Ask HN: How much does a senior engineer get at startup - <AUTHOR>

equity wise that is.. both pre-series A vs post-series A <comment><USER2> Not a lot.

The founders get it all and later parcel out pieces to others, with investors taking the huge chunks.

I'd say you're looking at some figure between 0.2% and 4.0% depending on when you sign.

There's also a big difference in having shares or options. Then there's the dilution factor to take into account when new shares are issued (unless you have anti-dilution agreements in contract).

If you have to ask this question at all, you're probably new to the game.

It always boils down to 'it depends'. Every situation is different. Ask around and everybody will tell you something different. Most of them will give you very stupid and aggressive advice.

If the startup was founded yesterday and has no tech but you already have it and are bringing it in to the company you're in a very different position than where you're being brought in as the person who might be able to develop it.

Ask around (like you're doing here) and decide what you want out of the deal. Do you want a decent salary? A position where you can do some new work and vastly broaden your experience? Maybe you want to take a gamble on a web startup that maybe, just maybe will make you rich in a few years (or more likely - out of a job with no savings if things don't pan out)?

Lots of factors to consider. Get some feedback and mull it all over is my advice.

</comment><comment><USER3> 34.9%

Not really, questions like this can never be answered directly; it depends on number of co-founders, what each person is/has contributed work and capital wise, what is the definition of senior engineer, what the investors want, ... so many factors.

<comment><USER4> I know you just picked a random number, but to be clear, it's wayyyy high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Generally speaking, you should get a stock allocation equivalent to the value you will add to the team. If you are adding a 5% net increase in the value, you should get a 5% stock option allocation.

Most likely you will be looking at numbers in the range of .25%-1%, give or take a bit. This will also depend on the total number of engineers likely to be hired during that funding round, and the background of the founders (founders who are more experienced will generally not give as much stock as founders who are less experienced).

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html>

You can read the article as a reference. But, the real answer is:

It depends.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's some data on VentureHacks, but really it depends.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's hard to tell. For salary info go to: glassdoor.com

</comment><comment><USER9> As much as that senior engineer is able to acquire through skillful negotiation, probably not exceeding 1-2% in a company on the VC track.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a senior developer in a start up, I'll have to say good enough. But then again it depends on the founders' attitude a lot.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you actually have to ask this question ... stay corporate.</comment>


Two Android Apps that Apple Would Never Approve - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appboy.com/2010/01/two-android-apps-that-apple-would-never-approve/ I always get a kick out of Android apps that would never be a approved by Apple if it was an iPhone app. <comment><USER2> The author describes the Android virtual keyboard as being inferior to Apple's, and spends two paragraphs talking about how he could not locate a _known_ replacement keyboard application "Better Keyboard" ($2.99) in either the Android Market or through Google search, concluding with "Long story short, I ended up finding the app and using it." It's not clear how he did so, as the link to the app in the review only goes to another page on the same site.

To me, this says a lot about Android--where it is, where it is going, and what it has to offer users and developers alike.

<comment><USER3> I believe his account is somewhat outdated: when you search for "Better Keyboard" on the Market--at least in Android 1.6--the first thing that comes up is the app. But I do remember a time when what he said was true and finding the app on the Market was difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not the best examples: the keyboard and SMS funcionality on the iPhone don't really need fixing to begin with...

<comment><USER5> To you, perhaps. The bigger point is you're able to replace that functionality on Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cute apps. I'm more interested in the usability problems of the Android market that he brushed on.</comment>


The Empirical Economics of Online Attention - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2807046 <comment><USER2> This is central to the paper, but it helps to get a sense of the actual numbers:

"...those with incomes greater than $100,000 spend 835 minutes of time online per week while those with incomes less than $15,000 spend 979 minutes of time online. A similar monotonicity appears in 2013."

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know if this study accounts for the shift from web to native apps?

"...in 2008, Chat is by far the largest category, attracting over 25% of households' attention; however, this category saw a dramatic shift by 2013, dropping to less than 2% in 2013."

<comment><USER4> It does not. Dataset is from comscore, see the comscore website, and comscore is unable to track the click-stream of native apps. If it did, that would raise many security issues.

<comment><USER5> Looks like they have mobile SDKs that interested developers could hook into, presumably they would also track aggregated numbers from that: [http://www.comscore.com/applicationsdk](http://www.comscore.com/applicationsdk)

Probably only happens for apps with events that require third party verification, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> tldr;

The higher the income, the less time spent online. More income generally means less free time, less time at work to screw around, and vice versa.

<comment><USER7> Have you never worked a menial job? If anything there's a direct correlation between pay and opportunities to spend time on social media.

<comment><USER8> The data is in direct opposition to your assumption. Individuals with incomes below $15,000 spend more time online than those with incomes above $100,000.

<comment><USER9> The study only measured home use. We can't use it to draw conclusions about how people in different income brackets use their time at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Patterns of attention distribution across sites are -- contrary to existing theory -- stable across certain variables.

</comment><comment><USER11> tldr;

Online attention varies by household income.

<comment><USER12> That's great. How does it vary?

<comment><USER13> RTFP

<comment><USER14> A TLDR maybe should tell you that. Otherwise, it becomes a TSDSA (Too Short, Didn't Say Anything).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I haven't finished reading the paper, but the use of the word 'inferior' early on caught my eye & tickled my spidey sense.

"The monotonic negative relationship between income and total time suggests online attention is an inferior good."

To my eyes, this seems to be drawing a causal conclusion, and implying a negative judgement. I might be mis-interpreting use of the word 'inferior' here, but later in the paper, references to inferior seem less sensational to me.

"we also observe "attention inferiority," decline in the amount of online attention with higher income."

"We find further evidence for persistent attention inferiority, namely, that higher income households spend less total time online per week."

Those seem to say inferior == less, whereas the first one seems to suggest that the Internet is less valuable to higher income people. Am I off base?

"We are limited in our ability to draw conclusions about the total time spent online by a household across all devices, and we possess no information about which household member spent time on the PC in multi-dweller households."

So, they make a lot of noise about higher incomes spending less time online, and yet one possible explanation is that higher income families have more devices and spend time online simultaneously, whereas lower income families have to serialize their use.

<comment><USER15> It's a term of art. From Wikipedia[1]: "In economics, an inferior good is a good that decreases in demand when consumer income rises (or rises in demand when consumer income decreases), unlike normal goods, for which the opposite is observed."

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good)

<comment><USER2> Okay, yes, I misinterpreted. Thanks!

I'm still curious whether a decrease in demand has been demonstrated without tracking who in the household is online.

"A possible concern about our finding of persistent attention distribution is that the measures of online attention allocation may be strongly driven by a household's total time online on the home device."

The very concept of a single home device feels like an assumption. In my household, the kids each have their own device. We tend to all go online on separate devices at the same time, and then to all be offline when we're spending time together.

<comment><USER4> According to the paper, there's a decrease in demand by the primary home device for activities trackable by comscore. This is the data used (not technically an assmption). I do not see the paper claiming more than this.

The conclusions do not apply to aggregate demand from all device types. Only certain types of activities are tracked.

My personal opinion is that the inferiority of online time is due to the increase in use of and substitution to additional devices and apps that were not tracked in the dataset - and a higher income better affords such alternative devices, apps, and their data plans.

<comment><USER2> Yes, exactly - I agree with your opinion and was suspecting the same, that substituting additional devices may explain the results.

But if untracked devices are responsible, or simultaneous online usage by multiple household members is responsible, then doesn't that mean it's possible that online time is not an inferior good? Couldn't it even be opposite of that, that higher income households are actually online more than lower income, because they have more devices, and don't use the primary home device? It seems likely to me that the idea of a primary home device applies more to, and affects more people in lower income households.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Keep the NSA Out of Your Computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/mesh-internet-privacy-nsa-isp

<comment><USER2> I remember trying to build one of these in Argentina and the CNC (our FCC) shutting it down. As it turns out the government-sanctioned telco duopoly (telefonica/telecom) not only had rights to all landlines but also the frequency where Wifi works meaning that by providing this service I was infringing their rights.

Back then I was still in highschool and didn't have any idea of all this cronyism, but now its obvious the Argentine system is disruption-proof, the _bad way_ though.</comment>


Here's why Raphael.js and SVG totally rock. - <AUTHOR> http://www.trottercashion.com/2010/04/22/i-heart-raphael.html

<comment><USER2> I have found myself using jQuery SVG more. This link shows what other people think of the two:

      http://stackoverflow.com/questions/588718/jquery-svg-vs-raphael

The version of Raphael I used at one point had to be in complete control from object 1 and could not import SVGs. So let's say I generate an SVG via graphviz and then want to make some of the nodes interactive (or at least animate). I get a good amount of tweening via the jQuery interface, including the ability to load up the externally created SVG.

Anyway, for comparison, here is the jQuery SVG interface:

      http://keith-wood.name/svg.html

Why have I used the SVG? It animates smoother in HTML4 on iPhone's Safari and on my linux distro's Firefox than when I tried canvas manipulations.

More recently, I noticed the HTML5 canvas stuff being smooth for both. Still, the benefit of the SVG is having the ability to treat each object as its own DOM element, where you have to rig all that framework yourself for graphical objects you create on the canvas.

<comment><USER3> I agree - I tried Raphael but actually found it a bit limiting. I can live without IE support (I can use Flex for that) so jQuery SVG looked like the better choice.

The only criticism I could make of jQuery SVG is that the docs often assume that you know a lot about SVG, but that is pretty minor.

<comment><USER4> I find that it is true in general. It seems too hard to learn about svg.

<comment><USER3> I've found that pretty much everything you would want to know about is documented - just not all in one place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's also gRaphael specifically for charting: <http://g.raphaeljs.com/>

Also, the article mentions that IE doesn't support the <canvas> tag. While this is true, you only need to add the excanvas JS library to use <canvas> in IE.

<comment><USER6> I've worked with gRaphael. it's still immature, and the code base is still immature. I'd look at protovis before taking a look at gRaphael.

However, I do wish that protovis is based on Raphael and jQuery.

<comment><USER7> define immature

<comment><USER6> you couldn't put y-axis tick mark labels on bar graphs, to start.

<comment><USER8> I'd second this. We've been using GRaphael for the reporting graphs on MinuteDock, and we had to manually hack in a bunch of things - like rotating the labels on the x-axis correctly if they were too long, and even drawing both axes on some graph types.

It's worth the effort though - works on iPhone/iPad out of the box, and is super snappy even on OS X (unlike most Flash charting solutions, including Google Viz.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've used Raphael and Processing.js, have to say I liked Raphael a lot better. Coding was more intuitive, and the performance seemed a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER10> When is this stuff coming to Android? I want it, now! It would be perfect for an Android game idea I had, but it doesn't appear to work. I _could_ just write it in Java I guess...

<comment><USER11> It's already in the web browser.

<comment><USER12> No it's not - unlike iPhone, Android WebKit does not have SVG support.

<comment><USER13> Accidentally voted you down - sorry (last time I try to do that mobile before zooming down).

I did want to add though: does anyone know why this is, or if it's slated for a future (2.2?) release?

<comment><USER12> I've believe it's because SVG support is still listed as experimental in WebKit; there are 258 SVG bugs listed on WebKit's Bugzilla: [https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?product=WebKit&compo...](https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?product=WebKit&component=SVG&resolution=---)

<comment><USER13> That definitely explains it. If I wasn't primarily a JS developer I'd probably delve in and help fix it :) Really want SVG support on my N1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone have any comparison between this and flot or jqPlot? I'm going to be implementing client-side graphs on my site, preferably using JSON as my data format, and I'm trying to make sure I'm on the "right side of history."

</comment><comment><USER15> Raphael.js definitely rocks. I've finished a little coding project (it's a visualisation of an algorithm; didn't release it yet, though) and it was really a pleasure to work with the framework. You can do really a lot of cool things with it. The demos on the Raphael.js page are also quite impressive, and run pretty fluid on almost every browser (my project runs pretty fast in Chrome, but loses it a little bit in IE, perhaps because of the layer added by excanvas). That said, I have to admit that I love Raphael.js, too. It's surely not the last time that I've worked with it.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Definitely take note of the fact that jQuery can be used to manipulate the > svg nodes.

This makes interaction with sprites pretty neat when you attach events to them.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great link! I have looked into using SVG for mapping applications. It would simplify development of mapping apps. However, size of a country map with some detail can be pretty big, around 2Mb so it wouldn't play well on e.g. mobile apps where the vectors could come to use. Anyway, there are many free maps here to play with <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_maps>

</comment><comment><USER18> One of the things that has been missing from RaphaelJS that annoyed me was the arrow function. They even mention it in their documentation, but as an empty function. I finally got my version working so I will hopefully post it on HN later tonight. Lots of math involved, probably why it was never done in the first place!

</comment><comment><USER19> I have seen that before in another language, the box read: "click here for your bonus". Jokes aside, that's pretty good for so little code. Well documented too. Makes the previous language it was written in look like a slug.

</comment><comment><USER20> I really hope SVG finds its place in the new HTML5 wave. I would hate to see it die

<comment><USER21> SVG is currently supported in all major browsers except IE, and SVG 1.1 support is slated for IE9. (AFAIK, Chrome Frame also supports SVG, as a stopgap for pre-9 IE.)

It would seem that SVG has a bright future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't be the only one disturbed that the standard for graphics online is roughly the same as the standard for graphics on the desktop twenty some years ago.

Oh, sweet, a moving square.

<comment><USER6> Yes, a moving square, from a couple lines of code, that can be easily changed to a twirly throbbing square, and can be shown on anyone's computer or mobile phone in the world by sharing a URL.

To get a moving square on the desktop twenty years ago took more lines of code, arguably harder to change to a twirly throbbing square, and usually copied to disk (or emailed) to show someone else by sharing the executable that may or may not run.

<comment><USER23> A moving square, from a couple lines of code, distributed to millions of computers, smart phones, other devices running various operating systems and zillions of different hardware configurations.

The last part is stunning and does not exist outside of browsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does Adobe Flash support exporting to SVG? Adobe should capitalize on all this SVG hype and make an advanced animated SVG / javascript editor, because there aren't any right now AFAIK.

<comment><USER17> I hear there are some tools for converting, but never used one. Try a search after swf2svg

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Assuming you don't care about IE, what's the Pros/Cons for SVG vs Canvas? Canvas seems to be pretty nice from what I've used it for so far...

<comment><USER26> Canvas is significantly faster for animation: <http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2010/03/22/>

It is also more likely to get faster in the future, as browsers might implement GPU acceleration for it. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for GPU acceleration for SVG, since SVG is not as easily mapped to drawing primitives, like Canvas is.

<comment><USER3> What makes you say that? SVG is pretty much standard drawing primitives wrapped in a XML-based syntax.

<comment><USER26> Not exactly. SVG syntax describes a scene, it does not draw on screen directly.

When you animate an SVG image, you update the DOM. The browser then needs to parse the DOM (attributes) again, then clear the screen and draw each element again. This is a lot more work than just mapping the drawing primitives of Canvas to the lower-level GPU functions.

Check this presentation for the two technologies compared in terms of how much work is required for animation: [http://www.slideshare.net/madrobby/i-cant- believe-its-not-fl...](http://www.slideshare.net/madrobby/i-cant-believe-its- not-flash)

<comment><USER3> Ah OK - good point

I guess it's good to have the choice though - for some things Canvas looks a good choice, for others SVG is better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's definitely good to keep SVG in mind, despite <canvas>'s new popularity (as the author said). They each have their strengths.

</comment><comment><USER28> The API seems quite simple and intuitive at first glance.

</comment><comment><USER29> great library, here are links for learning more: <http://delicious.com/popular/raphael>

</comment><comment><USER30> This is why I come to Hacker News!

<comment><USER31> This would not be the number one story on any other site like this on the internet.

<comment><USER32> It's been on the front page of the programming reddit many, many times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> have anyone used highcharts? how does it compare?</comment>


Focus, Not Fury: What Entrepreneurs can learn from lifting weights  - <AUTHOR> http://scrivle.com/2010/09/15/focus-not-fury/

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it's all about pacing yourself; having balance.

Don't expect to get to the end goal without moderation. You'll end up going too hard and for too long. Burn out happens and momentum dies comes along with it.

Though, if you're Kai Greene you're powered by rage all the time. [http://rosstraining.com/blog/2010/08/05/kai-greene-the- rage-...](http://rosstraining.com/blog/2010/08/05/kai-greene-the-rage-speech/)</comment>


New Uppy 22.0 Holiday release - <AUTHOR> https://uppy.io/blog/2017/12/0.22/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here - Uppy in a nutshell: no jQuery, JS-generated UI, easy uploads to S3 or the app, progress bar, resumable file uploads via tus.io, aware of encoding backends, react/redux support, form encapsulation, modular architecture, import from webcam/instagram/google drive support.

<comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Will consider it!</comment></comment></comment>


In China Trade War, Apple Worries It Will Be Collateral Damage - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/technology/apple-tim-cook-china.html <comment><USER3> Lol. I mean sure Apple could be stuck between a US/China tradewar... sure. But the affects on Apple, versus literally any other the business out there, of the trade war are going to be relatively minuscule. There will be thousands of smaller businesses on both sides that are affected and that likely have a much larger aggregate impact than one player-- even if it is Apple.

Apple has money and margins, it would not be wise to underestimate the power of those two things in protecting their business. It'd be better if the NYT wrote a piece about a mid-size ($5m to $75m in revenue, 50-500 employees) businesses that can't lobby or fight back and the affect on them.

/shrug

</comment><comment><USER4> >Apple's primary leverage with the Chinese government is Chinese consumers' love for Apple products, said Dean Garfield, head of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that represents Apple and other tech companies.

That's not Apple's primary leverage in China. It's the millions of workers they indirectly employ there.

<comment><USER5> I don't think the Chinese government cares much about that, there are literally 10s of millions of migrant worker factory jobs like that, and Apple's assembly business is probably seen negligible to the Chinese government.

But in the other hand the Chinese government really really cares about keeping the middle class happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking at comments above, I find it extremely disheartening about how bitter Americans have become. Why are people celebrating the downfall of Apple - <USER2> company that comprises 3.94% of S&P 500, and is probably the single biggest holding of 401K retirement accounts. No American benefits if Apple falls.

<comment><USER7> Americans have become extremely bitter and negative about pretty much everything.

New American car company trying to change the world (Tesla)? Nope, hope it fails.

Large American company that contributes massively to the enonomy doing well (Apple) Nope, they suck.

Someone wants to talk about Healthcare, or Education, or gun reform ? Nope, they suck.

Basically, in modern America, everything and everyone sucks. It's not a positive place to be.

<comment><USER8> Didn't Peter Thiel predict this in 2012?

He outlined it very clearly as an inevitable shift from indefinite optimism to indefinite pessimism in his book "zero to one"

<comment><USER9> I am asking this sincerely, not sarcastically: who cares? Did he make specific dates/times with his predictions? Did he address the specifics of Apple's situation right now?

If you are studying the art of making a prophecy, leave it open ended and unspecific. It won't be falsifiable, and people will fill in the blanks with their preferred details.

And it doesn't help us with why some people are irrationally rooting against their own self-interest (Apple's contribution to the GDP, high representation in overall national savings), or why we are starting a trade war against the opinion of almost all experts (or what the motivations of the person starting this trade war are).

edit: and I should note, le plus ca change... "noblesse oblige" is an old phrase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article goes to great length to highlight Apple having lobbyists in Beijing. A fair question is why?

Are they so afraid to send the message that they are powerless, and have zero control over them being or not being the next company to suffer Beijing's banhammer?

I do remember, back in iPhone 5 days. It took only a single minor customs official to hold their entire initial shipment of few millions units hostage.

Back then, it was said their entire legal team was sent to hold watch by the door of the bonded customs zone administrative building.

</comment><comment><USER11> Oh I'm sure they can lobby/pay their way so they'll be exempt from tariffs and will get even greater advantage over competition with less cash on hand.

Apple is really the last corpo we should be worrying about.

<comment><USER12> You didn't read the article? They already have assurances from the US that we won't add tariffs?

"The Trump administration has told Mr. Cook that it would not place tariffs on iPhones, which are assembled in China, according to a person familiar with the talks who declined to speak on the record for fear of upsetting negotiations. But Apple is worried China will retaliate in ways that hamstring its business, according to three people close to Apple who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly."

<comment><USER13> Assurances from the Trump administration in particular aren't exactly iron- clad.

EDIT: "Trump Trade Adviser Doesn't Know About an iPhone Trade Exemption" \- [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/trump- tra...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/trump-trade- adviser-doesn-t-know-about-an-iphone-trade-exemption)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cook doesn't seem to be proposing a solution to China's policies other than: more of the same.

</comment><comment><USER15> Apple could single handedly bring the electronics industry back from the grave in North America. Maybe they should, instead of whining that their easy profits off of communist party handshake deals will vanish.

When the president of the PRC visits America, he visits Apple and Microsoft... [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters- no...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/xi- jinping-visit)

</comment><comment><USER16> Trump is many things but a puppet to Apple is not one of them.

Their business model will be hurt by his trade war.

Maybe they'll start investing in manufacturing elsewhere to mitigate their dependence on China.

Australia has some major rare earth materials that could make it a good choice.

</comment><comment><USER17> OMG Apple might start paying US taxes. The horror.

<comment><USER17> Queue the Hollywood accounting. Phones are imported for "$1" in return for Apple doing something with it's overseas hoard.

<comment><USER18> The word is "cue".

> In the theatre or in a musical performance, a performer's cue is something > another performer says or does that is a signal for them to begin speaking, > playing, or doing something.

<comment><USER19> True, but "queue" in this case conveys almost exactly the same meaning in a grammatically correct way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good, maybe they can stop shipping their jobs overseas to avoid environmental and labor regulations</comment>


Book Summaries - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/book#booklist

<comment><AUTHOR> Rough estimate: you could get 80% of the value in 1% of the time.</comment>


The toxic side of free – how I lost the love for my side project (part 4) - <AUTHOR> https://remysharp.com/2015/09/17/jsbin-toxic-part-4 <comment><USER3> _The second, major issue was that I had hoped, naively, that the web community will swoop in and pony up some cash.

With JS Bin, everything users need is given away and open source. That's honourable, but doesn't pay the mortgage._

He has come up with a very jaded either/or point of view. You can visit Patreon and find sites being supported by user "donations". There are sites making money on ads. There are sites making money on product sales. There are sites supporting staff from a combination of the above.

It is naïve to think "If you build it, they will throw money at it," but that doesn't mean you can either cut your own throat by giving it away for free until you feel like a chump or you can hold everything hostage until people pony up.

It's fine if you have a service that works well with a pay per use or subscription model of some sort, but lots of services are not monetizable that way. Television, print magazines, newspapers and on and on have to find ways to pay the bills using a combination of charging the end user and selling advertising and possibly other things I am not thinking of. As far as I can tell, it would not work to _only_ charge the end user for quite a lot of things we use regularly.

The world would be a poorer place if the only services that lived were ones that charged the end user. There are some services that are just not conducive to that model.

I hope he revisits the question of how to monetize JS Bin. Do some brainstorming. Do some research. Try to figure out a monetization scheme that is a good fit for the specific service in question.

I think the best salve for this wound would be a monetization scheme that works. There are enough embittered, jaded people in the world already. We need to find more ways for people to follow their bliss and also pay their bills.

</comment><comment><USER4> I discovered a similar problem with writing, which is that writing an email or a comment takes no time at all, but when someone is paying for what I write it takes _a lot more effort_. I wrote a column for a couple of years and it wasn't until the second year that I actually took my editors advice to just send her the first version and work on it collaboratively rather than try to get it perfect.

I see side projects also get bushwacked by this mental shift.

<comment><USER5> _Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator_

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html)

<comment><USER4> That was a good read, but there was a different mechanism at work for me. When I do something for free, and someone complains about it or finds it wanting, it does not bother me. Sort of like "Double your money back on Free Advice you don't like." But when I am being paid to provide the thing I am providing, a big sense of my wanting to make sure they are getting their value kicks in, and since I undervalue my time tremendously I try to over deliver on value. And that slows me down. Letting my editor have an early draft let _her_ decide if there was sufficient value and on at least one occasion she took my column as written and said, "This is great, we'll have proofs ready tomorrow." Had I not sent the draft I would have spent at least another week writing and re- writing.

<comment><USER6> I guess I've just become a bit more jaded. Or maybe I always have been. I used to maintain a good amount of open source stuff, and the entitled complaints really got to me.

But if I'm being paid for something, I feel the obligation to deliver what I've promised, and I feel bad if I fall short. I do struggle sometimes with valuing my time "correctly", but overall I think I've experienced less stress building software for a paycheck vs. dealing with the (minority of) ungrateful leeches in the open source community.

<comment><USER7> "the entitled complaints really got to me."

Having done some voluntary work long time ago - I would say providing value to a community in any context seldom pays in direct gratitude.

In direct communication, complaints are always more likely than compliments. The value must come from somewhere else than direct feedback from beneficiaries, like observing the thing you just pulled off being enjoyed by a lot of people and being pleased of it. The corollary to this is that it's much more enjoyable to work for free in a friendly group than alone because then the company and support of peers can be an equivalent source of joy.

I suppose a lone free software project lacks these both, unless one can visualize the value by looking at the number of downloads...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Regarding his fraud issue, I found that my website was being used in the same way when I added a credit card payment form. I implemented a system that first does an "Auth". If that passes, then I pass details to MaxMind and get back a response with a "riskScore". If the score is too high, I void the auth and decline the transaction. This has saved me a lot of chargeback fees, though it's still not perfect. I prefer PayPal because a "not authorized" just reverses the transaction; there is no chargeback fee.

<comment><USER9> risk score means the possibility of a transaction being fraudulent. here's another way you can do this for cards issued in Europe: if the risk score is too high start a 3D secure transaction. if the risk score is acceptable then start a normal transaction. a full 3D transaction will never mean it is not fraud however you will have no liabilities when a chargeback is issued by the card holder. many of your US customers, if not all, will fail to pay via 3D-secure because god knows why tons and tons of US card holders or issuing banks are not enrolled in 3D-secure system.

<comment><USER10> As a US customer, I'm hesitant to use 3D Secure because:

1) The implementations by Visa and MasterCard have security weaknesses, terrible usability and look like phishing: [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf)

2) My understanding is that my bank shifts liability to me for 3D Secure transactions. Why would I want extra liability?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, "Verified by Visa" is exactly like phishing. Good paper.

Fortunately here in the USA I haven't been asked for my credentials in at least 10 years. So it seems to have died the death it so richly deserved.

Do people encounter this on a daily basis?

<comment><USER12> Visa and co. are big—really big—so I've never understood why they've not just leaned on the OS manufacturers and browser makers to provide them some form of unique, unforgeable signal to users that they're interacting with a real bank.

There could be, say, an HTML5-exposed API capable of triggering "super-modal" forms (like OS UAC does) if-and-only-if the page is being served from a secure origin cross-signed by some "Web Banking Working Group Certificate Authority" that all the banks and OS makers are members of.

<comment><USER13> The better way to do this would be some sort of two-factor thing – e.g. imagine if the physical card had the equivalent of an embedded RSA-style one- time code generator or, better, a U2F USB/NFC device – which would be resistant to UI spoofing or, in the U2F case, phishing.

Unfortunately the banks have less motivation to invest in this as long as the costs of fraud are pushed onto merchants and all of the major players charge similar fees. If something like Apple Pay starts to catch on, perhaps we'll see that change once the banks' main concern is avoiding a single vendor getting too much market share.

<comment><USER14> One of my Swedish banks uses a chip-and-pin reader for 3DSecure. You insert your card, authenticate with your PIN, and then sign a nonce to validate your transaction. [https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3237/2486214902_8feafd8200_b....](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3237/2486214902_8feafd8200_b.jpg)

Another one uses a smartphone 2FA app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > it's cost me, £21.54 to allow some shithead to use JS Bin as a stolen card > testing facility.

Not sure if it's standard practice, but in our case we let the users use the "free tier" service _first_ , and we offer the paid plans only once we can validate they have a genuine interest in the product . It works well for us to avoid these cases.

<comment><USER16> That's an interesting approach, but if the "pro" features are something the user really needs, then don't you risk losing a sub if the feature is withheld until you "get to know each other?"

<comment><USER17> You could give them 15 days free use, and only charge it after that... there is a risk that the charge doesn't go through (in which case you've given a couple weeks free service - big deal), but otherwise, you've just made it much less useful for card testing (to the point that they certainly won't use your site).

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that's all of the upside and none of the downside really. Introducing ANY kind of delay between taking the order and charging the card will just about eliminate these kinds of fraudulent transactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Okay, say you're a US citizen building some digi service like JS Bin, and VATMOSS starts fling threats at you, for how long can you go about ignoring them? I mean 3.5k GBP and however many weekdays it took isn't exactly affordable for every small business, and if you don't even have many Euro pro- users, I don't see the cost-benefit justification of giving VATMOSS priority unless they can reach across the Atlantic.

<comment><USER20> VATMOSS is a nightmare for small businesses. I am lucky that authorities in my country decide that I can avoid it with my project (because it doesn't fit exact definition of electronic service so I can pay VAT in my country as it's a place the service is provided in according one interpretation of the new law) but they have plans to extend it and I may be forced to go through accounting hell to comply with this regulation in the future.

It's one of the most ridiculous regulations there could be. As a small business founder you are not really in position to do the accounting for it properly and most accountants here have very little idea how to prepare all the documents either. You are required to keep 2 pieces of evidence of customer's location (IP, address etc.) which you often just don't have access to in the first place (if you payment gateway provider doesn't make this information available to you).

So not only you need to find someone who knows what to do (already very hard), pay them significantly more than you would for normal accounting (big burden for small business owners and especially people who start), keep accounting information you often don't have access to, then prepare this accounting information as well (which means you spend resources for writing the scripts yourself as most tools accountants use don't track needed info).

Additionally to all of this there is no more VAT free quota for people who just start (usually there is for business who don't qualify for VATMOSS, size of the quota depends on the country).

When I've learnt about it (I started my business in 2015, the regulations started to be law Jan 1th 2015) I was really depressed about the whole thing. I was spending my days reading some contrived law and various interpretations of it instead of doing the actual programming. Nobody had answers for me (I've got different opinions from 2 tax advisors, different one from our tax office and yet different one from national tax information line) and I was just close to giving up altogether (I didn't expect my project getting as much traffic as it did and I wasn't really in position to spend significant resources for accounting when I didn't even know I would make enough to cover it).

It's a hostile piece of regulation which very severely disincentivize you from starting a business or paying your taxes properly. It only shows how out of touch EU bureaucrats are. I guess they think typical business is like Google or Amazon or something.

<comment><USER21> > I guess they think typical business is like Google or Amazon or something.

Exactly. Many in the EU imagine that "business owner" is a synonym for "evil capitalist plutocrat." For them, if you are not someone's employee, you are by definition rich. Questions of scale are ignored.

<comment><USER22> I don't think, that so many (at least educated) people in the EU believe that ... but the problem is (and I saw evidence for that again and again), that the politicians like to talk about the "Founder culture" or that they want to aid smaller businesses ... but in fact, they do the absolute opposite.

I see that, because at least in Germany (where it is very chic in the political class to talk how to aid smaller businesses and startups ...!) the tax rules are in favor of the big corporations (they have been changed in the last decades, so the corporations got better and better conditions) ... but of course this relieves for the big ones must be compensated somehow -- so the smaller companies have to pay even more taxes.

The current VATMOSS legislation is also a good example: It was announced to be a means to counter the fact that bigger corporations like Amazon avoid VAT by having subsidiaries in Luxembourg. But the biggest problems with the new rulings have now the smaller companies, that never had the chance to open subsidiaries in Luxembourg. For Amazon it is a small drawback and they may have to raise some prices -- but the troubles of other companies are tremendous.

So: The politicians are talking much about smaller companies -- but are only thinking about the bigger ones. And in Germany, many laws are even written by people from the bigger corporations.

<comment><USER23> I know two people who tried to start a business in Germany and failed, not because of the EU but because of domestic, German rules.

One tried to start some kind of innovative form of pharmacy (the details weren't clear to me), but found himself unable to join the pharmacy guild, and apparently it is illegal to start a business without joining the guild. The other tried to start a bed & breakfast business, but the 'breakfast' part was closed down indefinitely when the food safety inspection found he didn't have the right license for a Sandwichtoaster. Apparently there are different regulations for serving a hot breakfast.

<comment><USER24> Yes, all professions are regulated. Sadly this has less to do with an overzealous government and more with lobbies and accidents of history.

Guilds used to rule all professions in the middle ages and a lot of the regulations are sadly derived from that. This means you can't do certain things without the proper certifications (e.g. if you're a licensed car mechanic or "KFZ-Mechatroniker" that doesn't mean you're also allowed to do paint jobs because for that you'd need to be a licensed "Lackierer").

Likewise, pharmacies and pharmaceuticals in general are heavily regulated, especially with regard to prescription drugs. I think online pharmacies only became legal quite recently (previously most of them operated out of other EU countries, effectively creating a grey market with all the problems that entails for the customers).

What killed your friend's B & B idea was likely the strict requirements for food safety. It's practically impossible to use private kitchens to produce commercial food products and commercial kitchens have to conform to various rules (plus the employees working in them have to obtain the necessary certificates). IMO this is a good thing, but it can of course make easy things (like serving a breakfast in a single bedroom B & B) very difficult.

The huge difference between the US and Germany is that in Germany suing for damages results in compensations that are a fraction of what you see in the US. But at the same time companies are more likely to run into trouble with the authorities before they can harm you and even if you end up with permanent injuries the public healthcare covers them in most cases -- i.e. you're less likely to be harmed and the economic damage of that harm is likely considerably smaller.

But as an employer I have to say some of the regulations, laws and restrictions can be incredibly tedious and annoying. Especially if you're running a very small business.

<comment><USER22> > But as an employer I have to say some of the regulations, laws and > restrictions can be incredibly tedious and annoying. Especially if you're > running a very small business.

Yea. My impression is (too), that the regulations in Germany are much more harmful to smaller companies than to big corporations. As big corporation, you basically can do very, very much, without being penalized much. In Germany, you always can say, that health costs are covered by the public health insurance. So, it is common, that compensations are small fractures of that which is paid in the US or even no compensations are made.

My feeling is, that German judges are much more reluctant to rule against corporations, as long as their fault can not be proven 110% -- for common people on the other hand, 80% prove are enough most of the time (I remember, that not long ago a young girl was convicted for computer fraud, just because Siemens said, that the 4 digit PIN-system for EC cards was 100% secure -- something we soon later found out, was never true!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Please, please, anyone, if you are getting started in online payment processing, don't do it yourself. Use a service that already handles the VAT and fraud detection issues.

Then, when you've proven your product, and got substantial sales, you can write your own. Maybe.

The author of the article spent weeks and thousands of euros to implement a payment system. And yet he had only a handful of customers.

<comment><USER26> Well, he used Stripe, so he didn't write his own. Personally I wasn't aware that there was such a high fee for a chargeback. Is that because Stripe doesn't handle fraud well?

Seems like most of his time was spent dealing with tax issues, which you'd have to do regardless of how money is actually transferred.

<comment><USER25> Good point. I consider using Stripe a "do-it-yourself" solution, which requires manual coding. As far as handling EU VAT, Stripe offers nothing, and you need to manually implement this.

I meant that you should use a service last FastSpring or Avangate initially, which require no coding, and completely take care of VAT.

<comment><USER27> Do you know if Braintree handles EU VAT in an automatic way? I've read the article below but I'm not totally sure what to make of it:

[https://www.taxamo.com/braintree-announce-partnership- taxamo...](https://www.taxamo.com/braintree-announce-partnership-taxamo/)

I am definitely not interested in hand-coding a solution.

<comment><USER28> I don't know about Braintree, but I can report that for my SaaS app ([https://www.wisecashhq.com](https://www.wisecashhq.com), currently priced in $ but France-based), I used Recurly ([https://www.recurly.com](https://www.recurly.com)) which handles EU VAT very nicely (including VAT changes happening in 2015).

I use them together with Stripe as my gateway, it generates proper invoices and applies the rate of the buyer's country unless a valid VAT number has been provided. They also provide a stripe-like js library so that the credit-card number doesn't go through my server.

With regard to VAT MOSS report, they do most of the checks, I only wrote a little ETL script using [http://www.kiba-etl.org/](http://www.kiba-etl.org/) to create a break-down of the related amounts for each quarter and each country, which I then submit manually to the VAT MOSS French website.

So in my case, this is fully automated, and I'm pretty happy with this :-)

Feel free to email me if you have questions.

<comment><USER29> This is the setup (Recurly + Stripe) the article is complaining about though, it doesn't protect well against fraud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Following the bliss isn't supposed to pay the bills.

Following the bliss increases skill-sets, creates necessary connections between persons, and gives the bliss-seeker an out. Out is good.

The bliss is not the means to an end. The bliss is self serving and self improving, while also finding an escape from the daily grind and its deleterious effects.

Follow your bliss, by all means. But, at the same time, realize that it's not the end goal. You're not learning programming to make money. You're learning programming because you enjoy it, and or it increases your skill-sets.

Also, programming isn't bliss. Programming is an addiction. It's a sometime beneficial addiction, but an addiction nonetheless. Something to consider.

<comment><USER31> If you're dedicated enough to follow the bliss, it will pay your bills, and also do the other things. If you have failed personally, please don't discourage others.

Programming can be bliss, at least seeing the results. I mean, why else would anybody program? Just for the money?

<comment><USER32> > I mean, why else would anybody program? Just for the money?

Considering the pay, absolutely!

<comment><USER31> Then, I would recommend, through experiences of doing what I dont love long enough, to reconsider what is more important, money or doing what you love. Of course, sometimes it can be just the money, or the learning, or working with a great team, but to recognize when it turns into a struggle and just drains our energy is something that is important.

Working with software, it is such a toll on the mind and the body, that doing it just for the money seems really pointless at least for me.

But I understand that this realization may come through only going through enough work that is not really fulfilling us inside on a deep level.

On a superficial level programming can be good just to gather resources, but is this really the best we can do? I mean, what if Elon Musk, Nikolai Tesla, Newton or other brightest minds would just worked for money ? Would we have the inventions we have today ? This is my point I want to remind people everyday.

I have worked for 5 years (3 of those fulltime, and so that I have always managed) on a project ([http://GeoKone.NET](http://GeoKone.NET) and now [http://Geometrify.net](http://Geometrify.net)) that is the product of my pure love, and at times it has been difficult, yes, eaten a lot of porridge during those days, but the Universe has a way of supporting those who really want to help others, and to provide something to support others in their quest too!

But you have to give back something too in order for it to work. I think this is also a big problem in our society right now, not giving back, but just gathering resources for selfish uses, like many big companies do.

This is why I am reminding to really think about what we are putting our energy into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How would the EU enforce VAT requirements on an online business based in the U.S.? If I have an online business in the US and no presence in the EU and no intention to ever go to the EU, I don't have to charge VAT, right?

<comment><USER34> Correct. In theory if the project grew large enough (as in "billion-dollar industry"), the EU might start attempting to control it or block it, or attempt to regulate transactions involving it under the auspices of import/export/tariffs, but in general the EU (or any non-US company) has no jurisdiction to impose taxes on a US company. (Nor does the US have jurisdiction to impose taxes or regulations on an EU company, for that matter.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Remy, I'm sorry. JSBin is my favorite live JS environment, and I use it several times a week, and I haven't paid a thing. That's not fair to you.

I'm also sorry that I haven't sent the emails that probably still sit in my drafts folder, because I think that the JSBin genre of software development tools has a very bright future - and I encourage you to not give up.

For now, is it at all possible to just send you $100 via paypal?

<comment><USER36> <3 there's a "keep me honest: donate" button at the bottom of my blog.

<comment><USER35> Done. And I stipulate that you spend at least some of the money on a beer. Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is why if any of my personal projects go anywhere they'll remain free while they are in my hands. They can act as a portfolio ("look what I've done, aren't I clever") for when job hunting but I'll not even try make money directly from them even to cover costs.

If they become worth charging for then someone can buy the rights from me and run it. Yeah they'll take the lion's share, but also all that hassle and I can still have credit for having created the thing in the first place. This is assuming that whatever project I'm talking about isn't released F/OSS of course, at which point if there is any sort of demand someone will already be hosting an instance or few.

If the costs of running one of the projects gets higher than pocket money and no one else wants to run it? It either stops taking new users or is otherwise rate limited, or gets turned off completely, or in the case of a F/OSS project my instances become "friends and family only" and others can host their own.

My side projects are just that: personal time projects, either just playthings or intended to grow my experience in something. They are not second jobs and I wouldn't want them to become so.

Similarly I'll be careful not to include any features that can send mail or SMS, or call other sites, in a publicly addressable service that isn't locked to F&F-only. I don't want the faf of accidentally becoming a spam source due to a silly bug in my code or some support library I happen to be using.

<comment><USER38> This is why Amazon DevPay(?) exists. You ship software, and Amazon directly bills your customers for the AWS usage. you don't have to get into the AWS- reselling business just because you wrote cloud software.

<comment><USER39> Except

        Sellers of Amazon DevPay applications must be able to do business in the
        United States. Funds earned through the sale of Amazon DevPay applications
        can only be withdrawn to U.S. bank accounts.

[https://aws.amazon.com/devpay/faqs/#general_10](https://aws.amazon.com/devpay/faqs/#general_10)

        Q: How are taxes handled?

        Amazon DevPay does not provide tax collection services for you. You are
        responsible for paying the appropriate taxes (local, state, federal,
        etc.) as applicable.

[https://aws.amazon.com/devpay/faqs/#pricing_7](https://aws.amazon.com/devpay/faqs/#pricing_7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This was a great read. The VATMOSS stuff was especially scary. I don't understand why there isn't a lower bound on how much money you have to make before you have to worry about bureaucracy like that =/

Monetizing foss projects is hard. It's funny... at this very moment, in another corner of Github, there are people fighting against ads being introduced in Flyspray, a self-hostable gpl issue tracker. There's good discussion in the commit and it's a perfect lesson in how _not_ to monetize FOSS projects.

I thought it was relevant so I submitted the details here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10235858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10235858)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is incredibly interesting and something most pet-project hopefuls don't even consider. Building the project is the easy part, what comes next is where things sink or swim.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER42> If $6 is too cheap and encourages fraudsters to test credit cards on your service because banks don't get concerned about transactions at that cost, how much should he have charged at a minimum? $10 $20?

<comment><USER43> I wondered that myself, especially since it doesn't have to be more expensive to the end user. Instead of selling them 1 month for $6, sell them 12 for $72 or some such, or make them buy a minimum of 10 accounts to get a monthly rate.

Yah, I know the trend is to do a bunch of little micro payments, but its not like you can't do the math for them an say "$6 a month" then when they go to order it, limit the minimum number of months in order to increase the total.

<comment><USER42> does Fivvr.com experience this problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> There was a post here recently trying to figure out why Europe's startup scene was falling behind the US.

Kudos to companies that can survive past monstrosities like VAT and VATMOSS.

Out of curiosity, how is VAT enforced for a non-EU seller and an EU buyer? Let's say my business was registered in the Cayman islands for example.

<comment><USER45> I can tell you about EU seller and US buyer - there's no VAT

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> JS Bin is a service that appeals to techies. As such, it should see moderate success accepting Bitcoin! Bitcoin transactions are non-reversible, which would solve the fraud complications.

<comment><USER47> But would it fuck him on the VATMOSS? Would he lose the ability to verify the address via the cardholder billing address?

A question I don't know the answer to.

<comment><USER48> At the moment it's a bit of a grey area. In the future, the Government is already planning:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and- custo...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and-customs- brief-9-2014-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies/revenue-and-customs- brief-9-2014-bitcoin-and-other-cryptocurrencies#vat-treatment-of-bitcoin-and- similar-cryptocurrencies)

You'll have to charge VAT as normal, before the price is converted into bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > With JS Bin, everything users need is given away and open source. That's > honourable, but doesn't pay the mortgage.

Well that hit home pretty hard, I think I've made the same mistake with my project.

Although the great reviews and personal "thank you"'s are great, as the author said, they don't pay the bills.

</comment><comment><USER50> > I can't win the complaint. The card was stolen, the £6 belongs to the > original card owner, no question.

This is so wrong. Business owners, on average, have little to no information or power to deal with this. The only agencies that have ultimate ability to deal with fraud are the card issuers and banks. IIRC, it was Bruce Schneier who first clearly articulated this for me. By placing all fraud risk on the issuers, they're fully incentivized to fix the problem as well as possible.

But instead when small (or even large) business customers are subjected to ridiculous fraud charges as described in Remy's article, fraud is transformed into a kind of externalized cost imposed by these same issuers.

<comment><USER51> Does Paypal ameliorate the problem? Is there less fraud if you accept Paypal only?

<comment><USER52> Yes, paypal seems to have very good fraud detection. I've been using them for the last 9 years for mostly $10 transactions (about $30k a year or so) and I don't think I've had a single fraudulent transaction in that time. Before paypal I used worldpay, and although their support is infinitely superior (paypal's support sucks balls), I did have a few fraudulent transactions a year.

Also, paypal's refund fee is just $0.30. (Not sure if it costs any more for a chargeback).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> _I pay for Gmail, because I need real business email accounts._

Did I get lucky with being one of the early Apps for Your Domain users? We don't pay a bean for our company's Gmail accounts but seem to get most of the features (no ads, custom domain, etc).

<comment><USER24> You've been grandfathered (i.e. you got lucky and Google decided to uphold the original terms you signed up on).

Frankly, as a European I don't find the paid version worth the price tag (which can be hefty if you have a lot of freelancers working for you). Yes, it's Google Apps, so if you use the entire stack you can avoid the cost of a lot of additional services, but at the same time that means you need to be okay with storing all your confidential data with Google.

But for me the deal-breaker was the way e-mail accounts work when using the same Google Apps for Business account with multiple domains. At least when I evaluated it, there was no way to define aliases per-domain. So if you add both domain-a.example and domain-b.example and want firstname.lastname@example.com to go to a different person than firstname.lastname@example.com -- no dice. Also if you want to be able to receive e-mails on firstname.lastname@example.com but not firstname.lastname@example.com, again: not a chance. I'm not sure whether this has changed since then, but this is why I took my business to Fastmail and other isolated services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good read, but I wonder why didn't he hire a tax advisor to deal with VATMOSS? It's usually not that expensive even if you are not doing revenue, and unless you are in the business of taxes there's little to gain in doing it yourself.

<comment><USER54> The VATMOSS rules mean that you need to collect, verify and store a bunch more info than previously: You need to be able to show evidence for the country the buyer is in, and check that ip address, address, credit card, etc match. It sounds like the cost came from the software development required to put the infrastructure in place to adhere to this and so wasn't something an advisor could help with.

With it being a new rule, there was very little info about the penalties for not complying. The penalties for normal UK VAT are only proportional to revenue, so not much risk for small companies getting it wrong. It wasn't clear that this was true for VATMOSS and so there was fear amongst even tiny company of big penalties for getting it wrong.

We went through the same worries last Nov/Dev, but were lucky that our billing provider dealt with adding in all the required logic. (Shout out to Recurly!)

<comment><USER55> Stupid question: is there a service which you can hand off the evidence- gathering to? Seems like a very good opportunity.

<comment><USER56> There are various attempts, but currently no one - especially not HMRC - <USER2> any idea how to handle VATMOSS correctly.

I've heard a few stories about small businesses suddenly getting demands for thousands of pounds (etc) after only a handful of transactions.

But what I suspect will happen is that HMRC will realise that chasing and fining microbusinesses for non-compliance is a complete waste of everyone's time. They won't bother unless businesses are being obviously, blatantly fraudulent - and considering how short-staffed they are, perhaps not even then.

It'll be similar to the EU's legislation about cookie notices, which created a big initial compliance explosion, but now seems to be being quietly forgotten.

The UK is lobbying hard to set a minimum threshold for VATMOSS. It will take a few years for the idiot lawyers in Brussels to catch up, but even though some member states seem to think VATMOSS is a good thing, common sense and experience will prove that it's utterly unworkable and destructive in its current form.

<comment><USER57> The stories you heard may have been due to the Irish fuck up a month ago. The Irish tax authorities mistakenly sent out a couple thousand notices claiming completely bogus deficiencies. More info here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10083238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10083238)

Germany and one or two others have also sent deficiency notices to UK sellers. The UK tax authorities have complained about that, saying one of the main points of the VATMOSS system was that sellers would only have to deal directly with the tax authorities in their country. If Germany, for example, thinks a UK seller underpaid for VAT on German customers, the UK's understanding was that Germany was supposed to bring that up with the UK tax authorities, and they would be the ones to get it straightened out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I know PayPal isn't popular but it's by far the easiest way to accept payments online that I've found. You don't have to live in the US,Canada or EU, which is a weakness of all the new services like Stripe and every other startup promising to "fix payments". I set it up for my small business years ago with no coding or worrying about weird tax rules and it just works. I process each payment manually so there's a bit of a delay for the customers but I've never had a chargeback although my prices are a bit higher.

The main drawback is customers think they need a PayPal account and nobody wants to open one - for good reason. The payment page has a dark pattern that makes it look like you have to sign up to pay by credit card.

</comment><comment><USER59> I can totally understand. I just read through each post and I can relate to pretty much every point.

For searchcode I have not implemented paid accounts though I have considered it for a while. This post pretty much confirms for me that it would be a bad idea. searchcode also gets a lot of abuse, particularly to the API's (millions of requests) and though hot-links. I think the worst part for me though is the constant takedown notices. Most are nicely worded emails, but quite a few have been very nasty threatening legal demands.

I haven't lost my love for my side project yet and the ad's that are running at least cover hosting costs. Really looking forward to the next part in the tale.

</comment><comment><USER60> There is a need for services that can let indie developers do what they do best, and handle all the admin, business, marketing for them for a significant % of revenue and % of ownership earned over time.

<comment><USER61> Yeah, such a service is called 'being an entrepreneur' and what the developers in your scenario do is 'doing their job'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> [https://github.com/jsbin/jsbin/issues/2320](https://github.com/jsbin/jsbin/issues/2320) is a good read, too.

</comment><comment><USER63> Reading this stuff makes me glad my side projects are all native apps sold through app stores. No servers, no payment processing, little upkeep; once you're done, you're done.

</comment><comment><USER64> Honestly, his target users are those who needs a free place to try out web coding, which means many of his users are likely not well off enough to be able to want to throw money at something that they get the full use out of.

I won't say the thing is bad, but the business behind it is bad. Got to have a viable targeted userbase as the core, and handle any new userbase as they come in.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why don't you "motivate" frequent users to start paying?

ex. by making the free version (gradually) worse until you see revenue.

ex.

\- non pro user pastebins last 5mins, 5 views etc

\- non pro users can post 1 pastebin per day (cookies, IP)

\- non pro user pastebins are max x characters long.

\- you get the idea

\- there are clever people on this forum who will come up with good ideas to help you out.

\- do everything BUT show ads, PLEASE. Internet's sole purpose is almost all that already.

<comment><USER66> You're confusing pastebin.com with jsbin.com. None of those restrictions wouldn't really make much sense for JS Bin I think.

<comment><USER65> None of _those_ ...

Hope you got my point. The above are only meant as an example.

Main idea is to cripple* the free tier enough to push a chunk of current users from free into pro. Some will leave but you don't want them anyway (they will never pay).

* how exactly cripple? This is the product design / product-market-fit stage work that was skipped when building jsbin.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Free products need to have a way to lock users in. It's not evil or unethical - In fact, it's the opposite; if you don't lock your users into your free product, your competitor will lock them into an expensive alternative which will give them less flexibility.

</comment><comment><USER68> The credit card problem is quite easy to solve: allow a few months of free "pro" functionality upon signup, and _then_ allow users to upgrade. During that period of time, you can also track whether they actually used the service at all.

<comment><USER69> But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, instead of paying! The sweet spot is probably 24 hours. Too long for a fraudster to wait around, and too short for people to bother making an account every day for pro fuctionality.

<comment><USER70> > But then you'll have people creating new accounts every time the trial ends, > instead of paying!

These would be _malicious users_. Both words are significant here. People using the service just to check credit cards are malicious, but not users. Free users are users but not malicious.

I think for most services, the set of actual malicious users—people who do want to use the service for its intended purpose, but don't want to support it—is fairly small.

<comment><USER71> Yeah and if heavy users want to constantly deal with changing email addresses and moving accounts just to get out of it. Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle.

<comment> Paul-ish >Like you said is few. Let them be? It's likely they generate word of mouth and other value being invested enough to go thru the hassle.

This sounds a lot like the arguments piracy apologists use. A lot like the arguments people looking for free web design use. I am very skeptical whenever anyone asks for anything to them for free now because it will somehow (nebulously) come back to me later in a good way.

<comment><USER72> I think he's just thinking about it practically. Its potentially not worth your time and effort as a business owner to go after that tiny minority who abuse the free trials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Are US businesses obligated to pay VATMOSS? Does the EU have any recourse if you don't?

<comment><USER74> Yes and no. If you have a physical presence in an EU state, that one will probably get you for tax fraud. If you have sufficiently high transaction volume they might find another way.

I have never heard of it happening, but theoretically any member state in which you sold can start a criminal trial against the responsible persons, making travel to Europe a bit more complicated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> this is my worst nightmare. free users are some of the most abusive and aggressive people that will without question overrun and destroy your product.</comment>


A US judge rules Samsung 'infringed' Apple's auto-complete text patent - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25842637

<comment><USER2> This is disgusting. I have had auto-complete on my mobile devices for years. Easily as far back as 2003.

Its baffling that this patent was awarded. Even more so that technology innovators are being so anti-competitive and stifling innovation.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused how Samsung's lawyers failed to show prior art or the fact that it was an obvious development. Autocomplete is on every IDE worth a bean, every T9-based phone... even if iOS was the first to bring it to the touch- screen, that's not exactly a huge leap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just anti-competitive warfare and plain patent-trolling.

Apple scored 1 billion playing the trolling game last time, for a list over- scroll effect and rounded corners no less.

How much will it get this? Two billion? Who knows, but last time around they clearly got enough to buy another judge.

Utterly disgusting.

<comment><USER5> It's not patent trolling because Apple is suing to defend its design as implemented in an actual product.[1] Moreover, I'm going to guess there is more to the patent than just "autocomplete for touch devices" considering Apple is just seeking bans on old Samsung Galaxy devices. Samsung did some very shady ripping off the iPhone in those models, so it wouldn't be surprising if they managed to infringe on Apples' patent even taken very narrowly and specifically.

The usual arguments against patent trolling don't apply to Apple v. Samsung, in my opinion. There is nothing "innovative" about Samsung's early Android devices: they were copy-cat designs that ripped-off Apple in order to get quickly to market and take advantage of the mindshare around Apple's product. That's not a business tactic that should be encouraged.

[1] "Trolling" means to lie in wait for an unsuspecting passer-by, like a bridge troll. There was nothing "unsuspecting" about what Samsung did. This document was damning in the original suit: [http://bgr.com/2012/08/08/apple- samsung-patent-lawsuit-inter...](http://bgr.com/2012/08/08/apple-samsung- patent-lawsuit-internal-report-copy-iphone).

<comment><USER6> > That's not a business tactic that should be encouraged.

Why not?

<comment><USER5> 1) People broadly tend to perceive it as "unfair."

2) It tends to hurt American companies, who have a competitive advantage in design, which is easily copied, and help Korean/Taiwanese/Chinese companies, who have a competitive advantage in manufacturing, which is not easily copied. Apple versus Samsung is of course the paradigmatic example of this.

3) It tends to lead to commoditization of markets which I don't think is particularly good for innovation. When you can't compete on design, because someone else can easily copy it, the industry just becomes a race to become the biggest/most outsourced/most vertically integrated. And once that vertically integrated leviathan emerges, it is unassailable. It can destroy everyone on price and also copy any competitive design that gets traction with consumers. Samsung in the Android space is the paradigmatic example of that.

I probably have an atypical, at least among HN-ers, view of the cell phone industry. I view Apple as the underdog, fighting to keep the industry from turning into something like the PC industry, where innovation is more or less dead because everyone is too busy fighting for the thin scraps of profit that are available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes yes, software patents are ridiculous. But they are a part of the current legal and business system and until that changes (and it should), Apple or anyone else would be idiotic not to play the game as it exists.

For those complaining that autocomplete is obvious and this patent is 'disgusting', they quite clearly have not read it [1].

The patent describes exactly how Apple's autocomplete implementation works, specifically on a touch screen device with a soft keyboard, right down to when things should appear depending on what punctuation is typed in and how new words not in the dictionary should be added. This is not a 'hurr-durr we invented autocomplete' patent, this is 'this is exactly how our autocomplete works' patent.

[1] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,074,172.PN.&OS=PN/8,074,172&RS=PN/8,074,172)

<comment><USER8> > specifically on a touch screen device with a soft keyboard

But also rather ambitiously includes the use of autocomplete using a physical keyboard.

> _7\. The method of claim 2, wherein the keyboard is a physical keyboard that > is not a part of the touch screen display._

Which appears to describe a nearly identical system to the one used on www.google.com and in many other places; also for which examples of prior usage almost certainly exist. At first glance, I don't see anything that would prevent this patent from being asserted against a laptop manufacturer.

<comment><USER9> The physical keyboard refers to claim 2, basically implying that the system for responding to suggestions (with gestures) applies whether the initial typing was done on the glass or virtual keyboard. So it's not making such a sweeping claim.

In any event, specific claims can be thrown out as appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meanwhile auto-completes have been around for far longer. Yet another ridiculous patent gets approved.

I'm sorry but I don't see any meaningful technical innovation by bringing it to a mobile touch screen.

<comment><USER11> Having auto-complete is not the issue. You have to look at the patent claims, which would describe a specific approach. In this case, it seems to involve Apple's specific approach to auto-complete when paired with a touch screen interface.

<comment><USER2> That is true. AND even more infuriating.

I wonder if I could apply for a patent for sidebar designs and widgets (for increasing interactivity, customization, conversions etc.). Oh wait those have already been applied for and approved, for example:

[https://www.google.com/patents/US8209622](https://www.google.com/patents/US8209622)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm reading the patent and can't believe it was approved.

Maybe I don't understand the patent but it seems Apple patented that the auto- complete suggestions are shown under the input field.

So this is all about interaction design.

<comment><USER3> Samsung has good lawyers and deep pockets so there _must_ be a lot more to it. Autocomplete is _not_ a novel invention from 2007.

<comment><USER13> The deep pockets and good lawyers couldn't make the judge even look into Samsung's evidence the last time.

I doubt there is anything more to it, but that's just a preconceived notion after reading a couple (literaly, 2) of other Apple patents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Within the article, it shows this image [1] stating that this image "of Samsung's user interface" was included in the ruling. This image does NOT show Samsung's (TouchWiz) UI, but rather stock Android, including the AOSP messaging app and keyboard.

[1] [http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72438000/png/_72438181...](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72438000/png/_72438181_samsungauto.png)

EDIT: On further reading, this is a screenshot from a Galaxy Nexus, which is indeed produced by Samsung, but which runs completely Google Android, not Samsung's TouchWiz interface. Seeing as this is a software complaint, it should be directed at Google, NOT Samsung, who have little/nothing to do with the software on a Nexus device.

<comment><USER14> "... Seeing as this is a software complaint, it should be directed at Google, NOT Samsung, who have little/nothing to do with the software on a Nexus device."

It is imported (attached to hardware) by Samsung so why should it not be their legal problem? Now you would hope that the software's provider would indemnify you and/or fight the legal battle on your behalf but that is for Samsung/Google to sort out not the company allegedly being infringed.

Note that I currently have not looked at the patent or this case in detail and I don't yet have a position on validty, infringement or even know if this is Samsung's own software or Google's.

[Edit - Fixed: "so why should be their legal problem."

<comment><USER15> > It is imported (attached to hardware) by Samsung so why should it not be > their legal problem?

Following that path, do you think hardware manufacturer is responsible for pre-installed software e.g. Asus for Windows, and that companies should sue Asus instead of Microsoft?

<comment><USER14> Yes. But Microsoft will indemnify their customers (and license or take on the complainant in court) I believe (I'm not party to those contracts so that may be wrong) unlike Google with it's Android customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lol, old Nokia 'brick' phones had auto-complete this is completely ridiculous.

Does that mean that now that every phone uses a touch screen no other phone can have auto-complete functionality?

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it me or is it impossible for Samsung to win judiciary battles against Apple in the US.

</comment><comment><USER14> Note that from my understanding the infringement aspect has been decided but the validity of the patent still needs determination by the court. Apple needs to prevail on both to get an injuction or damages.

Also note that it isn't for all auto-complete systems but a particular approach for touchscreens. See the patent [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,074,172.PN.&OS=PN/8,074,172&RS=PN/8,074,172) or other comments on this thread.

Finally as others point out it is not trolling even if you still think it is abusive use of patents. Patent trolls are companies that have patents that they don't practice themselves that they wait and hide until a juicy target adopts it then they wait under their bridge a little more until it is hard for the target to stop using it then they jump out.

Edit: The BBC op seem to have mangled this article in an attempt to make it accessible (or because the journalist didn't fully read it): [http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/01/us-court-finds-samsung- to...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/01/us-court-finds-samsung-to-infringe- one.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> More mindless industry stifling courtesy of Apple. They're going around suing everyone because they know they're in decline, because they're running out of their own good ideas.

Like a dying star, they're violently trying to implode everything around it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yet another part of the mess of software patents is that it took four years from this patent being filed in 2007 to it being granted in 2011. How are companies supposed to operate in that kind of environment?

<comment><USER20> They aren't, that's the whole point of it. Increase Android's (or any other competition that isn't Apple or Windows Phone) Total Cost of Ownership, by adding layer after layer of frivolous patent licensing.

Now Microsoft and Apple even own their own patent troll (Rockstar Bidco) and they plan (or already have) made plans to split the patents over many shell companies, which can pass the patents along to each other like a merry-go- round, giving each plenty opportunities to sue a company time after time.

Android has a low cost of ownership at the moment which makes it interesting for OEMs. If Apple, Microsoft, Rockstar Bidco or any other trolls keep on attacking Android, the balance will tip over back to Microsoft for the 'accessible' OS that OEMs will want to license (or risk patent attacks of the likes of giant trolls like Rockstar Bidco), opening the door for them to claim all the ground that Android had to cede, and give or take a few years you'd get the same thing as on the Desktop: Apple small marketshare but high profitability, Microsoft high marketshare which compensates less profit margins. But the open mobile development spirit will be dead, as worst case it'll be a minefield with more trolls than innovators, as the former will deplete the market they're in until it's no longer profitable.

Oracle went after the development (break the programming language -> break the platform), Apple went after Samsung (break their biggest manufacturer -> break the platform) Microsoft went after the other OEMs, a bit more stealthy, but they too have attacked Motorola, HTC directly or through subsidiaries. (Patent tax the OEMs -> force them off Android to their own OS)

Anyway, that's how I see it, and it's not getting any prettier anytime soon. Alas, this is all perfectly 'legal'. So I foresee much more lawsuits that'll strangle innovation and limit mobile software development to the 'happy few', unless the USPTO changes (unlikely) or SCOTUS comes up with a solution to this unholy mess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recently listened to a podcast in which they discussed that some Lightning- to-HDMI adapters sold by Apple had an ARM board inside which could actually run operating systems.

If it is possible to patent something trivial just because it is now on mobile or in the browser, then I CALL DIBS on patenting every trivial algorithm that exists out there, but "run on a cable adapter".

<comment><USER22> You've got to pay into the system in order to solidify the dibs - which is what big companies do because they can afford to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Has apple patented auto-complete feature on touch screen devices. What if my app auto completes text. Is that infringement.. please help

<comment><AUTHOR> Seeing as they appear to have gone after Samsung, and not Google, whose keyboard also has this functionality (and in fact, an image of the Google keyboard appears to have been used in the ruling, referred to as an image of Samsung's), it seems more like a specific attack on Samsung with anything they can find, rather than them tracking down anyone infringing on that specific patent. There are literally hundreds of keyboards in the Play Store that have this functionality, as well as it being a staple feature of every modern mobile OS platform. I doubt they'll care much about your app TBH. You should be safe enough.

<comment><USER24> I believe part of the reason is that by suing Samsung, with direct (and substantial) revenue and profits from these devices it is more straightforward for Apple to demonstrate both infringement and damages. The case probably also becomes more straightforward for a jury. In addition, (though this may not be as much of factor here as Apple is simultaneously suing most of the Android device manufacturers) IP lawsuits often begin by targeting weaker parties with a greater chance of victory to establish early precedents before taking on larger or more difficult cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article also mentions blocking the sale of the Galaxy Nexus and the early Galaxy Note models; the GN has certainly not been available for purchase (new) for quite a while now, and I'm sure early Notes probably aren't too abundantly available either.

</comment><comment><USER25> Another reason to support open source projects, with goals of taking away power and money from the companies who monopolize the market. I was "thinking" about going MAC/iOS recently for development and this just helped me change my mind.

</comment><comment><USER26> Giant US corporation vs giant Korean corporation in a U.S. court. Yeah, that'll be totally fair.</comment>


The Secret Lives of Zipcar Drivers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/07/secret-lives-zipcar-drivers/2638/

<comment><USER2> People are rational, news at 11?

I also LOL'ed at this:

"They care about the environment. They want to take cars off the road. They've created a trusting community to share assets that previous generations insisted on owning. This is all a very European notion,"

Sure this is a very European notion. Come have a look at our roads and landscape and streets to see for yourself _rollseyes_. Then again, I guess you can't expect a marketing professor to understand concepts like 'observer bias' or 'sample size'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of zipcar's policies make me feel that they are just using the word community to lower their operational costs rather than actually believing in it. Eg

a) If the person ahead of you is late, zipcar will not automatically give you an extension for the time lost because you got the car late. They will if you call them, but not by default. b) They charge a late fee because the person next in line is being inconvenienced. How about splitting the late fee with the person being inconvenienced? c) If you have a zipcar plan where you prepay then getting money out when you cancel the service used to be problematic as of 2 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER4> What are people's thoughts on switching from car ownership to using Zipcar if you're living in a city like SF and need the car maybe once-twice a week for grocery shopping or occasional drive to South Bay? Does it pay for itself?

<comment><USER5> I don't know how good the service is in SF, but generally I can recommend it strongly for this use case. My parents did that around 2000 for 3 or 4 years (in Germany, in a bigger city). We rented a car once a week for grocery shopping and sometimes for a family trip (we even did a 2-week holiday trip with a rented car).

With this usage we definitely saved money. And a lot of time, because you don't have to care about repairing the car, taxes, ...

My father got a new job, moved to a small city without a car sharing service and bought a mercedes. He probably wouldn't "downgrade", but he is constantly annoyed because he has to care about all the small details (changing tires in the winter, refilling oil, then often small things like light bulbs break, ...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> After the fatal accident of that Googler's car in a car-sharing arrangement, I would assume that any 'real' ride-sharing is significantly reduced. There's just too much personal liability compared to AirBnB type of sharing.

A car is a complex piece of machinery. You keep everything on your car running absolutely perfectly? Well, it's great if you can afford that. Probably you're not in the target demographic.

Most people who share their own rides assume it's at least going to break even, if not much more. But if there's an accident, how easy is it for the driver to just claim it was the car? They can ditch the fault if the car itself was faulty. There's just too much incentive for a stranger to take advantage and cost you a lot of money.

The premise of ride sharing is the willingness to put yourself at someone else's mercy. It's a basic foundation of trust between two non-familiar people that doesn't exist in our culture.

OK, so take the human component out of it. What's left is a for-profit corporation handing cars out for cheap. No one should be surprised when people take them up on the offer out of economic benefit! They are able to provide cars for cheap, if they are in your area, and you want a cheap char, why wouldn't you use them?

I think they should fully accept your fate, and pivot into the worlds absolute BEST rental car company. Just maximize utilization! They've built all the infrastructure they need, they could kill it in this space like UBER is killing it in valet.

<comment><USER7> _It's a basic foundation of trust between two non-familiar people that doesn't exist in our culture._

What? Trust is the very bedrock of civilization. You trust people in little ways every second of everyday. You trust the mailman isn't reading your mail, you trust the coffee at the diner isn't contaminated, you trust the health inspector that inspected that diner, and so on.

<comment><USER6> Trust that people won't commit felonies is one thing. But businesses don't win over customers that way.

All business is about establishing trust. But standard practice in business is never to expose yourself to undue risk. The business side of ride sharing just doesn't compute, because the benefits don't outweigh the risks of letting someone else drive your car in exchange for money.

Businesses carry insurance, and they operate under a completely different tort of liability. A well operated business will never risk sending employees to jail because a car they rented crashed. They may be fined, but you would need to prove willful negligence to get a criminal charge.

On the other hand, lending your car out as a individual exposes you to massive civil and potentially criminal liability. You don't have to literally booby- trap your car to be charged, you could be charged merely for a component failing at the wrong moment (hindsight is 20/20, and juries are people).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the comments to the article, Chicago's I-Go Car Sharing's consumer survey seems to showed "helping the environment" as the 6th most important reason for being a member.

I wonder if this is about car sharing in general, or more a reflection of Zipcar? Do people just not like Zipcar? Does Zipcar have specific policies that anger people?

<comment><USER9> 6th most important means "not very important".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Will we see car co-op's in the same way we see grocery store co-ops? That would be more of a community, but I think the comparison of zip-cars to hotel rooms is quite apt.

</comment><comment><USER11> One guy in the article touches on it: many succumb to the moral hazard to be a traffic menace. Some of the worst drivers on the road are car-share members.

</comment><comment><USER12> Honestly, their findings are what I would have assumed in the first place. It makes more sense to me that people would use Zipcar because it's more convenient than buying your own car and paying insurance on it. The social and environmental factors seem to me more like an "oh by the way", rather than primary motivators.

<comment><USER13> I didn't even know they had a messageboard. I just found a coat in the trunk of the mini cooper I just rented. I had the strong urge to just throw it away because it was taking up space I was using for groceries.

Instead I left it in the car, in case its old owners came looking for it. I didn't want to get charged for leaving trash though...

<comment><USER14> Seems like there should be a feature that allows you to alert the previous driver of belongings left in the car without violating that person's privacy by providing contact info.</comment></comment></comment>