, affect whether or not the app can be downloaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hypothetically, if TikTok goes instant/webapp how would this ban be implemented? Great Firewall of US?

</comment><comment><USER6> > US security officials have expressed concern that the app, owned by Chinese > firm ByteDance, could be used to collect the personal data of Americans.

Wow, sounds serious! I wonder if any other piece of software in the world has this problem. Perhaps Trump should ban all of those too. Better safe than sorry! :-(</comment>


Seth's Blog: The number one secret of the great blogs - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/the-number-one.html <comment><USER2> I wonder who from HN is in Seth's _tribe_ and keeps upvoting his wonderfully perceptive and sagacious posts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tribes are great if your goal is be an Internet celebrity. There are other models, like creating great content, providing helpful resources and tools or simply entertaining your readers.

<comment><USER4> And yet, being an internet celebrity is most valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seth's really been going on about this Tribes kick. I suppose it's fair, considering one can see tribe-building as the goal of marketing.

<comment><USER6> And that he just wrote a book about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of Chris Duncan's book, "Unite the Tribes" ([http://www.amazon.com/Unite-Tribes-Ending-Business- Success/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Unite-Tribes-Ending-Business- Success/dp/1590592409/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226677631&sr=8-1)). Similar yet different.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Tribes". Ugh. One of the worst concepts that keeps getting reapplied to people on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER9> so pretty much focus on a sub-niche if you want to be successful as a blogger?</comment>


Mistakes Node.js developers make - <AUTHOR> https://www.airpair.com/node.js/posts/top-10-mistakes-node-developers-make

<comment><USER2> Certainly the top mistake should be choosing Node.js for an unfitting task?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. But this article was more from a technical perspective, after you chose it for a ("right") task.</comment></comment>


Millennials Don't Use Credit Cards Because They Have No Money - <AUTHOR> https://thebillfold.com/millennials-dont-use-credit-cards-because-they-have-no-money-b3b7aebfa370#.fmvfdg27r <comment><USER2> I realize I'm likely an outlier (as a millenial) in my age cohort but... the whole reason I have no credit card debt is because I'd prefer to not pay interest when I don't have to.

I certainly use my credit cards. In fact, I use them for everything I can, to maximize my rewards (which equates to ~$75 in cash back every month). The only things I can't use them for is rent and health insurance. Everything else gets churned through, and the balance is paid off at the end of every statement. It's quicker, has better fraud protection, and is easier to ensure I'm staying on budget. I just haven't paid a cent in interest in at least a decade.

I believe the term the credit card companies have for me is a _" deadbeat"_.

<comment><USER3> > I believe the term the credit card companies have for me is a "deadbeat".

Nope, they're still collecting interchange fees [1] from everyone you do business with. They're probably taking the same amount as your rewards, if not more.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee)

<comment><USER4> It's worth pointing out that as cc payments have become ubiquitous, theses fees are built into the pricing we are all paying.

Essentially, the participation and dominance of credit card transactions in our (U.S., at least) economy maintains a some-percent elevation in consumer prices. That "toll" going in large part straight into payment processors' and banks' pockets.

If you do pay by another means, perhaps the seller gets a bit more on that particular transaction. But I've talked with many small business owners who greatly lament these transaction fees. Not insignificantly, because they've been unable to compete with the negotiating power of big business, the latter as a result getting lower fees and a resulting competitive advantage.

As for "deadbeat", I've heard that term before, used for precisely the circumstance described.

Are they "losing money"? I doubt it. But along with oligopoly comes an oversized dose of greed. And some portion of management looking to sell their own performance by upping the return/profit rate on extant accounts. Or something like that, no doubt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Millennial here.

Opened my first credit card, a Discover student card, at 18 whilst in college. My credit limit was something awful, $1000 if I recall correctly. But the credit impact was immense.

By charging a hundred bucks or two, and never carrying a balance, I already had a 4 year long positive credit history upon graduation. Fast forward a few years, and I was able to take out a mortgage at 25. The Credit Union that granted it explicitly stated that said length of responsible credit card membership was the deciding factor.

It doesn't take much to build a credit history while you're young, and even $50 or $100 per month in your student years is enough to get a serious leg up.

<comment><USER6> Conversely, people like me who were stupid at 18 and let a $400 credit card go into collections are completely screwed for a decade. I can't even get a cell phone contract, much less a mortgage. I believe strongly that the legal age of majority should be raised to 21.

<comment><USER7> > the legal age of majority should be raised to 21

I think we just do an absolute piss-poor job of training people to be competent adults. Delaying adulthood even further is not the answer - not when people have historically led nations and raised children at ages that we would now consider the same acts a felony.

<comment><USER6> >not when people have historically led nations and raised children at ages that we would now consider the same acts a felony

My argument has more to do with the physical development of our brains than any social reasoning. A major reason for the 21 drinking age is that your prefrontal cortex is simply not fully developed until well into your 20s, leaving people to make terrible decisions without the ability to fully comprehend them.

The age 18 majority made sense in a world where people needed to get married and raise families and enter the workforce as soon as possible, but we no longer live in that world (in the US at least). The better option is to extend "childhood" a few more years, along with compulsory post secondary education which includes proper training to be an adult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > the average American under 35 had 182 percent less student debt

What does that mean? If you have a 100% less of something than someone else, you don't have any of it, right? Did colleges owe the average student money in 1995?

<comment><USER9> Hah. This is why I hate all comparisons in percentages. You can't have 110% of something.

Or the old "give it 110%"... no I can only give 100%. Nothing more.

<comment><USER10> The error you're pointing out does not exist in general. % just means "per hundred". If I say A is 110% of B, I'm just saying there are 110 A for every 100 B, which is perfectly reasonable in many contexts. Of course it doesn't make sense to say "Give 110 for every 100 you have available", but that's just one particular context. On the other hand, "Give 110 for every 100 you think you have available" makes perfect sense, if you interpret it to imply that people generally underestimate their ability / hold back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> ...that's better than previous generations who didn't have the money but overextended themselves anyway.

On the other hand... This could mean they would overextend themselves financially if they had the confidence in the economy to take the risk and they simply don't have confidence in the future economic climate.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does "hold credit card debt" include people who pay their credit card off each month? If not, it seems like the premise of the article is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER13> A simple rule for credit cards - pay full dues every month. And get all the benefits of a credit card.

Since millennials are already in debt (as the article suggests) and not having a regular income yet, credit cards will make it easier for them to buy beyond means - So it is better they delay owning credit cards. Whats wrong in that!

</comment><comment><USER14> > Data from the Federal Reserve indicates that the percentage of Americans > under 35 who hold credit card debt has fallen to its lowest level since > 1989.

I read the original NYT article and had the same questions as many people here.

1\. Isn't having less debt a good thing overall? (I'm not talking about things like business loans and so on)

2\. Does lower credit card debt in the 20-35 cohort imply lower usage of credit cards or is just due to them running a balance less often? Is it still counted as "debt" if the balance is paid off every month?

3\. Has anyone surveyed credit card companies about increase or decrease in number of credit card application approvals from the 20-35 cohort? Could that be a better proxy of credit card usage?

4\. Is it at all possible that millenials use credit cards more sensibly than other generations? Maybe they only spend as much as they can pay off every month. After all, this is the generation that grew up in two wars and a depression.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's indicative of the paradoxical nature of the times, that taking on loads of debt is kind of a dumb personal decision, but the health of the economy depends on people doing it.

<comment><USER16> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immiseration_thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immiseration_thesis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm probably an odd one out, but I love using credit cards. Got my first student card as a freshmen in college, and at this point I have about 10 cards, each with a very high limit (most of them with nothing on them).

I treat them like shock absorbers/cheap debt. For example - we're saving up for a down payment, while there's large bulk expenses that pop up like tuition for Masters programs. I throw those on the credit cards, and take advantage of balance transfer offers to essentially get a low-interest loan for a year.

<comment><USER18> Are there 2-3% balance transfer cards?

<comment><USER17> Initial fee of 2-3% of the balance to transfer, then 0% APR for a 1 to 1.5 years normally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anecdotally speaking, I'd have to disagree with the authors conclusion here. Most of my college-aged friends (many of which are from the University of Delaware, the same school the author goes to) rely solely on their credit cards; the only ones I can think of who don't are those who get paid mostly in cash (waiters/waitresses, bartenders, under-the-table short term jobs, etc). Hell, most of my friends think I'm weird for using cash as much as possible; few even carry cash these days.

Personally, I'd say that, while plenty of college-age millennials still rack of credit card debt, a lot of us also had the idea of "Always pay off the entire monthly amount on your card" beaten into us by our parents and by seeing the effects of the recession. We might not be "financially literate" yet (god knows I'm still learning) but we at least know that.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wish I could take my page view(s) back.

A poorly written article that summarizes another mediocre article which could be summed up very easily: Millennials aren't using credit card debt as much as previous generations because they're more familiar with the effect of debt than any other generation before them.

</comment><comment> ng-user Millennial checking in: I don't have a credit card, just got rid of overdraft on my regular bank account and have a line of credit. Once I pay off the LOC I'm never using credit again unless it's an invest that will pay itself off, ie. a (successful) business, real-estate, etc.

<comment><USER21> I'm of a similar mind. I sort of resented the tone (that might have been perceived) in the article that not using a credit card is some kind of marker of a financial dummy or irrational paranoid.

I pay cash for everything. I have a stable checking account, savings account, and several investment accounts that has my money working for me and growing. I'm completely aware of what the credit cards offer and I don't think it's valuable to me or my goals.

The only credit I want in my future is potentially a home and if I can make that happen in cash, I will, or at the very least a down payment that keeps the credit line realistic to pay off before I'm senile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just to say it, it's not that millenials are just walking around with rolls of cash. Many use debit cards or other payment mechanisms (venmo, etc.). It's more the credit (unsecured lending with expected interest rate) aspect of the credit cards that they tend to shy from.

</comment><comment><USER23> Its probably because they can use alternatives like Debit Cards and PayPal.

Also I am not sure if lower credit card debt means people don't have credit cards, or if they are just using them for transactions rather than accumulating debt.

</comment><comment><USER24> A lot of weird self-hating stuff specific to college students. Plenty of Millennials are late 20s with steady jobs, the author doesn't really address that at all.

<comment><USER25> We on HN are lucky to live in a world where at 24 we are fighting 6 figure jobs offers but the rest of my millennial friends do not have that experience.

The median income for a 29yr old is $35k[0], which is barely enough to buy a house in B or C cities.

My grandfather came from mexico, worked at a factory and was able to raise 3 kids, buy a house, rental property, and lincolns for my grandma. Can anyone say the same thing about a lower middle class worker now?

[0][http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the- aver...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the- average-29-year-old/479139/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't understand why the author titled this piece "...because they have no money", when the article doesn't actually give that as a reason (instead it's 'lack of awareness [of benefits]', 'not being financially literate', and 'being more self-aware').

</comment><comment><USER27> > _Even more notably, the benefits of improving your credit score early are > immense._

[citation needed]

EDIT: I also particularly like the part where "financial literacy" is used as a surrogate for "people who want to overleverage themselves to make the bankers money".

<comment><USER28> Good credit helps you: rent an apartment, buy a car, lower your insurance rates, and buy a condo/house.

Additionally, buying things with a credit card gives additional benefits such as extended warranties and protection against fraud.

<comment><USER27> At least two of those aren't "buy"...they are "leverage self further".

I know this sounds a bit nutty, but many of the arguments for credit seem to go:

      "Why do I want to take on debt?"
      "To build your credit score!"
      "And what does that do for me?"
      "It gives you the opportunity to take on larger debts!"
      "And why would I want to do that?"
      "...why do you hate America?"

Not even joking.

<comment><USER29> I think that the credit is built by taking on debt and then paying it down. It shows that you can produce money reliably when required to do so, and that given some rope, you won't hang yourself with it.

Extrapolate that a bit and you're paying a mortgage using the same skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's a difference between not using a credit cards and not carrying credit card debt. Its called paying your balance off every month. A bit of clickbait there in the title.

</comment><comment><USER31> I use my credit cards for everything but I pay them off in full and have never paid interest on them.

<comment><USER32> I only use debit cards, because I can get withdraw money on any ATM with it without additional costs.

<comment><USER33> "Debit card" is just a fancy word for "bank client card".

No "ding" for withdrawals on any ATM on any ATM network, really? And no monthly service charge for the account? No limit on how many withdrawals or debit payments per month?

<comment><USER32> It's a visa card, but without credit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ExtJS: a dream or a nightmare? (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.markhamstra.com/extjs/2013/extjs-dream-nightmare-jquery/ <comment><USER2> Article's a bit over a year old, but the points it raises are still very valid.

As the creator & maintainer of a large ExtJS application (stockor.com/demo), I find it very much a mixed bag.

Love the comprehensive widgets that are all integrated with the data sources. Back in the early days of SPA architecture I'd say they were far above everyone else.

Hate the slow, JS driven layouts. Something that's not immediately obvious when using ExtJS is that all layout is conducted by it's own engine and applied via inline style tags which set the width/height of each element. This might have made sense back in the IE3/4 days (when I started using it), but I find it really sucks now since you're hobbling the browser and not allowing it to do what it does best - Laying out webpages.

And there's the perennial bugs. Sencha is attempting to re-create the entire web ecosystem themselves, so it's no surprise that they don't quite pull it off seamlessly. I won't elaborate on this too much since it's pretty easy to visit their own forums to get a sense of the frustration level with this.

I'd posit that ExtJS made quite a bit of sense back when IE4 support was still a big thing, but I'm pretty sure it's best days are behind it. I'm sure it'll hang on for quite awhile in corporate environments, but I don't see any reason to use it for new development.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would like to hear your comments about Telerik, nobody talked about Telerik in this thread yet.

<comment><USER2> I really like Telerick. They do seem to have a good system of widgets and data bindings. I haven't used them in anger though so don't really know for sure.

I was pretty bummed they removed the grid from the open-source components though. That's the main thing that's stopped me from going further in evaluating them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the comparisons with other frameworks like JQuery or Angular are a little out of place. I don't really see Ext as a competitor in that area. It's not really a traditional JS framework, it's more a GUI library that just happens to use the browser as the backend and JS as the programming language.

I mostly saw it used for intranet applications, where not being forced to deploy stuff for each change is a big bonus. In these cases, you're not coming from knockout, backbone or react -- you're fleeing from the wrath of Java Webstart and Swing. And compared to those beasts, ExtJS is a welcome change.

Yes, all the bad things said in the post and this thread are certainly true, but that still makes ExtJS better than some of the alternatives in this peculiar shithole. And no other framework/library seems to move in that direction. Components, sure, but no full-fledged widgets that end up in providing a desktop-like experience. Most widget libraries I've seen were enhancements/additions to mostly conventional web pages (Cappuccino as a possible exception).

Sure, you don't _want_ to provide a 80%-ish emulation of native GUIs on the _real_ internet. But for the corporate stuff like CRMs, it's darn useful. Even ravishing the DOM is better than Swing.

(Did I mention that I don't like Swing?)

<comment><USER4> I very much agree with all of your points. ExtJS is hard to beat in terms of the breadth of its widget set, layout configurations, data handling models, etc. Just for the almighty GridPanel, it's worth it I would say. But it's also more appropriate for internal, non-public facing apps. For that, you get pretty much all the usual benefits of a web application (ease of deployment, etc.) without getting lost in a traditional desktop GUI jungle. It's true that the library is frighteningly monolithic and the learning curve quite steep, but personally, I very much appreciate the declarative syntax, the very complete documentation, the multiple examples, the flexible MVC structure and the fact that it can easily result in nice decoupled code, as you can plug any backend you like, as long as it communicates through a well-defined protocol (I personally favor Python and Flask).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've co-authored a book on ExtJS 3.x and I've worked heavily with Sencha Touch.

One thing that probably isn't mentioned very often is that Sencha now recommends the use of Sencha Command for managing Ext JS and ST apps. It's a nightmare combination of open-source and closed source, which means fixing any bugs that arise is a total nightmare.

One reason they use this is because part of Sencha Command parses your source code and builds a dependency tree which is then used generate a concatenated build, a minimised build, and for Sencha Touch, a diff which is used to deliver delta updates to the browser so the user has less to download when the app updates.

This is all great, but I can't help but feel if they'd used a more standard approach - AMD for example - to create their module definitions, they'd have reduced a whole level of complexity in the framework code and in the surrounding toolset.

This is just one corner of the Sencha ecosystem which provides pain points. I still believe it can be the right choice for some applications, but in many situations the power it provides comes with too much complexity, a lot of which you won't get burned by until you're tied into their framework.

<comment><USER6> I started using extjs in the tail end of the Jack Slocum period. He was a formidable one man army who delivered what I considered an elegant but incomplete vision. I feel that after he dropped out of it they never managed to reach the same level of clarity in building out the missing pieces. Each release brought more features but also more cognitive load, and it made it harder to learn. Eventually, with v4, they just built a new framework with a different philosophy that they then branded as extjs. I wonder how extjs would have turned out had jack been there all along.

<comment><USER7> What did Jack Slocum move on to do? I found his blog [0] but it says very little about what he's doing now.

0: jackslocum.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My hope is that React is going to be the foundation for the next generation ExtJS-like project. It has been designed with both components and speed in mind.

<comment><USER9> I'm confident that it will be. I'm in the process of building a component library on React at work and I'm sure there are others doing the same. My biggest question is if and whether all the parochial component systems will somehow be able to cooperate.

<comment><USER10> > My biggest question is if and whether all the parochial component systems > will somehow be able to cooperate.

If I understand this right, this is a big concern of mine too, I feel strongly that React needs to provide a standard Cursor-like interface to state, otherwise each parochial component system is going to be incompatible with the others.

Here is some discussion on cursors: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7906657](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7906657)

Here is a component library we built at Wingspan: [https://github.com/wingspan/wingspan- forms](https://github.com/wingspan/wingspan-forms)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My biggest complaints about ExtJs is that it has an extremely difficult learning curve and, while the docs have gotten better, they still don't cut it. For example, the venerable ComboBox is rife with pitfalls. I've since forgotten the details, but the various config options interact in strange ways.

My biggest complaint is that the template holes in components aren't html escaped by default. You end up having to override the default templates just to add "htmlEncode" liberally. For example, the venerable ComboBox should just escape the items by default instead of allowing html in the combobox menu items by deafult.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've worked with Sencha frameworks for 3 projects over 5 years. There is definitely a love-hate feel about it.

The first project was working with it through GWT. Views are built imperatively with Java. I didn't touch any JavaScript, HTML or CSS. Java kept all the types in check. Things are smooth.

The second project was working with it JavaScript, after I've gained a year of experience working with HTML and CSS. Things are hard. Layouts are confusing. Seemingly simple stylings are hard to control.

The third project is where I am now. Although we're still using the Sencha framework, a lot of the components are actually custom built. I guess the only parts of Sencha we're using are class system, layout (only very sparingly), and touch interaction. Things are smooth. We're now considering the possibility of switching out the full Sencha framework to Ext Core.

This is where I say that I wish there can be an open source fork of Sencha. There are parts of Sencha that are good (class system, MVC, touch interaction) and there are parts that are bad (large component library that most people don't really need). A large part of the Sencha framework is actually the component libraries. If these are stripped out, I think it's possible for it to be smaller than Ember.

</comment><comment><USER13> Never once had a positive experience with ExtJS or any of its derivatives - GXT, Sencha Touch, anything. Total nightmare to work with. Non-performant trash at its best.

</comment><comment><USER14> My experience with Sencha Touch was pretty terrible. I'm not sure if it didn't fit my mental model or what, I had a lot more success with Kendo Mobile and Kendo MVVM.

The way Sencha Touch (and probably ExtJS) handles data sources for remote data seems cool at first, but a lot of it ends up feeling pretty gross. Also, offline data storage or things related to that for mobile seemed broken/confusing/nonexistent.

</comment><comment><USER15> ExtJS is an interesting study on dual-licensing. The open source licensing for ExtJS is GPL3 + exceptions; posts appear constantly on the forums asking for clarification/permission. Unlike Kendo, ExtJS includes all of their controls in the open-source release, including the ever-necessary grid control.

ExtJS interaction with external developers is a mess, taking patches through their private bug tracker instead of fostering a collaborative development environment. Open-source developers have been driven away after their patches are only officially made available quickly to users with a commercial license. (There is a delay between open-source releases, while commercial customers get intermediate releases.) Ultimately this friction will push mindshare elsewhere.

One of the primary strengths of ExtJS is legacy browser version support due to use by so many enterprise customers; it's only in the very recent v5 release that they dropped support for IE 6 & 7.

</comment><comment><USER16> I built an app a couple of years ago with Sencha Touch. The quick mobile build demo (and a few of the prebuilt widgets) sold me on trying it. About 2 weeks into the project, I was hating life. The forums seemed to be answered by one guy. (He was extremely brilliant, but probably VERY over-taxed). What's worse, since the critical mass of users were using other frameworks, getting help on places like Stack Overflow seemed impossible.

There is definite beauty in this framework. I liked the descriptive layouts. I liked setting up stores for all my data models. But in the end, I was stuck trying to figure out the "Sencha" way, and often having to just forget about it. (I'm not saying things couldn't be done, just that I couldn't find proper docs on HOW to get it done)

The product shipped. I was mildly pleased with the result. But once visual design tweak requests started rolling in.... I turned it over to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER17> ExtJs has been a pain where I work. I remember being horrified at how it takes over and starts adding styles all over, even to the body tag even if all you were doing was displaying a grid in a div. Why would it leak out of your div and take over the whole page like that?

</comment><comment><USER18> I used to write a bunch of ExtJS. The whole abstraction bothered me so much that I wrote a whole post about it.

[http://mumbledrantings.blogspot.com/2010/04/reaching- utopia-...](http://mumbledrantings.blogspot.com/2010/04/reaching-utopia-and- why-its-not.html)

The tl;dr version is that it's so good at building complex things that it hides none of the complexity. Instead of learning about the interesting system of JS + HTML + CSS + server interactions, you let ExtJS handle the interactions and specific everything in massive arrays. And that exercise bores me out of my damn mind.

<comment><USER19> If I'm writing an app, I'm doing it to deliver something. If I want some zen- like learning experience I know where to get it, and prefer that the ugly inner working stay out of my immediate workflow.

<comment><USER18> Sure, in the short term. I generally find that understanding the system (or building abstractions that cover the complex system in sensible ways), you find ways to solve problems more elegantly.

Put another way, in building an app, I always learn something about my original vision of the app that was wrong, and needs correcting. ExtJS doesn't help with that iteration loop: I just create hard-to-debug things that do exactly what I want when I finally get them working. The rubber of your ideas meeting the road of the complex system is an important step in creating a better app, and papering over the system ignores that step.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My experience with ExtJS is terrible...I will actively run away from any future positions that even remotely consider it.

It might have made sense 6 or 7 years ago...but these days it is mostly a pain in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was tasked with using ExtJS for a large project, without having prior experience with it. It was both a dream and a nightmare for me (OK, that's a bit dramatic, but it was a mixed bag.)

In the end, I was able to do what I needed to, albeit not on mobile due to performance issues, but I wouldn't choose to use it again if it was up to me. It just felt too bloated, and I'd much rather work with various smaller libraries, and fill in the gaps as needed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Facebook React is the answer IMO.

I used ExtJS heavily for years and identify with this post, I use React now and couldn't be happier. We had to build our own component library[1] (wrapping KendoUI widgets) but React makes it a breeze to take these primitives and build composites.

[https://github.com/wingspan/wingspan- forms](https://github.com/wingspan/wingspan-forms)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have worked with Ext JS for quite some time. Started with Ext JS 3.x and more recently Ext JS 5. Mostly large financial applications. Full disclosure that I am a proponent of Backbone, and Angular too. Right fit for the project.

Ext JS 3.x did what we needed it to do and did them well; grids. Lots of grids. Other than that it was kind of difficult to build a single page application without routing since Ext JS 3.x didn't have anything built-in, so we had to make our own. We used Ext JS 3.x less like a framework and more like a utility. There were some pain points around the REST aspects as well. Remote data with Ext JS can be difficult.

We found that after moving to Ext JS 4.x everything was more polished. The ability to theme with SASS, mixins, etc. The MVC pattern was a big plus. Performance was faster, and the integrated builds Sencha introduced with Sencha Command were excellent for automation. We still ran into problems with internationalization, which Ext JS 4.x does support in its own controls, but you have to roll your own for content. There were also some pain points again with remote data. Still much better than previous versions. Ext JS 5.x is building on the MVVM pattern and adding a number of great features. Migrating and upgrading to new versions is actually much more streamlined and automated.

One topic I want to point out that throughout any of the projects I worked on with Ext JS the remote data was always the pain point. Every single, time. On a large scale project usually teams are split up, UI, middleware, etc. We found that you had to design the REST endpoints carefully with the middleware team so that they worked well with what the Ext JS proxy expected. Like pagination for a simple example. You can customize and extend Ext JS of course, it is just we found bending Ext JS to meet another teams interpretation of how a REST endpoint worked was really difficult. Granted that comes down to communication, but even then I still saw problems. There are plenty of others on the Sencha forums.

I like Ext JS, I think Sencha has a mature product. Excellent support and a great community. Like any framework, it has pros and cons. I can't speak to Sencha Touch as I do native iOS, but I am sure it is similar as they share a lot of the same concepts.

Other frameworks like Angular, and Backbone I usually lean towards though as they are the groundwork, a foundation. They allow me or a team to build an application without getting in the way too much or dictating how.

<comment><USER20> > I think Sencha has a mature product. Excellent support and a great community

You mean the one or two people on the forums that answers 90% of the questions...that community?

Granted its been about 6 months since I looked...but thats how it was last I saw.

<comment><USER22> That one user "Condor" [http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?343-Condor](http://www.sencha.com/forum/member.php?343-Condor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My experience with ExtJS is that it is the best Component with MVC framework the javascript community has to provide, and is still years behind where Flex and Silverlight were in 2010.

</comment><comment><USER23> We've been replacing our ExtJS with AngularJS. Couldn't be happier with the decision.

I agree jQuery is too low level for a framework switch.

<comment><USER24> What are you using, if anything, to replace the UI components ExtJS provides?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I liked the part where he quotes himself

</comment><comment><USER26> When I used it, it was documentation hell. You would always need to delve into the source code.

</comment><comment><USER27> Background - I have been using ExtJS in production systems since before they started charging for it (remember yui-ext?) I have worked with all of their major releases and am now dabbling in ExtJS 5.

It is obvious that OP has great deal of experience in ExtJS and JavaScript and his nightmare points are valid for his use case. Here is what I think about his nightmare points -

1\. ExtJS shows an empty page if an error occurs somewhere - YES. This is a real nightmare. And no matter how much they try to make it 100% cross browser compatible, there ARE instances when the application will load in Firefox but not IE and vice-versa.

2\. Abuse of divs - I do not see how this is a problem if you are using ExtJS as an application framework and not just a component library within your bigger application. If you are using ExtJS as an application framework, you are letting ExtJS render to the body and never have to directly deal with DIVs except in some cases through some inspector to understand what you custom css should override. (This is also getting easier with theme customization support in Architect)

As far as load speed is concerned I don't see it as a major issue but my use is mostly enterprise applications where it is OK for an application to load and respond slightly slowly as long as the functionality is robust, "always works" and there is look and feel consistency among different applications - all of which ExtJS helps me with.

3\. Inline styles - This is not really an issue again for the same reason that if you are using ExtJS an application framework, you let it do whatever it wants to with the DOM. There is no reason to directly manipulate DOM and if you need to, you can always override or extend a component with a new/modified template that suits your needs. I do agree about the fluidity issue though but I feel it needs to be addressed at the framework level by providing more controls through the component/layout API. (flex attributes only help so much)

4\. Steep learning curve - Absolutely agree with this one. I have had the chance to work with developers new to ExtJS on multiple occasions. One thing I have found is that the learning curve is much less steep if (a) the developer has some level of javascript competence i.e. understands prototype, closures, etc. (b) Is willing to look at ExtJS as a FRAMEWORK with APIs and is humble enough to bookmark and use the API doc as often as necessary. It surprises me that so many otherwise good developers refuse to frequently access API documentation before asking questions.

5\. Licensing - Absolute nightmare. There was a big backlash against Sencha when they first introduced commercial licensing and thwarted the ability of other developers to develop commercial frameworks on top of extjs.

I am all for commercial licensing and heck (I was happy when they started charging for it), they should charge more if that's what will help keep their lights on and continue spending good effort on improving the product. But the problem with their commercial licensing is the built in "vagueness". Last I checked, a license is tied to a _particular developer_ and cannot be transferred to another developer so theoretically, each time a developer quits and you want to bring in another developer, you have to buy a new license.

Other two important pain points I face are -

1\. Support - The best support you can get is from other users on stackoverflow. Even there, approximately 5K out of 15K questions are unanswered (I don't know how that stacks up against SO average). To put things in perspective, I stopped answering questions actively about year ago but I just checked and I am still listed in the topusers page for extjs on SO.

2\. Toolchain - Architect and Cmd are good steps in the right direction but are not even scratching the surface of what a solid toolchain support should be like. I have a big wishlist for Architect and I believe Sencha Cmd is too much of a mess than it should be.

Overall, I am glad the framework exists, wish there were options out there but for single page enterprise web applications, I don't see any other rich js component framework worth abandoning ExtJS for.

</comment><comment><USER28> isn't comparing ExtJS with JQuery comparing apples and tomatos?

<comment><USER29> More like an apple and a tomato seed.

<comment><USER30> Or the Death Star and a tomato seed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> my experience with ExtJS 4 has been a nightmare</comment>


Going from MVP to a product based on GetBadges - <AUTHOR> https://getbadges.io/blog/getbadges-and-going-from-mvp-to-a-product <comment><USER2> Cool stuff !</comment>


Have a Mess of Ideas in Your Head? Create an Idea Bank - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2012/11/have-a-mess-of-ideas-in-your-h.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> It's a bit of blogspam, here's the link to the real article:

[http://lifehacker.com/5959742/how-can-i-turn-my-mess-of- idea...](http://lifehacker.com/5959742/how-can-i-turn-my-mess-of-ideas-into- something-organized-and-useful)</comment>


SpaceX and ULA win billions in Pentagon rocket contracts - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/spacex-and-ula-win-2022-pentagon-rocket-launch-contracts.html <comment><USER2> Did ULA actually do anything to deserve this or is this just to give a cut to some of the more traditional private contractors?

<comment><USER3> 139 successful launches with a 100% success rate.

Yeah, gee, if only they'd do something.

I'm all for competition bringing down ULA's prices, however to pretend they haven't done anything to deserve contracts, is obscene.

<comment><USER4> You beat me to it. "Move fast and break things" isn't the ethos your looking for when the payload cost billions.

<comment><USER5> That phrase refers to development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any win for ULA is a loss for taxpayers... Their entire business model is "take what you can get from a stupid/credulous customer (the federal government and it's pork barreling politicians)".

<comment><USER7> I don't really know anything about ULA or the space industry in general so I find this to be a particularly unhelpful comment. According to you, what makes their business model like this? Could you explain why this is fundamentally different from any other contractor?

<comment><USER8> The general answer is that you have up and coming companies like SpaceX (and maybe soon Blue Origin) who are pushing hard to reduce costs and be competitive, yet ULA, Boeing, Lockheed (ULA is Boeing and Lockheed actually) keep winning contracts where they offer less, but charge more.

And people are left wondering why? And then people begin to notice that those companies have lots of friends working at the Pentagon, NASA, etc. On the latest bids for the moon landers, a high ranking NASA official had to step down because it appears he leaked information about the bids directly to Boeing when it was clear they were going to lose this big contract[0].

Just look at the Commercial Crew program, where private companies bring astronauts to the ISS for NASA, Boeing is being paid 60% more per seat[1]. You would expect that means they're of higher quality- yet here we are in August 2020 and so far they've failed their no-humans-test-flight, while SpaceX has sent and returned two astronauts already.

The real question in my mind is why this latest contract with the Pentagon went 60% ULA, 40% SpaceX when it could just have easily done the 60-40 split the other way, saving a lot of taxpayer money while maintaining identical redundancy.

[0][https://www.space.com/boeing-moon-lander-nasa-doug- loverro-r...](https://www.space.com/boeing-moon-lander-nasa-doug-loverro- resignation.html)

[1][https://www.space.com/spacex-boeing-commercial-crew-seat- pri...](https://www.space.com/spacex-boeing-commercial-crew-seat-prices.html)

<comment><USER9> As has been pointed out in many posts to this thread, long before your post, there are still capabilities ULA offers that SpaceX doesn't. That includes vertical integration, which SpaceX will develop but currently doesn't have, and various fairing and launch site options. SpaceX has yet to achieve direct to GTO, and ULA have a better record of accurate insertion into the desired trajectory, that can be a big deal. ULA also has launch site options SpaceX doesn't have, specifically while F9 can launch from Vandenburg, Heavy cant yet and the time and cost fir that might nit make economic sense

Finally there are some mission profiles even Falcon Heavy isn't ideal for due to its RP1 fuelled upper stage. There are some missions where the extra Specific Impulse from a Hydrologist upper stage makes a difference.

So yes in the longer term many of these issues might be resolvable, but not all and this contract is for specific envisioned missions on a schedule and with known requirements, so nobody is making up numbers here. If it's 60/40 there will be reasons for that.

<comment><USER6> I'm not interested in the long term. I want my tax-paying parents to get a fair deal now. Government should work for the people, not for ULA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When the ULA Vulcan was first announced, the plan was the engines, which are 90% of the cost of the first stage, would be recoverable and reusable. The idea was the engine section would detach from the rest of the rocket, fall a ways and then a parachute would open, and finally it would be caught mid-air by a helicopter. The idea was this would help it compete on price with the Falcon 9.

However, according to the Wikipedia article on Vulcan, this has not been funded, and so the rocket is going to be fully disposable.

<comment><USER11> The Vulcan rocket has transitioned to using Blue Origins thrusters instead of inhouse development.

The first stage will be reusable (The Blue Shepherd launch vehicle from Blue Origin has now flown over 12 times, as of December using their BE-4 thrusters).

Vulcan is to be flown early next year.

<comment><USER12> The New Shepherd uses the BE-3.

The BE-4 the Vulcan will use has never flown.

ULA has never built a new launch system. Based on their track record early next year is optimistic.

ULA has no real plans for re-use, they've never even funded a test program for the SMART plan, and Blue Origin has never demonstrated propulsive landing capabilities for an orbital class booster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> SmarterEveryDay, United Launch Alliance factory visit, [https://youtu.be/o0fG_lnVhHw](https://youtu.be/o0fG_lnVhHw)

Earlier ULA video by SmarterEveryDay, [https://youtu.be/OdPoVi_h0r0](https://youtu.be/OdPoVi_h0r0)

</comment><comment><USER14> It's interesting to see how NASA has been slowly being privatized via these contracts. People used to be rooting for NASA and now they are rooting for a company that at the end of the day, will do as they please with the technology developed. Americans seem to prefer small government and 'offshore' everything to for-profit companies. In the future, what stops an American company from one day abandoning the USA to another country and leaving the USA without the infrastructure to do space travel anymore? (not familiar if there's regulation in place to stop this?) Or maybe this would just cause the price to rise in the USA for the same services.

<comment><USER15> This is a defense procurement program, NASA is not directly involved.

Claims that NASA is being "privatized" are a bit silly, it has relied on private sector suppliers for it's entire history. The shift from operating it's own rockets (like the Shuttle) is a very good thing and lowers cost through increased competition.

It would be better for NASA to spend money on research (like space probes) instead of operating the actual rockets.

<comment><USER14> Not sure how people are misreading the comment, but in an alternate world NASA would still have the capability to sell this same service to DoD. Since that's not the case, this void has been filled by private companies. Given that info, re-read my comment.

<comment><USER12> NASA isn't a private company. It's not selling launches to anyone. It's also not a good launch system designer, the Space Shuttle may have been the worst operational launch system design in the history of space flight.

NASA is a research and exploration organization. It can buy launches for far less than it would cost NASA to build them. Those savings mean more probes, more manned missions, more science.

The real solution is to have a half dozen or more companies competing in various segments of the launch business, leading to faster technical advancement and lowering costs. And we are getting close to that today. SpaceX, ULA, Electron, Orbital ATK on line now, with Blue Origin and another half dozen on the way.

And this has led to the greatest burst of innovation and economic improvements the launch business has seen since the 1960s. A Falcon 9 can lift almost as much payload as the Shuttle, at a cost forty times lower. We have the first reusable first stages landing themselves, rocket engines being cheaply mass produced on assembly lines, the first operational full flow rocket engine, the first satellite constellations bringing internet access everywhere in the world.

In testing right now is the first truly reusable launch system, which if successful will cut the cost of space access by another ten times, and launch the largest payloads in history.

It will also be used to make in space refueling commonplace, if it succeed in that it lowers the cost of access to the moon, Mars, and other deep space destinations by at least ten times more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hurray, more government money being laundered to pay master Elon and his gang.

Let's keep increasing taxes and keep printing more fiat money and give it to Elon Musk so that we can all be good slaves, giving him and his gang tangible goods and services in exchange for what is left of the magic green paper which the government gave to him for free; much of which he burned off into the void of space. Long live master Elon.

<comment><USER8> SpaceX charges _less_ than ULA for identical services.

If you're arguing that the Pentagon shouldn't launch satellites because it's expensive, that's a reasonable argument, sure. But if you're arguing that the Pentagon should pick the more expensive contractor because they aren't owned by a celebrity you don't like, that's kind of silly.

<comment><USER16> I'm saying don't send tax payer dollars to be burned into the void of space when that same money could be used to improve the quality of people's lives here on earth. For sure it's better to waste it efficiently than inefficiently. But even better to not waste it at all.

<comment><USER8> But consider the good that _has_ come from space.

GPS was a military project. Now we use it for everything from finding grandma's house to locating lost hikers.

The tech behind spy satellites is now used to monitor farming fields, increasing crop yields and reducing food costs. The same tech is used in telescopes like Hubble, teaching us so much about the universe and how nature works.

Most of the science on the ISS is impossible to _do_ on Earth. We're learning a lot about human health especially ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:International_Space_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:International_Space_Station_experiments)).

And it's not like the money gets burned or sent into space with the satellites. It's spent here on earth. A $1B contract with SpaceX doesn't just go into Elon's pocket and then he magics up a rocket. SpaceX employs thousands of people.

And space is a tiny fraction of the spending of all governments on the planet. Cut the military budget of the US by 10% and you could feed every hungry child, have a proper health care system, pay to reform the police system. Cut the budget spent on space, you wouldn't put a dent in those problems and you'd lose out on all the benefits we get.

<comment><USER16> I don't buy into the job creation dogma. The government could pay thousands of people to push a boulder up a mountain... Then these boulder pushers can use their salaries to pay for food, healthcare and accommodation... Are the cooks, doctors and builders on the other side of the deal getting a good deal here? No. the boulder pushers got something for nothing and so did the guy who manages the boulder pushers. Society is worse off because the boulder pushers could have used the same skills to harvest food, for example.

GPS and the Internet were both invented by military, so I get that point... But that was a different time, there were different kinds of people in charge and people had more principles. When was the last innovation from the military which served the public interest?

<comment><USER17> The defense sector is a big source of funding for basic scientific research. That stuff takes a while to pay off -- decades, usually. GPS and the Internet are old because of that; when they were more recent investments, they weren't useful (yet).

One of the more recent massive success stories is KeyHole, which became Google Maps. It was originally funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Connecticut town drive will collect and destroy violent video games - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/2/3828376/southington-connecticut-drive-to-destroy-violent-video-games

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting because most people like me have assumed that the next great debate about guns and technology would be about 3D printing, but it's interesting to see that some people still think there's a debate to be had about whether _artistic depictions_ of guns should be allowed.</comment>


Loopt (YC 2005) featured in iPhone TV ad - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teW0v-XpdVU

<comment><USER2> The icon for a game I wrote (Otis) appears briefly on the home screen in the ad, before they start Loopt!

</comment><comment><USER3> I was very excited for loopt, but it's actually pretty useless. There is no backgrounding of processes on the iPhone, meaning there is no push status updates.

That means a collection of what your friends are doing and where they are is usually weeks out of date. I have 30 friends in Loopt, all early adopter geeks with iphones. None have updated their status recently.

Add to this that it doesn't feed status in from twitter and facebook. You can push your loopt status to twitter though, making it a slightly cynical integration.

Part of the problem is the iphone and the walled garden. I'd love to see an unlocked iphone run loopt to constantly push my location.

<comment><USER4> When is the push-notification service that Apple talked about coming online? They'd have to go through Apple (and I don't know if they'll be charging), but it could work.

<comment><USER3> I think push/pull terms get confusing. Push often means servers can tell you something. Like push email is a notification that you have email.

What this requires is a frequent and periodic push to the servers from a background process. This means the app process setup needs to change, because in my understanding, the apps can't have running processes when you're not looking at them. They start fresh every time you open them.

Push email will probably come before persistent apps. It's also more compelling to apple because it would mean they could take a bigger chunk out of blackberry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, that's like twitter & facebook combined. And on steroids. That's a really scary app.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pretty cool. The ad was all about Loopt and they didn't even have to pay for it!

<comment><USER7> Can you justify that claim?

<comment><USER8> Considering how expensive national tv ads are I think its unlikely Loopt paid apple anything for them. Loopt seems to have a prety good relationship with Apple since they were featured at the Apple's developer conference keynote a few months back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> well done to those guys but that is one app i would never want to own. talk about a tag!

<comment><USER10> Loopt is strictly permissions based, and built to be secure from the ground up. You could, for example install it, along with a couple friends, to help locate each other at a concert or some big festival (this is really handy), and shut off broadcasting, or just ditch it later. It doesn't need to violate privacy; you have the ability to broadcast your location when you want to be found, and only to whom you want to be found by.

<comment><USER11> Do you not realise just how much fun it is to stand at one end of a stadium frantically waving for half an hour with your cellphone, trying to locate other people you know?

Talk about taking the fun out of it!

<comment><USER10> It's not one of my favorite games, I have to say. :-p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The song, if anyone is interested, is by The Submarines, it's called "You Me and the Bourgeoisie": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYvt0boSRXQ>

</comment><comment><USER11> How does loopt make money from this? Does the app cost?

<comment><USER4> The app does not cost money.

I don't know what Loopt's business model is but I would imagine a location- aware mobile ad platform would be pretty valuable.

<comment><USER11> If they can get people to use it, and get them to put up with ads, perhaps.

It's as if "location-aware" is some magic buzz word these days.

<comment><USER4> You can call it a magic buzz word, but I think it's common sense. There's a whole existing segment of the offline advertising market that is built around marketing things close to you. Meanwhile, people routinely use their smartphone to look for places to eat, things to do, places to buy things, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Heh...just saw that on TV. They're running it every ten minutes on certain cable channels.

</comment><comment><USER14> That is a very cool way to have your product demoed (and reach the mainstream masses).

</comment><comment><USER15> I still have yet to meet any East Coasters who use Loopt (how twitterish). Hopefully this changes soon.

<comment><USER16> I think facebook status updating is the twitter for the masses.

<comment><USER12> Which is unfortunate because Facebook is kind of a walled garden :-/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks cool. I just wish it was available for the iPod touch as well.

<comment><USER18> No GPS on iPod Touch.

<comment><USER19> They could use a Wifi hotspot database or allow users to manually specify their location.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best resources to create an LLC/Incorporate? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to form an LLC as a parent company for all of my side projects. What are some of the resources HNers use to do these things? Do you do it by yourself? Do you pay a service like LegalZoom? <comment><USER4> I recently set up a LLC in California using Nolo's $99 online service (could have figured it all out myself but didn't want to spend time):

\- First get a federal EIN number online (free, self-service) for the LLC. \- When filing out the Nolo form, use your virtual mailing address as this will be public record. I signed up for Virtual Post Mail at $10/month. \- When filing out the Nolo form, answer "I already have a registered agent". If you use Virtual Post mail, your subscription includes free registered agent service. If you answer no and agree to use their service partner Incorporate.com, it'll cost you $235/year.

+1 Create a business checking account so your personal vs. business financial records are kept separate.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget to pay the $800/year CA LLC fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read a bunch of Nolo Press books [0], talked to accountants and did a whole lot of research. Then I downloaded the forms and discovered it was particularly easy to create an LLC in my home state.

The tricky things to remember are to get an EIN from the IRS (it's free) [1] and to create a bank / credit union account for the business (free at my credit union).

[0] [http://www.nolo.com/](http://www.nolo.com/)

[1] [https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employe...](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employed/apply-for-an-employer-identification-number-ein-online)

</comment><comment><USER7> If anyone has any Canada-specific suggestions along these lines I'd be interested to hear them.

<comment><USER8> > obligatory "IANAL" note

There's no equivalent to LLC's in Canada so you'll need to create a corporation up here. You can incorporate in the federal jurisdiction or a provincial one; you'll want to read the relevant acts that you'd be incorporating under to figure out the differences. BC corporations, for example, require at least one director to be a BC resident; federal for-profit corporations, on the other hand, require 25% of the board to be Canadian citizens.

I created a federal corporation in Canada last year, mainly relying on the info and "how-to" guides on Corporations Canada's website to educate myself: [http://corporationscanada.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cd- dgc.nsf/eng/h...](http://corporationscanada.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cd- dgc.nsf/eng/home)

I also went through the Canada Business Corporations Act and Not-for-profit Corporations Act a few times; they lay out the bureaucratic details you need to be aware of.

The most awkward part was opening a US-based bank account afterward; BMO Harris was one of very few US banks I came across that was willing to talk shop with a Canadian company (I'd love to hear if anyone knows of any other foreign company-friendly US banks).

If you name yourself as the only director and shareholder (or voting member, in the case of a nonprofit), you still have to hold board and shareholder/member meetings but they'll be very straightforward since you'll be their only attendee. _Definitely_ consult with a lawyer if you're contemplating a voting structure that extends beyond yourself or the directors.

For creating a nonprofit in particular, you may be able to get pro-bono legal advice through an organization like Access Probono ([http://accessprobono.ca](http://accessprobono.ca)). Corporations Canada also offers a super-useful By-law Builder tool which gives you "sane defaults" for the corporation's structure: [https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cd- dgc.nsf/eng/h_cs04734.html](https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cd- dgc.nsf/eng/h_cs04734.html)

<comment><USER9> I've been reading up about this - why do companies setup provincial corps when they could be setting up federal corps (as in, it costs $100 more and there seem to be no downsides last I checked)?

Also, how do you manage taxes? (especially for revenue earned from other countries for example).

<comment><USER8> I see federal incorporation as a "sane default" but this is what I know that favours provincial incorporation:

\- The bureaucratic details differ between the various provincial jurisdictions and the federal one (like the one I mentioned with requirements for the makeup of the board). This could make a particular province's corporate rules a better fit for your business than the federal ones.

\- That provincial incorporation is cheaper can matter for local businesses that have no intention of expanding nationally.

\- Some provinces may require corporations from other jurisdictions (other provinces or the federal jurisdiction) to "register extraprovincially" to operate there, at extra cost. This is avoided by incorporating locally.

\- If your business name is already taken by a provincial corporation in another province, you may have an easier time creating a provincial corporation by the same name than a federal one.

 __*

> obligatory "I'm not an accountant or tax expert" note

Taxes... I'm still figuring those out but CRA allows corporations to file in USD [1]. To the best of my knowledge, a Canadian corporation that only has Canada-resident employees and shareholders, and doesn't own property or servers in other countries, only has to deal with Canadian taxes. Expect to fill out a few W-8BEN-E forms to assert this. Depending on what your company does, you may have to charge your Canadian users sales tax.

[1] [http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/crprtns/fnctcrncy/men...](http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/crprtns/fnctcrncy/menu-eng.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my state you just need to file simple articles of incorporation with the Sec. of State and then keep up an annual fee. (If there are multiple people involved, you probably want to get them looked over by a lawyer in case disputes arise). The fees can vary significantly depending on the state you file in (NY and CA have especially high fees, since so many companies must incorporate there).

Other than that you usually need a local address (which can be yours if you incorporate in the state you live). A bank account is useful to show a separation between business assets and personal assets should you ever need the 'limited-liability' part in court.

The major thing is that you pick a structure that does what you want (LLC versus C or S Corp, etc), and that you understand the tax implications. The IRS and other folks have circulars on that as well as employer tax guides, etc.

The SoS of the state you want to file in will probably have more information on the requirements.

</comment><comment><USER11> Clerky [https://www.clerky.com](https://www.clerky.com) seems to be pretty good and straight forward.

<comment><USER12> Clerky is great for creating a Delaware C Corp (if you intend to raise funding in the near future), but I wouldn't suggest this for a small side project, because a C Corp plus related paperwork is a lot more expensive than an LLC in your home state.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah exactly, thanks for pointing this out. I'm specifically focused on LLCs because they are single-man operated side projects with passive income. I maintain each one only a couple of days per month, at this point.

That being said, Clerky is an excellent choice for those looking to form a C Corp in Delaware and focus on their startup full-time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used LawTrades[0] to find someone to do it for me. This included the post incorporation stuff such as the company bylaws, stock purchase agreements, and other stuff.

[0] [https://www.lawtrades.com](https://www.lawtrades.com)

</comment><comment><USER14> Go cheapest way: file directly local LLC + an account at a credit union.

</comment><comment><USER15> You probably want a lawyer or accountant to walk you through the process if you're doing any significant volume. Don't use LegalZoom -- they aren't technically providing legal counsel; they're providing "guidance," which won't help you at all if someone comes after you (they're not liable for poor counseling, etc.)

It's worth asking your accountant/counsel if you should consider setting up a LLC that files taxes as a corporation. You probably only want to do this if you are able to pay yourself a consistent, set payroll (I'm not a lawyer or accountant, but I can speak from experience that this is one of the cases where filing in this manner is not helpful, and will actually be detrimental).

While it's easy to create an LLC, it's very easy to create one that can be broken through if someone wants to come after you. Pony up the $200 or so to talk to a proper lawyer with experience setting up corporate entities, even if you only have them tell you what to do on your own.

</comment><comment><USER16> Disclaimer: I work for this company, however my comments and opinions are my own.

I used Launch by Legalshield[0]. It's like the LegalZoom option, but they do provide legal counsel. After you signup, the member lawyer of your region calls you to finalize the documents and ensure everything's sorted. I paid around $460 overall for the formation, agent, and all the documents neatly organized in a binder with a really nice rubber logo stamper. Every step has some information to the right to help explain the process, and if you get it wrong, your member lawyer should catch it pretty easily.

Again, I work for them, but it's both not my project in the company, I don't receive anything special for saying good things about it, and I really did like the flow. So I might be biased, but I do highly recommend it.

[0]: [http://launch.legalshield.com/](http://launch.legalshield.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> You should get Patrick (patio11) to weigh in. I think he's doing work in this very space, for Stripe.

<comment><USER18> Happy to do so.

Longer thoughts here: [https://stripe.com/atlas/guide#incorporation](https://stripe.com/atlas/guide#incorporation)

Short thoughts: in my official capacity I have to tell you that this is a legal question and you should talk to your qualified professional advisors, but unofficially, let me observe that you can form a sole member LLC in Nevada or Wyoming approximately as easy as buying a book from Amazon. You don't need to pay any expediter to do this; both of them have web apps that will walk you through it.

If you want to incorporate a Delaware C corp, perhaps because you want to raise investment, you can use Atlas. If anyone on HN needs an invite drop me an email (this username @stripe.com would work) and hum a few bars as to your situation; I'd be happy to help.

<comment><USER19> Second this, though also not a lawyer advice...

Wyoming LLC.

Find a local agent, best bet use BizFilings to do papers if you hit snags, they provide legal help to resolve. Smooth, just use wyoming's site.

You may want BizFilings to maintain recurring filings and local agent address for you, or you can do recurring WY filing online and get cheap local agent.

Nice reasons to use Wyoming, just google. Think carefully about name and address steps, you don't have to be popping up in every public DB.

Citi let me do a biz acct with just the above.

Then, do yourself a favor and get insured. I like Hiscox, via [http://www.techinsurance.com](http://www.techinsurance.com).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been looking at Stripe Atlas. For $500 (early access) they do all the paperwork for you, but that's for a C-Corp. I'd also be interesting in resources for other types of businesses, as I'm not sure which direction I want to go in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Atlas is probably excellent for a startup filing a C-Corp in Delaware - I just want an LLC since I have passive side project revenue and want to parent all of them and funnel it all down into a single structure for simplicity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Find a local lawyer.

Beyond that; look for specific information in your state. My state, Connecticut, has a government web site that gives you step by step instructions on setting up a company in the state; including what paperwork to file and how to get taxID Numbers...

</comment><comment><USER22> Just wanted to say that all you US-based people are very lucky having all these "starerpacks" companies (Atlas etc.) that handle all the messy parts and paperwork for you.

Incorporating a limited-liability business in Germany is hell.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like an excellent opportunity for a legal startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You should consider an S Corp instead of an LLC. In California, you have to pay an $800 franchise fee every year. It's significantly cheaper for an S Corp and any revenue can be passed to your personal income tax.

<comment><USER24> This is very weird that LLC is so expensive in Cali, the land of statups. In good ole Indiana, it is ~$93 to form an LLC and much less to maintain it. Illinois was not that much more.

<comment><USER25> A lot of startups incorporate in Delaware instead of California.

<comment><USER24> If you live in Cali, doesn't that mean you also need to incorp in cali as a foreign entity? I don't think its either home state OR Delaware.. its home stand AND Delaware. And then yes, you get some Delaware legal things on your side, but you are paying more.

<comment><USER26> If you (as a corporation/LLC) do business in a state but are incorporated elsewhere, you generally need to register as a foreign corporation in the state you are doing business in. This often involves franchise fees similar to opening a corporation/LLC in the state. But you only, strictly speaking, incorporate in one place (unless you want a subsidiary incorporated elsewhere for some reason.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Which country/state are you in ? If in the United States, I recommend finding a good local accountant/CPA who can help. Usually, for any projects that hopefully bring in revenues, you will need a good accountant to help with taxes etc on a recurring basis. Better to find a good one upfront and then work with them.

The problem with using generic services is that they may work fine in the beginning but you may end up contacting an accountant anyway for best advice on tax and planning. Yes, even for side projects that bring in some money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I usually go to TurboTax for accounting needs on a personal and side project basis, since I'm fairly literate in tax processes and personal/side project income isn't very complicated. Any personal experience on a local accountant being better for you than a service like TurboTax?

<comment><USER28> Are your side projects generating money from app stores or selling directly to your users? If selling direct, how do people handle the EU VAT stuff with a US based company? (assuming sales to the EU countries)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I had the same problem and just did the paperwork myself.

I am in California so this information will only apply to people there. Obligatory, I am not a lawyer.

Pre steps:

\- pick a name that is available: [https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/](https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/)

\- Register the domain name you are going to use

\- Get a mailbox (like one at the UPS store, NOT a PO Box!) to use as your business address so you will not have to use your home address if it bothers you.

Now, for the real stuff -

1) Get a registered agent (even if you want to do it yourself, I recommend getting one anyway). I used freeregisteredagent.com for 1 year free. Required before you file the next step.

2) File an LLC-1 ([http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf](http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-1.pdf)) articles of organization. It requires a $70 filing fee, send off the form and $70 money order.

3) Grab an EIN from the IRS: [https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses- self-employe...](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employed/apply-for-an-employer-identification-number-ein-online)

4) Wait for the Secretary of State of send a copy of the file articles of organization (form LLC-1). Now, file a Statement of Information, form LLC-12: [http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-12.pdf](http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-12.pdf) This is due within 90 days of the file date (on the filed LLC-1 form) All the information here will become public information. Send that in to the SoS with a $20 money-order and wait.

5) Use your filed articles of organization, the EIN you got in step 3, and a state issued personal ID to get a bank account. US Bank and CapitalOne Spark have free checking accounts for business, you can also try a credit union as local ones have them for free.

6) Look for any local licenses you need, some cities require business licenses, some require a "Business Operation Tax" (BOT) certificate - <USER2> your city or county website(s). CalGold is useful: [http://www.calgold.ca.gov/](http://www.calgold.ca.gov/)

7) Conduct business, keep records, etc

Recurring items:

\- An $800 minimum tax is due every year to the state of California.

\- You must file a new LLC-12 (if the information has changed) or an LLC-12NC (if nothing about your LLC has changed) biannually (every two years).

See all forms here: [http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business- entities/fo...](http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business- entities/forms/#llc)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.

<comment><USER29> Glad it was of help :) Good luck to you.

Because I am impatient, I found this page to further fuel my silent rage against the time it take for the state to process anything: [http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business- entities/pr...](http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business- entities/processing-times)

I got my copy of LLC-1 returned to me 8 business days after they stated they had processed it. Your LLC will show up in the business search the next day after they processed yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's worth asking if you really need an LLC/Corp. Find a good tax person, and see what they recommend. To find a good tax person, ask a few business people who they use and recommend.

I formed an LLC a couple times, and both times I probably shouldn't have bothered until the business could pay for the fees, and an official entity offered me something a sole proprietorship couldn't.

</comment><comment><USER30> I work for a company that specializes in incorporation and compliance services. We have a free information center that contains a lot of information and guides that people may find helpful: [https://www.harborcompliance.com/information](https://www.harborcompliance.com/information)

</comment><comment><USER31> A qualified legal professional, a qualified accounting professional, and SCORE (Service Council of Retired Executives).

</comment><comment><USER32> Depends on your state. I live in Florida and everyone I know personally who lives here and has started a company use sunbiz ( which is state specific ) maybe your state has it's own specific website? Otherwise there are multiple options available.

</comment><comment><USER33> I used [https://www.vcorpservices.com/](https://www.vcorpservices.com/) to form an S Corp and found them to be very good.

</comment><comment><USER34> Check out valcu.co (founded by a former Gunderson Dettmer attorney). You can set up a venture capital ready C Corp for $19. It also has amazing document automation tools.

<comment><USER24> Great, then he gets to pay double tax on all of his side project income - <USER3> deal with the fun of things like having a board?

If you aren't PLANNING FOR SURE to get investment.. C corp is a pretty awful thing to voluntarily subject yourself to.

<comment><USER35> IANAL and don't have a C Corp, but doesn't that depend a lot on how you're being paid?

I know "double taxation" is the bogeyman and is undoubtedly an issue in some cases, but for truly small setups of expect taxes to either be passed through S-Corp style or for larger businesses to be low because a lot of income may be offset by expenses (e.g. paying a salary or wage for time spent).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> LegalZoom is a fine way to get started. It's not that expensive and they will do it correctly. Best to not waste too much time on it and focus on the business.

</comment><comment><USER37> I went to a local accountant since they "know all the rules." Got incorporated as a NY C-Corp for less than $1000

</comment><comment><USER38> Clerky is who YC uses to form c corporations.

</comment><comment><USER39> Just you? Partners? If the former, a single member LLC is very simple to set up in many states.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just me for side projects that generate a passive revenue. From what I can tell, the process seems fairly straight forward, but I ask because there are always caveats that people with experience learn from that I might be able to avoid.

<comment> shawn-butler You might investigate a "Series LLC" if you want separation of your multiple independent projects.

Series LLC is not available in all states and is fairly new but it allows for a master or an umbrella LLC and other LLCs which are separated from each other for liability purposes.

Each LLC has assets separate from the others, while the master LLC controls all the LLCs in the series. Each unit has its own owners (members) and is liable only for its own debts and obligations. A series LLC can be thought of as a corporation with several subsidiaries.

<comment><USER34> You can accomplish the same thing by creating a subsidiary LLC with its sole member as the Parent LLC. As a wholly owned subsidiary, it is a disregarded entity for tax purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What's the consensus about doing this in Texas? Anyone been through it that can advise?

</comment><comment><USER41> Using the internet is harder than setting up a LLC.

Lawyers for this kind of thing cater to people that would also find it hard to use the internet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I've gathered it's probably pretty straight forward. I only ask because I've never set up an LLC before (been involved with many C corp setups), and I can guarantee I'll miss something that someone here could point out to me from their own experience.</comment></comment>