Ask HN: How can I market my iOS games to older folks? - <AUTHOR>

In my numerous though anecdotal experiences of talking with my retired parents and other AARP card holders, it seems that older folks don't read any blogs or app reviews sites or any such thing (at all!) to find out about apps or games for their iPhones or iPads.  (I'm iOS-centric, so that's my research area.)
Does anybody have any leads on how/where to get some mindshare for games that squarely target older folks?  I'm building games for them by making the games with these attributes:
* free - I've found that older folks really really really prefer free apps in the majority of cases
* clean, aka no gratuitous explosions/animations - From what I can tell, when presented with similar apps, older folks don't want buttons that jiggle all over the place or lots of particle effects.  Instead, they want easy-to-read fonts and intuitive UIs
The unfortunate side effect of building games like this are that they are the opposite of what app/game review sites want to publish, because my games are purpose-built to be non-flashy, whereas the review sites want to see "a new twist" on a game or "amazing graphics/theme" wrapped on a game, in order to drive readership.  As stated above, older folks don't read that anyways, so I guess it's moot, but it brings me back to my question - how do I get more older folks to try my games?  :-)
PS - anybody here write for AARP?  ;-) <comment> FELICIA-JOY My mom is your target demographic so let me know if you want to add a sassy, energetic 73 (going on 37) year old to your beta test group once you are also live on the Android platform.

In answer to your question, here are a couple ideas:

(1) Contact active senior living communities. They are springing up everywhere and the seniors opting for these communities are going to tend to be energetic, into new things and more financially well off. Most, if not all, of these communities have e-mail lists and calendars of events and activities that they send out to the residents every week or month because one of their selling points is that they offer fun and unique things to keep the residents active and having fun. See if you can get them to feature your games in their e-mails or newsletters. These are all over the country. Just google "active senior living communities" and similar key phrases. (Note: These are different from "nursing homes" so emphasis on "active.")

(2) This is probably tougher if you're not really into marketing and "selling yourself," but, do PR. From the local to national level there are great opportunities. Thousands of local newspapers still print everyday or every week and might find a feature about your game apps cool. But you'd have to craft it into a story that is enticing and verifiable (e.g. "A growing trend you wouldn't expect: Senior gamers"). On this page you can find local newspapers by state and start contacting them – or hire a PR rep – to pitch your story: [http://www.usnpl.com](http://www.usnpl.com). Even at the national level there are great opportunities. For example, Hoda Kotb and Kathy Lee Gifford do the last hour of the Today show on NBC and they are always featuring apps that make like easier or more fun. Plus, Kathy Lee is your target demographic (she just turned 60 and they celebrated on the show) so see if you can pitch the producers. Try CNN too – especially on weekends their demographic skews to 50+. And, of course, pitch AARP. ;-)

-Felicia Joy

<comment><AUTHOR> Great ideas - thanks! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> 1\. If you view your audience as "old folks" you won't do well because you don't have any empathy for that audience

2\. That's a pretty wide demographic that spans at least three generations at this point. An out of work baby boomer male in California may be very different than a well off retired female member of the silent generation who lives in Florida.

3\. If you want to find out what people are reading in a target demographic just ask them.

4\. The problem with your game is that you aren't trying to first design a great game but instead you're worrying about techniques and marketing.

5\. Why don't you do some informal research and ask your target audience what games they're playing and how they found those games?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) I've tried various terms - seniors, retired folks, etc. I love my audience! And they aren't offended by the term. Young folks, old folks - it's not a negative term here in the midwest.

4) Nope, I've got a great game - several in fact. But now that I do, how do I get more people to know about them.</comment></comment>


The US Is Preparing to Prosecute Julian Assange - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-is-optimistic-it-will-prosecute-assange-1542323142 <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/qGn9gA](https://outline.com/qGn9gA)

</comment><comment><USER3> If true, this suggests that previous articles about assange being 'practically free to go', and 'just staying in the embassy for attention' were misinformed.

<comment><USER4> He's always been free to go, just that he'd likely to be arrested.

Unclear what article you are referring to in the 'staying for attention' reference.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but the UN effectively say he's being detained, which I tend to agree with. It's like me standing there with a gun to your head saying if you take one more step, I'll shoot. Technically, you're "free to leave at any time," but that's not really the effective reality.

> February 2016 - A UN panel rules that Mr Assange has been "arbitrarily > detained" by UK and Swedish authorities since 2010

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-11949341](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11949341)

<comment><USER6> I don't quite get what the argument is supposed to be. Possibly that the charges should be dropped because so much time has passed.

Because there is just no logical reason why an accused should have the option of getting all charges dropped because somehow being prosecuted for them violates his rights?

The analogy with shooting someone is obviously different, in that _shooting someone_ tends to be a violation of their rights. Arresting them when they skipped bail is not quite the same as a bullet to the head.

<comment><USER7> What charges? Uncovering massive war-crimes committed by the US? (And how many have been charged as the result of those?)

Are you saying it's ok to let people off the hook for war-crimes, but reporting them should put you in prison?

What kind of society would that be? Certainly not one I would want to live in.

<comment><USER6> The danish rape charge, which would have probably been resolved with a few months of probation or some mandatory training.

Somehow, Assange managed to turn that prospect into the self-inflicted and unlimited golden cage that is the Ecuadorian Embassy. Guy's a true genius...

<comment><USER8> If you've been paying attention to #metoo, Kavanaugh and all that, this type of thing is done to discredit. No matter what Assange would do afterwards, every story would start: Assange, who agreed to probation for a rape charge, ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Without any opinion the merits of this case in particular, which seems like a total mess all around and I haven't been following, on the topic more generally I found "Demystifying International Extradition" [1] last year to be an interesting summary of the process. It introduced me to concepts that don't really tend to come up in local law. Amongst other pertinent aspects is that while the US generally wants to avoid binding its own hands it can do so if another nation demands it when it comes to the penalties it will seek. Lots of countries (I think including England?) will not extradite if the death penalty is on the table, but the US can apparently legally assure that it won't seek it (for capital crimes).

Lot of political considerations and such in high profile cases I guess when it comes to agreements between nation-states. Everyone can be prickly about their prerogatives and who gets justice and what it means for relations and public opinion and so on. Nothing guaranteed about it.

\----

1: [https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/publications/20...](https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/publications/2017/01/demystifying- international-extradition)

<comment><USER10> There's also just straight up extraordinary rendition, ie. showing up, black bagging someone, and flying off, outside the legal process.

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

Ironically, the UK doesn't allow extraordinary rendition, and it was a big deal to even let those planes refuel or use UK airspace, but Sweden historically has allowed it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al- Zery)

<comment><USER11> It was made a big deal in Sweden how ridiculous any fears were that Assange could be extradited from Sweden to the US if he would go to Sweden for hearings.

And now...

<comment><USER12> it's still "ridiculous" insofar as an extradition from Sweden would not just involve Sweden <-> US relations but US <-> UK relations (so two relations instead of just one). This isn't rocket science, there are more moving parts to the "get him from Sweden" from the simpler "Get him from the UK" plan.

<comment><USER11> Regarding how the debate went in Sweden, it was raised that Assange could be snatched up en route from UK to Sweden. This notion was dismissed even more summarily, like some spy movie fantasy.

(This would not happen unless the UK would be OK with it, of course. The UK, unless they have some exceptional reason, does exactly what the US says. If the law has wiggle room, they'll look the other way. I am sure also something could be arranged so Sweden and the UK could save face for each other in their relationship. Even if the US black bagged someone, as long as they didn't do it on UK soil, why should the brits just not shrug and say "ah, those naughty Americans, can't keep up with them all the time eh?" _wink, wink, nudge nudge_ )

Edit: Regarding the charges themselves against Assange - I have no doubt Assange is a bit of a douche. I would not be surprised _at all_ if he violated Swedish law. It's still quite suspicious that even though most similar investigations are closed, even with better evidence, this case was opened anew, by Marianne Ny. Of course the handling of this case was political.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like it already happened a few months back. Earlier today Seamus Hughes noticed an apparent copy&paste mistake in an independent court filing:

[https://twitter.com/SeamusHughes/status/1063232297674162176](https://twitter.com/SeamusHughes/status/1063232297674162176)

Which the WaPo just corroborated:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/julia...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/julian-assange-has-been-charged-prosecutors-reveal-in-inadvertent- court-filing/2018/11/15/9902e6ba-98bd-48df-b447-3e2a4638f05a_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> _[clears throat]_ USA killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civillians and is now jailing the whistleblowers _[cough]_

<comment><USER15> Americans (and I sadly speak for all 300mm+ of us) no longer give a flying fuck about illegal wars or mass murder.

There is no peace movement, there won't be ever again. Citizens will ignore the wars and entertain them selves by rage posting about either the red or blue team

<comment><USER16> People don't want wars, but they feel powerless to change things. And these feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness are perpetuated among society and create a self-defeating attitude.

<comment><USER17> Unless you plop them into a warzone, they won't truly care. In the US we are generally so far removed from the fracas of war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As I understand, Assange is not an US citizen. How can they prosecute him?

Wikipedia page [1] says:

> Opinions of Assange at this time [2010] were divided. Australian Prime > Minister Julia Gillard described his activities as "illegal," but the police > said that he had broken no Australian law. United States Vice President Joe > Biden and others called him a "terrorist". Some called for his assassination > or execution.

That's ridiculous. American soldiers killing civilians are "good guys", and Assange is a terrorist?

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

<comment><USER19> Try this Australian pirate who got jailed in USA. Then upon released, got jailed again for being an illegal alien and banned from USA.

Before the extradition, he had never set foot in USA before.

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

Labor/Liberal are USA stooges.

<comment><USER11> I thought you meant like high seas pirate. That this is happening in modern times is ... _interesting_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> By doing this the US is coming to the aid of the many dictators and despots whose crimes Assange has helped reveal.

Also, by ignoring the crimes revealed by the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, the US makes it very clear that war-making cronies rule both parties and would never hold each other accountable for anything.

To be clear, the war logs revealed that the US classified information solely because it revealed that the official narrative about why we were involved in those wars was false. Regardless of what one thinks about Assange, it's pretty hard to argue that the crimes revealed by the war logs aren't highly worrisome.

Regardless of how one feels about Assange, it's hard to deny that WL was the most successful attempt by any journalist to unmask the widespread US war crimes that we've seen in many decades.

My statement above may be too strong... so be it, but surely a court should have been able to decide the fate of the propagandists who misused their power to classify information from the American people. Instead the war criminals just attacked Assange and everyone else including most journalists do as they are asked and turned on a fellow journalist who was willing to sacrifice his freedom for the cause of truth.

<comment><USER21> While some of the things that were exposed were certainly illegal and should be handled as such, it's hard to feel any empathy for a guy who is essentially a Russian asset. If you think of him as an extension of Russian military intelligence conducting propaganda wars against its adversaries then it becomes a lot easier to understand why prosecuting him is a genuinely good thing. Russia airing the dirty laundry of others is good for Russia. Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not defending the dirty laundry I'm just saying that the intent behind the messenger in this situation is not at all altruistic.

<comment><USER22> Russia airing the dirty laundry through a side channel is MUCH more benevolent than the other things (like blackmailing our world leaders) they could do with this.

I don't think all of Wikileaks' revelations are from Russia, but even if they all are - and Russia had selfish motivations - it was a benevolent act toward the world. Truth is power, and revealing the truth to the powerless is never an evil act.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. As I put it in another comment, if someone leaked information that led to Jerry Sandusky being stopped several years sooner, would it matter if the leaker was affiliated with a rival football program?

Because of how WL releases full, minimally redacted documents, there is really no reason to worry about the details. Failures of journalistic integrity happen because of strategic omissions or intentional misdirection. WL essentially can't do that because it releases the source material in essentially raw form.

<comment><USER23> > WL essentially can't do that because it releases the source material in > essentially raw form.

But they can decline to release certain groups of documents that go contrary to whichever narrative they are trying to build.

<comment><USER22> Thats why we need dozens of Wikileaks 'competitors'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hope and pray that some smart lawyers come to his defense in both in England, Ecuador, and the USA. I hope that "we" are collectively smart enough to support him (and Snowden). He is probably not a Russian agent... all of that talk is a distraction (especially with Mueller).. if Russia left him out to dry then they would seriously curtail their intelligence operations... after all memes and fake news are far more effective.

If he is a Russian agent, the Prisoners Dilemma applies: Will Trump pardon or will Russia declare? Russia has more to lose here. Maybe there is a way out for Russia and the US but I doubt it. This is actually an interesting case.. a 3 party prisoners dilemma.. any ideas?

One of my biggest regrets is not supporting Aaron.. at the time it would not have been much but maybe collectively and everyone together. Maybe we were too late to recognize that he was ahead of his time... and maybe we still are.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484)

<comment><USER25> Why so? He has shown himself over time to be someone who has constantly reneged on his responsibilities, made obtuse efforts to be "understanding" when he has no standing ("offering" to be interviewed via video from the embassy - who else gets to decide how, when, where and if they are interviewed on criminal charges?), and shown himself to be entirely partisan in his motives when it comes down to it.

Why should "we" be "collectively supporting him", precisely?

<comment><USER24> What exactly is partisan?

<comment><USER25> Contrived and controlled releases to influence a narrative in a particular desired direction.

Being given a trove of documents categorized as misdeeds by both sides of government and largely sitting on those by one side, and releasing those that adversely impact the other. Partisan.

<comment><USER24> Or timely.

<comment><USER25> Okay. Then why was it "timely" to release material critical of the left leaning factions of US government...

... but at the same time "not timely" to release material critical of the right leaning factions?

<comment><USER24> Does this ignore the fact that Wikileaks might have been played?

<comment><USER26> Possibly, but:

1\. Wikileaks has declined to publish leaks critical of Putin and Russian in the past 2\. Wikileaks inexplicably denigrated the release of the Panama papers, which contained lots of damning information about several Russian oligarchs and key Putin allies, despite the fact that it seems like something they would be supportive of 3\. Assange had his own show on Russian state- sponsored television

It is entirely possible that Wikileaks was duped by the Russian government. But there is lots of circumstantial evidence that makes the idea seem suspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If he had kept his promise after Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning I would care.

<comment><USER28> What a silly point on which to turn your concerns about government misconduct, especially when it involves the 1st amendment.

> Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning

First of all, that never happened. You are drastically exaggerating the relief offered by the government.

The government tortured this person for years and then, even after offering this (in the great scheme of things, small) gesture of commuting her sentence, it still kept her locked up for an absurd amount of time, ostensibly for administrative reasons.

It was too little too late for me, and too little too late for Assange. If the government wanted to take the deal he offered, it had the opportunity to immediately pardon Manning and call Assange out on it. Then we'd know if he was bluffing.

This (less than) half measure doesn't cut.

<comment><USER29> • 15 Sep 2016 "If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to US prison in exchange -- despite its clear unlawfulness" [1]

• 12 Jan 2017 "If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case" [2]

• 17 Jan 2017 "Assange lawyer @themtchair on Assange-Manning extradition 'deal': "Everything that he has said he's standing by." [3]

[1] [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/776437869376262144](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/776437869376262144)

[2] [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/819630102787059713](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/819630102787059713)

[3] [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/821528189625372672](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/821528189625372672)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's elementary, my dear Watson:

1\. WL disclosed information to US population. 2\. WL is accused of being "Non-state Hostile Intelligence Service". 3\. Hostile intelligence services work for enemies. 4\. US population is the enemy.

</comment><comment><USER31> So much for WikiLeaks thinking there was a lesser evil back in 2016

<comment><USER32> Wikileaks believed at the time that Clinton was ready to send a drone to get rid of Assange. Between due process and a drone attack, I take due process any day.

<comment><USER33> That's an obviously absurd belief given he's in an embassy. The USA has done a lot of insane shit but that would be a ridiculous line to cross to eliminate a single "criminal."

<comment><USER34> I'll give you some absurd and ridiculous details.

When the WL backend for collateral murder was hosted at bahnhof in Sweden, moving it to .CH was among other reasons done because of certainly the US, and specifically & allegedly homeland security having launched a DDOS attack so strong it could have kicked Sweden offline.

When US agents started their smearing campaign against Assange in Sweden, they accidentally added smear to wikipedia that did not happen yet.

In Brussels, WL volunteers where threatened by US agents with silenced pistols in a parking lot.

Various so called "influencers", mostly academics and activistic people where payed to spread the false US narrative regarding everything related to Assange.

<comment><USER35> Again - going from there to drone strikes (against an embassy in an allied country with a sophisticated air defense system) is absurd.

<comment><USER34> Indeed it is. Let me quote Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, /again/. "Can't we just drone this guy". Context: Being confronted with Assange his existence by her staff.

<comment><USER36> Which was (possibly objectionable) humor, but light-years from any sort of actual intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What someone's motivation is (in relation to the still unsubstantiated allegation that Assange is a "Russian asset" trying advance Russian foreign policy objectives) should be completely irrelevant to the legality of an action.

Is publishing leaked documents protected under the First Amendment?

Is publishing "propaganda" protected under the First Amendment?

I would say the answer to both of these questions is yes.

<comment><USER38> All these questions his attorneys can try to answer during the trial. That he was /is a Russian asset, I think we pretty much know. Maybe he needed a bear hug in light of everyone behind against him...or maybe Russia had dirt on the country he wanted to hurt?

<comment><USER37> I see this claim a lot, yet no evidence to substantiate it. What evidence do you have that he is/was a Russian asset?

And what does it matter if it's a Russian asset doing the leaking, instead of a selfless journalist? Is the leaking illegal or not? This "Russian asset" angle seems like ad hominem to make people acquiesce to violating freedom of speech.

<comment><USER38> CIA Director: _' It's time to call out Wikileaks for what it really is, a non- state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.'_

It's normal for us not to have any direct evidence, but to see the results of their behavior. CIA on the other hand might have recordings, communication etc. They have been digging for years.

<comment><USER39> We also know, via leaked Snowden documents, that the intelligence community has been looking for ways to discredit Wikileaks for about a decade. The CIA is not a trustworthy source, if they have proof it needs to be presented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I never thought it would happen. He always seemed to stay a few steps ahead and he has plenty of of supporters and many countries that are hostile the US were willing to grant him asylum. I'm not sure how this would work. He would have to be kidnapped or given up.

<comment><USER41> He has successfully alienated anyone who ever supported him at this point.

<comment><USER28> Not me. I still think that his efforts have cast very important light on the recent history of US Foreign Policy.

<comment><USER41> Assange is simply not an honest broker which is his one job. Even if you think the Chelsea Manning leak was valuable, what exactly was Assange's value add?

The leaker was not protected. She was caught and prosecuted. The data was not protected. WikiLeaks was hacked and leaked all the raw data. The content was not shared in an objective way. Assange editorialized the content with his own opinions (ie Collateral Murder). His only contribution was to raise money to pay for hosting.

There's a reason why Ed Snowden didn't give his leaks to Assange.

<comment><USER28> If this sort of assessment is the case against Assange (in terms of his character as a journalist), then I think he has a very strong case.

> The leaker was not protected. She was caught and prosecuted.

You're talking as if Assange or WikiLeaks disclosed the source.

Are you suggesting that a journalist has a responsibility to protect a source unto the ends of the earth, even when that source openly and flatly confides in an (in retrospect, untrustworthy) friend that she has leaked what she knows to be classified material?

How exactly was Wikileaks supposed to respond? By somehow tracking down Adrian Lamo and ensuring that he didn't report her? I'm just astonished at this part of your indictment.

> The data was not protected. WikiLeaks was hacked and leaked all the raw > data.

"Hacked?"

WikiLeaks published the entire cache of documents - and I celebrate them for it. I have personally read over 600 pages (probably a thousand at this point) and I have yet to encounter one of them that I, as a United States citizen, believe was rightly withheld from my view by my government.

WikiLeaks took care to redact some proper nouns from these documents, but provided unredacted versions to some journalists, along with painstaking, easy-to-follow instructions about preserving them. Nevertheless, a (much more ostensible respectable) journalist at The Guardian posted the passphrase and the files were leaked.

In what universe is this a failing of WikiLeaks OpsSec? "Hacked"? What can you possibly be talking about?

The only security compromise about which I'm aware on the part of WikiLeaks was a problem with their web frontend which briefly allowed a group to change it to a juvenile message. No documents were involved.

> The content was not shared in an objective way. Assange editorialized the > content with his own opinions (ie Collateral Murder).

...so? What's wrong with that?

Let's keep things in perspective here: a person flying in a helicopter intentionally fired an explosive missile at a person standing on the ground. I know we're all pretty numb to this happening at this point, but I think it's still pretty shocking when you think about it.

Maybe he did think that he was firing on someone carrying an RPG. So? It's still a crazy act, carried out during an illegal war. Calling it "Collateral Murder" doesn't turn me off in the slightest.

> There's a reason why Ed Snowden didn't give his leaks to Assange.

I appreciate the way that Ed Snowden conducted himself. He took a different approach and one that is welcome.

I also think that Ed Snowden's criticisms of WikiLeaks are substantially more honest than yours. Can you explain why you've characterized these things in such a strange way?

<comment><USER42> _> Let's keep things in perspective here: a person flying in a helicopter intentionally fired an explosive missile at a person standing on the ground. I know we're all pretty numb to this happening at this point, but I think it's still pretty shocking when you think about it.

Maybe he did think that he was firing on someone carrying an RPG. So? It's still a crazy act, carried out during an illegal war. Calling it "Collateral Murder" doesn't turn me off in the slightest._

Fine, a camera can look like an RPG from a distance. But maybe they should be looking a bit closer if everything is looking like an RPG.

For me, the most shocking part was when they opened fire on the van with an(other) unarmed civilian that made the mistake of stopping to help the injured people.

Then even more shocking when they later discovered the two children who were in the now-destroyed van. Just a man and his children driving in a van. Now murdered for the crime of trying to help a fellow human being.

Just a shocking lack of regard for human life. If that's how they operate - and it seems to be - they are nothing but war criminals.

What kind of monster would want to protect that kind of behavior from public scrutiny?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How do they plan to get him out of the embassy without violating the Vienna Convention? He's been amazingly... immature and disruptive... in the embassy, but has there ever in history been a case of a refugee being remanded to their oppressor because of how annoying they are? To be fair, Assange seems to be _really_ annoying.

</comment><comment><USER44> I can't read the article. Does it mention what charges might apply?

If he conspired with the hackers, I can see where criminal charges might come in. If he merely published documents afterwards, I'm not sure what they could charge him with.

</comment><comment><USER45> Let's leave all the war criminals from Iraq so we have repeats in Libya and Syria. Let's forgot about the bankers and fraud. Let's not do anything about the NSA and liars like Clapper. Let's instead get Assange. This makes a lot of sense, but only if you are a pretend democracy.

That should read the US regime is preparing to 'persecute' Julian Assange and should be a reality check for anyone remotely concerned about democracy, free press and dissent.

</comment><comment><USER46> Well, it only took ~7ish years, and two more character assassinations, but in the end they're going to get him, as expected. Profoundly unfortunate.

</comment><comment><USER47> Who are these people who are 'familiar with the matter'? Look at the people 'familiar with the matter' regarding the apple/et al spy chip story. How can we, as consumers of news, ever know if there is any kind of truth from these anonymous sources, or if they are just trying to nudge either public perception, or key players(wikileaks, ecuador, etc) in a certain way?

<comment><USER48> I just bough a Quanta LGA2011 board off ebay. In the BIOS PXE settings were IP's that belong to Amazon.

So I have to wonder if Amazon even used SuperMicro hardware. I know with great certainty that they used Quanta as a board manufacturer.

So who planted this story is my question. Who would stand the most at bringing down SuperMicro. I would rule out the Chinese because they were made to look bad.

So who else in the US manufactures motherboards and would benefit from SuperMicro's demise.

Did the same people also drive SuperMicro stock down to a point of it being delisted?

I hated seeing a "Designed in the USA" motherboard manufacturer dragged through the mud.

I have used their affordable dual CPU motherboards dating back to BX chipset. Ultra-reliable and feature packed.

I even made some negative Supermicro comments at the time. Amazing how easily even intelligent people can be brainwashed.

The problem with the story is that all of the accusations are technically feasible. We know TAO does this from Edward Snowdens wonderful truthfulness.

So we all wanted to have an Ahh-Ha moment. Too bad we were duped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> There is a real, if small, chance that there could be a general election in the UK soon and potentially a more favourable labour government. If I were Assange I would do whatever I could to hang in there at least long enough to rule that possibility out.

</comment><comment><USER50> fun fact: Julian Assange was an early NetBSD developer. Long live proff@ ;)

</comment><comment><USER51> In an ideal world, this wouldn't be a bad thing. A trial would force the government to finally show us proof that Wikileaks was working for the Russians and they conspired criminally to hack US networks.

Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world, and you should be absolutely certain that any "trial" Assange gets will be a kangaroo court where he is convicted on "secret" evidence that we won't be able to independently view or scrutinize due to "national security concerns". What's worse is people will point to Assange's conviction in this show trial as proof of all of evidence- free accusations the spy agencies and US government have been hurling around for the last 2+ years.

<comment><USER52> I agree, I'm surprised you're being downvoted for this opinion. Kangaroo courts happen and even when the person facing the verdict is high profile. It shows how power with the agenda of whomever is what crafts law. Logic is the thing rational people cling to and logic is not part of foundation making justice in prosecutions. The wild thing to me is how much hate assange has gathered recently online. People seem to prefer writing just throw him in jail than take the undecided stance. Makes me think things are getting worse if you're on the not happy side with how things are run.

<comment><USER51> Its being downvoted for the same reason that Assange is so hated. Unfortunately most Americans are incredibly susceptible to propaganda. Its why 90% of Americans continued to believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 even years after the invasion of Iraq. Even for those few Americans with the capacity to be skeptical and think critically, its much easier to accept "conventional wisdom" and adopt the official narrative than to consider the possibility that our government regularly disseminates lies and propaganda. Groupthink is not only real, it is perhaps the dominant driving force in society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wonder if the espionage act will suffice, or whether they'll need to make up some new laws here?

</comment><comment><USER54> [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-cyberwar- commentar...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-cyberwar-commentary- idUSKBN12X075)

"...Vice President Joe Biden said on NBC's Meet the Press that "we're sending a message" to Putin and "it will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact." When asked if the American public would know a message was sent, Biden replied, "Hope not."

This statement has haunted me since I first watched Biden's interview in 2016. What are Biden's plans to avenge Clinton's lost campaign? I've always thought it has something to do with Assange, but aside from discretely murdering Assange, I can't think of anything the US could do to avenge Hilary's loss that the public wouldn't know about. Clinton asked why we couldn't just drone Assange. Maybe they'll make his death look like an accident or a health issue?

</comment><comment><USER4> What are the planned charges likely to be for?

My understanding is that the original leaks were likely to be difficult to win a case over. His actions during the 2016 election campaign maybe a different story though. It's unclear exactly what he is alleged to have done.

</comment><comment><USER55> Julian Assange was a key figure in the early days of PostgreSQL and he contributed to NetBSD

[http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/sys/netinet/tcp_subr...](http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/sys/netinet/tcp_subr.c?rev=1.79&content- type=text/x-cvsweb-markup&only_with_tag=MAIN)

[https://www.postgresql.org/message- id/CALtFtELs3mMM2g__fZFyF...](https://www.postgresql.org/message- firstname.lastname@example.com)

<comment><USER13> "key figure" as in: A few small changes.

[https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git&a=search...](https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git&a=search&h=HEAD&st=author&s=julian)

[https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit...](https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=72f76d38eb23e1fbca92f0e14b257c33e5ecccbc)

Edit: Added the one contribution he didn't commit himself.

<comment><USER56> What? I would be proud to have got this into postgres core, but perhaps you operate on a different plane of excellence. [https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=blobdi...](https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=blobdiff;f=src/bin/psql/psql.c;h=4bb783f564705f592c94cd0122929f2eda01b20c;hp=2201c064269404d2b10602fd4278d28e82bd3243;hb=76bc8cb97fc35673c42fe84fe6a9d6887260419a;hpb=23c7ff0b3c38657081590430d08ef48bb5bde759)

<comment><USER13> > What? I would be proud to have got this into postgres core, but perhaps you > operate on a different plane of excellence. > [https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=blobdi...](https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=blobdi..).

It's just a minor rewrite of parts of the commandline client. Mostly made verbose by by renaming structs members / moving members around. 22+ years ago.

> but perhaps you operate on a different plane of excellence.

I work on PG close to full-time. So I sure hope I've many more contributions than that ;)

<comment><USER56> OK, well that's great that you contribute to/work on postgres, I have a lot of respect for that project and in general for low-level work like that rather than the product-level nonsense that I work on. But I still think you shouldn't publicly belittle any open source contributions, let alone ones on a project with such high standards for acceptance, and relatively high intellectual barrier to entry, as postgres.

<comment><USER13> My point wasn't to belittle the contributions, but to point out that he wasn't a "key figure".

<comment><USER56> Yes, "key figure" was clearly inaccurate. But

"A few small changes."

"just a minor rewrite of parts of the commandline client. Mostly made verbose by by renaming structs members / moving members around."

People...really find learning programming hard. Many, many people, even if they try, won't manage to have the intellectual discipline to learn C to the level that you're disparaging. I'm pretty sure that you and I both agree that we shouldn't refer to someone else's hard work in that way.

<comment><USER13> > I'm pretty sure that you and I both agree that we shouldn't refer to someone > else's hard work in that way.

I only said they're not large changes. small != worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Assange should hand the site over to Anonymous, just in case.

</comment><comment><USER58> Wow. Freedom of the press is dead.

<comment><USER59> I don't think Freedom of the Press is dead. WikiLeaks isn't a news organization, especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.

<comment><USER39> Yes, they are a news organization. Covering the election is what a news organization should do, and it's hard to argue the Clinton emails weren't newsworthy.

>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network

This is untrue. There is nothing suggesting that Wikileaks has knowingly coordinated with Russia. And that TV show was indepently produced by Assange, with RT buying some ofthe distribution rights.

<comment><USER59> If they are a news organization, they do a terrible job of reporting the news. They are a black box repository for leaked data. They were once a great resource for info hackers and leakers to push their data, like back in 2008/2009\. But that was before news organizations started using their own secure drop servers for sources. Once WikiLeaks sources started to not go to them, they started to look for other benefactors and sources. They found it in the Russian Government.

<comment><USER39> Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

Wikileaks quality has surely dropped. They are still the press, and any prosecution by the US will be over things like the Manning links, a direct attack on the freedom of the press.

<comment><USER60> >Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

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

<comment><USER39> OK, there is evidence that Assange sold the broadcast rights of a show to a Russian controlled news organization. Do you think that Jesse Ventura should also be prosecuted?

<comment><USER60> I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?)

While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show _first aired_ on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.

<comment><USER39> >I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?

People use his television show to claim he's a paid operative of Russia. The same narrative can be made of Ventura, and any reason Assange should be prosecuted but not Ventura seems sketchy.

>While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.

They bought the initial rights in several languages, not exclusive, but he did not make the show for RT. That's a fairly clear distinction.

<comment><USER60> No-one is suggesting that Assange should be prosecuted for making a TV show, so I don't see what you're getting at with the Ventura comparison.

What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money. The TV show is one of many examples of unusually close connections between Assange and the Russian state:

[https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wik...](https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks- russia-ties)

<comment><USER39> >What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money.

First, this also describes Ventura.

Second, claiming to be anti-authoritarian while accepting help from a clearly authoritarian Kremlin describes the US in WWII.

None of those connections suggest he's coordinating with Russia, just that their interests sometimes align. I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.

<comment><USER60> >First, this also describes Ventura.

I don't really know anything about Jesse Ventura, and still don't understand why you keep bringing him up. If he's done everything that Assange has done, then I don't like him either.

> I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.

Ah, the Captain Renault defense. (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)

<comment><USER39> Ventura has a show that is on RT. You quoted my statement

>Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians

And replied with a link to Assanges' show. I'll admit, "working" is too vague of a word to use, all my other posts use "collaborate," as selling the show to RT could be called "working with." However, if that contact is the damning evidence that you claim it is, the same evidence is available linking Ventura (and Larry King) to the Kremlin. Why aren't you calling for them to receive the same treatment?

>Ah, the Captain Renault defense. . (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)

Still no evidence of collaboration has been shown. And nothing like that scenario, I'm sure he'd have gladly had his show run on both channels at the same time. More people would see his views and he'd make more money for his work.

<comment><USER60> >Why aren't you calling for them to receive the same treatment?

Becasue I don't know who they are, and AFAIK, there's nothing comparable to the links established in the Vox article I linked to.

<comment><USER39> The Vox article you linked has three sections about the "links." The first's conclusion starts

>This isn't a direct link between Assange and the Kremlin,

The second is the TV show, and the third is just ridiculous. Russia is the place where it is most difficult for the US to access Snowden, basically the same for the bodyguards, and one tweet showing both Assange and Russia are antisemitic? They even follow it by saying

>Again, none of these even hint that Assange is a Russian agent. What they do show, when put together, is that Assange doesn't see Russia as an enemy or a target.

Which seems fairly obvious. He's not a Russian agent, he just views the country that has passed a law calling him a "non-state hostile intelligence service" to be a bigger enemy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> 2 words: Jury Nullification.

"Jury nullification occurs when a trial jury reaches a verdict that is contrary to the letter of the law because the jurors either:

* disagree with the law under which the defendant is prosecuted, or

* believe that the law shouldn't be applied in the case at hand."

[https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-jury- nullificat...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-jury- nullification.html)

</comment><comment><USER56> If true then disgusting and completely unacceptable. The way in which legal systems have been cynically abused to ruin this man's life reflects extremely poorly on the people and institutions concerned. Wikileaks' revelation of the disgusting behavior of the US armed forces in Baghdad was an extremely valuable contribution to society.

<comment><USER62> The claims of him being a russian asset and the the links to washingtonpost and nytimes as credible sources in this thread is hilarious.

I thought hacker news was more rational and logical than my twitter feed - maybe not.

Assange and WL is the last bastion of free speech and genuine joirnalism left in our modern age.

If you dont see that, then youre a fool.

<comment><USER63> Also, being a "Russian asset", whatever that means, doesn't affect anything. If he refuses to release dirt against Russia, the would be leaker can go to someone else or just release it themselves. He isn't the gatekeeper of all leaked information.

Justifying it this way is just a ploy to punish the whistleblower and I can't believe how many people go along with it.</comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Snapcash - <AUTHOR> http://blog.snapchat.com/post/102895720555/introducing-snapcash <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, everybody outside the US is trying to figure out how it's taken so long for easy person-to-person payments to happen there.

Here in NZ, you've been able to pay directly to someone's bank account number for free for as long as I can remember, and my bank introduced payments to mobile numbers, facebook accounts, and email addresses 3 years ago. (Oh and it's totally safe to broadcast your account number to everyone, most companies have it listed on their website. No way to pull money from it through ACH without their permission).

<comment><USER3> As someone else from NZ I would like to second this. We got a US bank account for our company and I was surprised how archaic the US banking industry is.

Another thing very interesting in NZ/AU is EFTPOS. EFTPOS is like the credit card system only with no transaction costs. Any shop in NZ/AU will take it.

The original business model for EFTPOS was that the user pays a fixed charge per transaction. I think it was something like 20c originally. However, because each bank was free to charge it's customers whatever it pleased for EFTPOS, price competition very quickly reduced that cost to zero (Which to be fair is what the actual cost of a purely electronic transaction should be).

There is no reason not to pay for even the most trivial purchase with EFTPOS so I haven't carried cash around in my entire life.

The only reason everyone still uses credit cards as well is for online purchases. EFTPOS is in person only. The number on the front of the card has no ability to be used for making a payment.

I think the place where VISA is starting to get more inroads into the NZ market is with NFC. NFC is getting more prevalent, and we are also starting to see things like this turn up as well: [https://www.asb.co.nz/paytag/](https://www.asb.co.nz/paytag/)

<comment><USER4> > EFTPOS is like the credit card system only with no transaction costs.

Somebody is picking up the tab. Is it the merchants? or the banks? gov't (=taxes)?

<comment><USER3> The merchant has to buy (or rent) an EFTPOS terminal. The bank also charges the merchant a setup fee to connect your terminal to your bank account. Once that has been done there are no more fees.

You have to look at the way it evolved. Because this is a service offered to customers by each bank in competition with each other, the competition drove the price per transaction to zero.

<comment><USER4> > the competition drove the price per transaction to zero.

So the customers are paying. The banks just build it into the banking fees.

It's not like that infrastructure is free.

<comment><USER5> > so the customers are paying.

Yeah. Kindof. NAB has the debit card account free of charge, unlimited ATM withdrawals, transfers across banks free and attractive savings rates. CBA's fee is $5/mo unless you get a salary per month through your account. Pretty much the same for the 4 major banks.

In France you need to pay 60-120€/year for an account + CC. In Australia you don't need to pay. In US don't they beg you to open a credit card?

<comment><USER4> > _In US don 't they beg you to open a credit card?_

Yeah, pretty much. If you are responsible, you get back 1% of all of your purchases on the CC. And in the spirit of "who pays for that", it's the folks carrying a balance who pay for the 1% cash back on everything.

<comment><USER6> it's not the people carrying a balance that pay for that - it's the merchants. it's an extra fee added on to the credit card fee that a merchant can't predict nor can they avoid.

As a merchant, I charged people, say... $10 for something. The fee might be 2.9%, but if it was 'rewards card' (which I can't tell ahead of time) the charge would show up as 4%.

The cost is passed on to every in the form of higher prices. The people carrying a balance have nothing to do with this. That would simply eat in to the banks' profits. Why would they just randomly give people x% of the profits from balance-accrued interest?

<comment><USER7> Hm... I wonder who gets the extra 0.1%.

<comment><USER6> Hrm.... indeed.

It's different. I've had some cards charge me > 4% - one was... 5% IIRC. I think it was an Amex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the primary challenge is convincing users that it's secure. Snapchat has a relatively poor reputation in security (whether that's deserved or not), and everyone I know just uses Venmo. Venmo has Facebook integration, so if you're Facebook friends, it's really easy to send money.

It seems like integrating into a platform that's supposed to be ethereal is a weird fit, but who knows -- maybe it'll catch on.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. The primary users of Snapchat aren't worried about security.

<comment><USER10> They also aren't currently sending each other money. I hate to be a naysayer to what I think is a pretty cool product, but Snapchat's terrible security reputation is well-deserved. But also this isn't very much differentiated from sending money with Gmail, Square, etc.

<comment><USER11> I think the point is that they ARE sending eachother money, just in less efficient ways. Looking at how people use snapchat it isn't as much about ephemeral as it is about speed. It's much easier to send a picture to someone in snapchat as the flow is better, and it doesn't leave a stupid photo on your phone (and on several cloud backups) that you didn;t want to stick around forever (e.g. check out this awesome car, you don't need a copy of that)

I thought this move was awesome. In my 17-25 year old life my friends and I were constantly owing eachother money for random things. If someone could pay me back right there for no charge that would have been my dream. We debated building an app for it at one point, just to tally who owes who what. It was a big enough issue I carried an excel doc but not enough to go out and search a standalone app for it. If the function is easily integrated into an app I use for something similar, however, I feel like I may pick it up.

Also teenagers aren't using gmail or square, etc. now so if snapchat can take them over before university they have a better chance of winning, imo. I do believe this is a market to be won going forward, at least in that 17-25 demographic (also why bitcoin got me excited, no fees for small transactions is a REQUIREMENT for person to person payments).

<comment><USER12> > and it doesn't leave a stupid photo on your phone (and on several cloud > backups) that you didn;t want to stick around forever (e.g. check out this > awesome car, you don't need a copy of that)

You should probably research Snapchat's history and behaviors.

<comment><USER13> the OP's argument sounds more like one of convenience though -- I don't _really_ care if there's a cached copy of my awesome car picture somewhere.. I just don't want to see it in my main photo app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whats that old jwz quote: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."

I think there is a corollary too, though I cannot attribute it: "Every social media site attempts to expand until it becomes a bank. Those companies which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."

</comment><comment><USER15> Underage nudity and quick cash sending? What could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER16> ....Because that's not possible today with current technology?

edit: I seriously don't understand how you immediately jump to that being the new functionality when sending payments today is as simple as logging into paypal or any numerous other payments sites.... Not to mention the age requirement of 18? This comment is just fear mongering.

<comment><USER17> I really can't see teenagers setting up a PayPal account in order to receive money for nudes.

I can, however, see someone asking for cash through the very same app that they're using to send nude pictures.

I agree with the GP, this is gonna get interesting.

<comment><USER16> Setting up a PayPal account and setting up an age-locked account that requires an associated bank account (in the form of a debit card) appears to be more effort on the SnapChat payments side, at least to me. The only reason for this fear (which really should be associated with any social media micro-payments system) being touted here is because of the reputation of SnapChat as an app for sending nude pictures. The same exact concerns exist in other places and have been dealt with by a large number of companies at this point.

<comment><USER15> > The same exact concerns exist in other places and have been dealt with by a > large number of companies at this point

Can you identify a similar set of circumstances where this has been successful for more than a brief period?

<comment><USER16> My point was any company that deals with a large amount of user submitted media will eventually end up having to have an abuse team that monitors user submissions for illegal activity. I don't see how the Snapchat's situation is unique from the problem of identifying illegal material, other than the fact that there is now a monetary way of receiving payment (which has existed and still exists today). In fact, Snapchat could even attempt to claim less liability if the material is never stored on their servers, compared to a file sharing or image hosting site that actually contains the illegal material. In this sense, they would only be liable if they knowingly allowed this trade to take place on their network, similar to an ISP, in my view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe I'm crazy (and admittedly a little old) but I like the separation of my social and financial software "zones". I know there are tremendous reasons to incorporate this directly into a social product but I just can't shake that feeling.

Am I alone in this or does everyone here on HN embrace this with arms wide open for _actual_ use (vs experimenting or playing around with new products)?

<comment><USER19> But what about social financial software?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want my online banking in Snapchat. But sending money to friends is a very different action - it's inherently public, for one.

<comment><USER20> Public? It is a private transaction between two parties. This is why I don't understand Venmo's interface that tells me about transactions that I'm not involved in. I always set my payments to private, admittedly it does make for an interesting feed to browse for those who transact publicly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have been a long time user of Venmo and have tried to get a number of my friends on it but most of my friends consider entering their routing/account numbers (if they even know what those are...) into an app and waiting a couple days too much work. They even consider Square Cash too much of a hassle but I can see all of those same friends using Snapcash without issue. I consider Venmo to be the best in this space currently (But come on! Allow using debit cards to receive money already!) and I don't mind the 1-3 day delay in cashing out but I will still enter my debit card in snapchat cause at the end of the day I'm going to use the service that allows me to pay and get paid by the highest number of friends.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never found that to be an issue getting friends to sign up for Venmo. You don't need to enter any info to accept cash. It was getting them to realize this was cash and not some magic points (because they dont know what venmo is). Snapchat should kill it here because people already understand and trust (for the most part) Snapchat and this is just a new feature - not an entirely new service to learn.

<comment><USER21> Recently I have been taking the approach of "I sent you $15 for XYZ on Venmo if you want it you need to signup" because it's one of the few ways I can get them to do it. I hate to hold their money hostage like that but if I don't there isn't a great way for me to give them money other than paying for them up to what I owe them the next time we hang out (which I am bound to forget).

I agree, I feel like Snapchat/cash will kill in this space due to ease of use.

<comment><USER22> If I was every paying people money regularly, I always just found sending the money via bacs through online banking to be easiest.

<comment><USER21> I would do this if I lived in the UK but I live in the US where we only have ACH and even that's not really close to BACS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If we are really in a bubble, this video will be one of the things people will point to shaking their heads 5 years from now.

</comment><comment><USER24> 50% of snapchat users are under 18 [1]. which this video seems to clearly target (production style is fun, quirky, light hearted, even the actors are young). Yet they require a debit card and the use to be 18+. I guess they are hoping their young users stick with it for a few more years.

[1] [http://www.statista.com/statistics/315398/snapchat-user- age-...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/315398/snapchat-user-age- distribution/)

<comment><USER25> In fairness, the other 50% of Snapchat users is quite a large number of people.

I'm assuming their VC-backers are hoping to see traction without waiting for the underage half of the user base to grow up, and are really hoping it doesn't become the fun, friction-free and ephemeral way for that demographic to send their friends funds from their parents' bank account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Square loses something like 25 cents per Square Cash transaction [1], and now they want more transactions? I wonder if Snapchat is paying those fees, and if so how they think they're going to make that money back from their users.

[1] [http://qz.com/248572/squares-search-for-a-viable-business- mo...](http://qz.com/248572/squares-search-for-a-viable-business-model-just- got-more-desperate-thanks-to-amazon/)

<comment><USER27> Yeah, it's odd. Competitors like Venmo rely on not putting the money directly into the recipients bank account until they cash out. So they can make a little interest money off that directly, and more importantly, any transactions that come off of someone's balance are free since they are just moving money around inside their computers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The economics of this are fascinating. Square loses money on every Square cash transaction, at least 22 cents to be exact.[1]

The _potential_ justification for that is to promote the Square brand, get cards registered, and maybe hopefully drive usage of other (future) premium products/features that generate actual revenue. So, basically a marketing expense.

Here they're wrapping it in _another company 's app and brand_, Snapchat.

Which still gets cards registered but, presumably, Snapcash users are gonna typically come back through Snapchat to do more transactions, letting Snapchat tax any future premium revenue.

Really weird and.. shall I say it.. bubbly..(shhhhhhhhhh!!!)

[1] Visa debit interchange is $0.21 + 0.05% [http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/visa-usa- interchange-...](http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange- reimbursement-fees-april2013.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER29> I believe we in Denmark are very lucky to have one of the best banking systems in regards to keeping up with technological development.[1][2]

Snapcash seems to be the first app that approaches what we've had for a while now: [http://danskebank.dk/en-dk/personal/ways-to- bank/pages/mobil...](http://danskebank.dk/en-dk/personal/ways-to- bank/pages/mobilepay.aspx)

[1]Except for Japan and all their NFC stuff... [2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NemID](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NemID) has been WILDLY debated though.

<comment><USER30> Ye, MobilePay is pretty solid among people in Denmark, and there's even the competitor (competitor is a nice word, considering i've never heard of anyone with it) Swipp.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, just saw my first Swipp combercial the other day. Reminded me of [http://currentc.com/](http://currentc.com/) (i.e. bullshit).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> so now people can pay for sexting/nudes, actually sounds like a good use case

<comment><USER32> I predict that use and paying a local drug dealer will be the primary use in the demographic they go for.

<comment><USER16> I can't imagine any drug dealer would want to put their transactions into a bank account, at least if they sell anything more than casually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As much as I like competition, I hate entering my bank info into a lot of different places. I've been successfully ignoring venmo (in favor of paypal) for a while for the sole reason I don't want my info on more sites than necessary.

Seems like a lot of companies are trying to solve the "I hate entering my bank info into a lot of different places" problem, but it is only making the problem worse when half of my friends use one system and the other half use the other.

Someone needs to come up with a meta solution to sending money that doesn't involve me giving more companies direct access to my bank info.

(cue crypto-currency advocates)

<comment><USER34> fwiw paypal owns venmo.

<comment><USER33> Oh really? did not know that. Can I link accounts?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The guys at Snapchat seem to be completely crazy. But maybe that's exactly what it takes to succeed in the really weird business of replacing cash payments. No matter what, I'm still lying on the floor laughing. _Send money easy, it 's all so breezy, Snapchat with Snapcash. Chat any cash amount - straight from your bank account! Send money easy, it's fast and greasy! Snapcash Snapcash Snapcash in Snapchat!_

</comment><comment><USER35> Installed it, none of my coworkers can figure out how to actually send cash, or send anything. Right now it looks like a 'take a picture and add a dollar amount' photo app, except you can't export, can't send, can't do anything but take more app-only picture-expenditure receipts.

e: Looks like it's not actually snapcash -- but another so-named app. Looks like someone is getting a ton of unintentional downloads today.

<comment><USER36> For me, it was simply a "snapcash" entry in the settings screen in the snapchat app.

You click it and put in your payment info before you can use the feature.

I'm on the Android app though, I heard from coworkers that the iOS one doesn't have it yet.

<comment><USER37> You're correct -- I'm on iOS/iPhone 5 and I don't have the option yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use a lot of different methods to send money to friends. Venmo is by far the easiest, but I still commonly have to ask people to sign up for Venmo.

Snapchat has tons of users. If this is just a new feature built-in, it's pretty easy to tell someone to link their debit card vs. signing up for Venmo and linking their bank account. Plus, the ability to send friends money w/ a picture attachment is kind of fun I guess.

</comment><comment><USER39> Facebook + Paypal vs. Snapchat + Square.

That's a pretty fair fight.

<comment><USER16> I think Facebook + Paypal has huge advantages, so I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In the UK one of the banks (Barclays) has setup a mobile app PingIt for this same concept.

Someone sent me money with it, had to sign up to receive it. Due to what I imagine is UK banking laws, a large amount of id/proof of address was required to fully register my account, so that I could also send money.

To verify my address they send a snail mail letter out with a verification code, being a student away at university (moving house every 12 months), I used my parents address. 3 weeks later when I was back home I attempted to verify my address, only to find the code had expired (despite it never mentioning anywhere that it must be done within x days). After rejecting the code, the app appeared to wipe all data regarding my account, now asking me to sign up from the beginning again.

This experience has really ruined my hopes, for a system I was already reluctant to enter.

<comment><USER40> Pingit is Barclays' implementation of a UK-wide system called Paym. If you already have a UK bank account and a UK mobile phone number, sending money with Paym to anyone who also has those things only requires the recipient's mobile number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Unless they have changed something under the hood I would NOT trust this service due to the insecure nature of the Snapchat API.

There are many 3rd-party API clients for Snapchat that can access all parts of the API (send message, send picture, get picture, etc.). I even wrote one for Java. They are easily accessed from a console with a username/password combo.

Considering how many password dumps are out there, it's reasonable to assume that many people have had their Snapchat login credentials compromised. Now I can use that info, log in from a command line, and start "snapping" myself money.

I know that getting someone's username/password is a pretty high barrier, but not high enough for the ability to send money instantly. Maybe there are more security details, but I wouldn't put my info into this just yet.

<comment><USER42> How do you propose Snapchat, a company primarily producing a mobile application, prevent usage of its API?

You act like someone can't (with your username and password) (automatically or otherwise) scrupulously transact on your behalf with PayPal.

If you have the username/password - in a non-MFA system - you have access to everything.

<comment><USER41> True. One problem specific to Snapchat is that there are already a ton of 3rd party clients that users trusted with their username and password. That user/pass combo now suddenly has the potential for financial abuse without any new permissions. It's bad to add scope to previously granted authentication, especially when you're talking about finance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I suspect that the impetus behind this wasn't Snapchat thinking "Hey, we should add a payments feature!", so much as some Square bizdev guy convincing Snapchat to add payments.

Payments is a highly competitive and commoditised market, which means that margins are under intense pressure (what I like to call a "Race to Zero"). The industry will "consolidate" around a few winners, and those winners will be the companies that successfully execute on the strategy of "Reduce the incremental cost per transaction to as close to zero as possible, and pump up the volume".

Everyone is desperate for volume, so every payments company is desperately trying to strike up as many partnerships like this as they can. Any app or website that has lots of users is a prime target.

<comment><USER44> Interesting. I would have expected the impetus to be Snapchat thinking, "We have lots of users. How do we monitize them?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This kind of thing will be the death of Venmo, and makes me wonder why they haven't moved faster. An app that already has your social network will have more success adding friend payments than your friend payments app trying to add a social network.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never had an issue finding people on Venmo. It was more the barrier of getting people to download Venmo, so I agree this will probably crush venmo.

<comment><USER19> Finding people that are already on Venmo, sure. But I meant that when you start a new social network you have zero users, and that's a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Is Instagram going to release Instacash now?

</comment><comment><USER46> 1\. Look over someone's shoulder to get their phone password 2\. Take phone discreetly 3\. Enter phone, add self on snapchat, put money in Swiss bank account 4\. Put phone back in person's pocket

<comment><USER47> Congratulations, you have +$250 in your swiss bank account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Seems like this is laying the groundwork for them to begin offering flash sales. Now they can send you a picture/video of a product and give you a limited amount of time to purchase it at a special price. This won't work without having payment methods on file though, and they won't be able to move worthwhile product without getting a base of cards on file first. That's the only logical business I see evolving from this move.

<comment><USER49> Or pushing the 'cash for pics / videos' .. industry? further. It already exists, now it's even easier.

<comment><USER48> Although it works for that, I feel like that would be more of a carrot for users so that they can transition to a more reputable business model. They can use that for a short time to get the card data, but then begin selling their own goods etc. I would be surprised if they left it at this considering how young their userbase is. Mixing 'cash for pics' with a userbase predominantly under 18 in a multi-billion dollar business does not sound like a good idea to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This may be the first big move towards "Snapchat as America's Tencent"[0], and although there are red flags all over the place and that video (especially the software-eats-making-it-rain bit) is absurd, I get the feeling this might actually work.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/andreessen- snapchat-2014-1](http://www.businessinsider.com/andreessen-snapchat-2014-1)

</comment><comment><USER51> The "making it rain" looks a lot like Stacks. [http://rainstacks.com/](http://rainstacks.com/)

</comment><comment><USER52> Seems like this might impose on Clinkle quite a bit? Who is going to download clinkle when they can do the same thing from snapchat?

Seems neat to me, and pretty unexpected. One scary thing is just how bad a lot of passwords are for mobile applications. I'm sure it is even easier to brute force passwords on mobile and send a snapcash to yourself

<comment><USER53> People are already using Venmo. Nobody is going to switch to Snapcash or Clinkle.

<comment><USER54> But Venmo hasn't won. Outside the Valley, I don't know anyone who uses it. (although, mostly the same with SquareCash)

<comment><USER55> I was surprised to come here and see all the positives for Venmo. I have zero interest in a payment service that is going to hold my money until I request a cash out. Here in the midwest, I've been able to convince suburban parents to use Square Cash via the email cc feature. It's about as painless as it can get, particularly when they still send checks around to each other all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love this because it looks just as simple as Venmo, but I don't need to convince people to download the app.

<comment><USER56> You don't need to download anything to use Venmo, you can use their website.

<comment><USER27> I think "download" was a shorthand for "sign-up". Signing up for a payments service is pretty friction-ful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Even if you've posted a skeptical comment, do you doubt that one day sending money in a chat app will be totally normal?

When it's there it could be the foundation of hundreds of new business models and applications, and the reason a few household names went the way of Myspace...

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm interested to see if people start using this over venmo. Everyone already has snapchat, so the only thing users have to do now is put in their credit/debit card.

</comment><comment><USER59> Hopefully they require a password or a PIN each time you send a message with cash in it.

Otherwise anybody could steal money from you as long as they can get into your phone and open snapchat.

<comment><USER60> Square uses the CVC number on the back of the card as a pin for this currently. It's not the most secure way to handle it imo, but it does stop the general user from picking up a phone and stealing all their money from snapchat (if this feature carries over to snapcash).

<comment><USER59> Strange, why not just have the user choose a password or a typical 4-digit pin? This would still be way more secure than using the CVC number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The music industry could really use this. Stream your music to an application, user likes the song, taps a button, you get 5 moneys, the user gets the song on their device.

</comment><comment><USER62> Ah yes, I definitely want this company with a super-insecure app to handle my money. If they fix Snapchat's API vulnerabilities (from 2013!) maybe I'd consider it.

</comment><comment><USER63> A slight off topic, but how the fact that Apple Pay does not accept payments slipped thru?

I mean possibility of using iPad as POS is huge. I guess they will introduce it with iOS 9.

</comment><comment><USER64> Trusting Snapchat to be anywhere near my money is laughable.

</comment><comment><USER65> Paid for porn industry will carve out a niche - probably disrupt entire industry. Other users wont touch it. Guaranteed revenue for snapchat though.

<comment><USER66> I love reading HN's wild speculation about other companies businesses that they come to after reading a headline or two.

Just like the countless comments here, years ago, expecting Twitter to die because it won't make money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8620320).

</comment><comment><USER68> Ugh. This video makes me physically ill. The idea is fine, but why this horrible marketing? The world is not Las Vegas.

</comment><comment><USER69> Everybody wants to be a bank.

Then they discover how much support effort goes into stopping, or untangling frauds, scams, and robberies.

<comment><USER70> Well, if Uber ever becomes a bank, they'll just push that off to the cashier or end user and problem solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I keep checking my calendar and it says November 17, not April 1... hmmm is it broken?

</comment><comment><USER72> The first thing people should think of when talking about anything Snapchat does is "How is this going to be used to abuse underage girls?" They've built the company on that so far, no reason to think this won't be used (and tacitly allowed by Snapchat) for the same.

<comment><USER73> This makes no sense to me. 1) why are you singling out girls? 2) I was under the impression most of the minors sharing lewd photos on snapchat were sharing them with other minors. Sexuality in adolescents is pretty normal and healthy from my own experience and what I've read. The medium is fresh but afaik the behavior isn't. Therefore, I think "abuse" is hardly the appropriate word.

If you're insinuating that predators are using this software and snapchat is somehow protecting them, they've been pretty clear about cooperating with law enforcement in the past: [http://blog.snapchat.com/post/64036804085/who-can- view-my-sn...](http://blog.snapchat.com/post/64036804085/who-can-view-my- snaps-and-stories)

I don't use the app, I think it's silly, but lots of my peers (20somethings) do and have been of age since the app existed. It's not built on abusing underage girls. It's a low friction sharing platform. Blaming the users' behavior/content choices on the platform seems asinine.

<comment><USER72> Abuse from peers and the community at large for sending nudes is heaped on girls vastly more than boys. I singled out girls for that reason although boys have certainly be subject to harassment. I absolutely think it's abuse for groups of boys targeting girls to "collect" their nudes for sharing and girls to take the pictures of other girls for use as bullying / shaming fodder.

Snapchat encouraged the idea that nobody but the receiver could ever see your photos, even though they knew this wasn't true. This takes perfectly normal sexual experimentation and turns it into a bullying service which they have done nothing about. Yes, it's the users' behavior but when a company aims at a young audience and then doesn't seem to care about their safety that it turns into something they're responsible for.

<comment><USER73> When I was in high school there was a similar shaming incident with a girl and a VHS tape. It's not the medium that's the problem. While I think the majority of the HN community would agree that snapchat has serious security issues, once the images leave the victim's handset it's a hopeless situation. In digital media if it's consumable it's reproducible (just need another camera). That's the lesson for the kids--not this app is or isn't "safe" for nudie pics.

I don't really see a good way to address the bullying issue. It's been more than a decade since I received my first lecture on the permanence of content published to the internet (by my 70ish year old school librarian no less). This isn't a new problem and it seems there's no shortage of regrets out on the WWW. It's safe to say the jury is still out on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_be_Forgotten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_be_Forgotten) which is what I gather is at least the spirit of what you're advocating?

IMO who's responsible here are the kids and vicariously the parents. The parents need to educate their kids, pay attention to what the kids are doing, and support their bullied kids--even through the justice system if necessary. Less nudie pics created and more punishments of blackmailers are about the only things I think will help. Maybe snapchat not being so naive/deceptive with their security would help in the short term but my bet is any of the 100 other "secure" messaging apps would fill the sucker/idiot gap pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> That video clearly states that Snapchat is a Los Angeles based company!

</comment><comment><USER75> Seems like it could be easy to accidentally send someone money.

</comment><comment><USER76> just about two weeks ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8557170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8557170)

</comment><comment><USER77> And... this is when Snapchat turned into MFC

</comment><comment><USER78> This video must have cost a pretty penny.

</comment><comment><USER79> I wonder if this is replacing Squarecash?

<comment><USER58> I think this is being built on top of square cash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Does it work outside the US?

<comment><USER81> Looks like the answer is no:

"For now, Snapcash is available to Snapchatters in the United States who have a debit card and are 18 or older."

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> hot girls will be the richest in the world now :p

</comment><comment><USER83> Is this like an early April Fools day joke?

</comment><comment><USER84> Disappearing cash!

</comment><comment><USER85> It was dark at 5:30. April 1 can be cold but not dark at 5:30. Something is amiss... Has the earth's axis shifted?

For a serious response, this deserves to fail. To do anything with payments requires being careful. Snapchat is not careful, and even in ridiculous bubble times, no one is claiming otherwise. If you even trust Evan Spiegel with a bag of rock salt, you're a damnable fool.

That horrid video, by the way, is just another thing that's going to be used when people ask "What the fuck were they thinking?" about Tech Bubble 2.0. I just hope that these jokers don't take a bunch of legitimate startups down with them. It makes me angry to see these asswipes getting so much press, because for every Evan Spiegel there are 10 people with genuine ideas who struggle to get funding after these jokers let their investors down.

Also, if you use "Snapcash" as a verb I will fucking cut you.

</comment><comment><USER86> What an awkward monetization scheme. Seriously, this is why you passed up x billion dollars? Should've taken the money and tried to actually help the world. Silicon Valley greed and delusion at it's finest.

<comment><USER87> I still don't understand how they monetize from this at all. Square cash (which this is built on) has no fees...

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> > "After you enter your debit card, it's securely stored by Square, who will > swiftly process your payment and send cash directly to your friend's bank > account."

That first comma makes that sentence so hard to read..</comment>


Show HN: Who's Hiring RSS Feed - <AUTHOR> http://whoshiring.news <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I build this because I needed an RSS feed from the various "Who's hiring threads". I may expand it out to the freelancer threads if there's demand.

I hope this helps others looking for work.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great! Personally I'd love an option to filter the RSS feed - I'm looking for an internship and if I could get a feed of only the listings containing the word "intern" that'd be great. Maybe a keyword passed as a query string in the url?

<comment><AUTHOR> Check it out now. Added a keyword search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Curious why this feed isn't updating with the March results.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish the content would be also included into the rss feed, so I don't have to switch from my news reader to a browser. Thx for the service!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I can completely make that happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check it out now. It should be working.

<comment><USER4> Cool thx!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is REALLY nice. Thank you for building this!</comment>


The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22gossip.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems that there's a much bigger market for it now that content can be put online quickly, at a much cheaper cost.

 _Posting more than 30 exclusive items a day is common. "We're trying to build what they call addicts online," Mr. Perel said_

The model thrives off super low quality content, yet the websites are able to gain diehard readers. Even some of my favorite websites and blogs are useless to me without their rss feed.</comment>


Is Vine's shutdown going to create a vacuum? - <AUTHOR> I'm just curious, where are those 5 million daily users going to go. Instagram doesn't have the same vibe. If someone was to launch a Vine clone with similar/better features, would it stick? Could we grab some of that audience? <comment><USER2> If Twitter doesn't think it can make enough money from it to justify keeping it alive having built massive mindshare and a social media sales operation it doesn't exactly augur well for the long term prospects of profitability of such a venture.

Not that I'd suggest for a moment that people here couldn't raise a lot of VC money for another viral video business to fill that niche, build it and sell it. Probably to Twitter...

<comment><AUTHOR> Twitter never tried to monetize the platform. Not only that, it was prohibited to content creators to make product placements. I think it could be profitable with sponsored posts and in-app purchases. That said, I don't think any VC would jump on anytime soon to finance such venture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://beme.com/](https://beme.com/) is in that market. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beme)

<comment><USER4> Are the four images on that page supposed to be animating smoothly? Mine are hard transitioning every second or so, serially from left to right. Weird.

<comment><USER3> To be honest I never understood their homepage. It doesn't explain what the app is and what you can do with it. That's why I added the wikipedia link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> maybe back to tumblr?... curious if Periscope is on the chopping block next

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Periscope aligns more with Twitter's "live" vision. But yes, it's definitely next if anything.

<comment><USER5> It definitely does seem to align better. It was pretty interesting watching the debate on their platform and I can imagine sportsball getting more involved there as well

<comment><USER4> I watched a sportsball on Twitter once and it was really the same as ESPN's site or the pirate streams from reddit, once you fullscreen it. Just another live stream, there (thankfully) wasn't any Twitter integration popping over the sports.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do it for the Vine.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll take that for a yes!</comment></comment>


'Mallory Is Not Gone': Daniel Mallory Ortberg on Coming Out as Trans - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/daniel-mallory-ortberg-interview-heather-havrilesky.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is just too good.

On Captain Kirk: "Kirk is just this ridiculous, wonderful, bookish lesbian who's always wearing kicky boots and visiting ex-girlfriends on different planets and talking respectfully about their shared past and saying things like, "I'm so glad you got your Ph.D. in neuroscience now. Be well. I release you!" And I loved that, I really connected to that."</comment>


Buddy: Powerful Git Hosting with Continuous Delivery Tools - <AUTHOR> https://buddy.works/ <comment><USER2> I use Buddy for several months and it is brilliant. Git hosting + delivery + code review - so fresh so clean :)

</comment><comment><USER3> nice</comment>


Your brand is not your logo - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/your-brand-is-n.html

<comment><USER2> I generally like this blog and his style, but I think he's cranking out too much content - last series have felt a little too diluted.

</comment><comment><USER3> Still, it's good to have a decent "first name" rather than an ugly one so that people can easily remember and call you.</comment>


Fed Announces Open Ended QE3 - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/13/fed-announces-open-ended-qe3

<comment><USER3> Not surprising to see a libertarian-oriented site refer to QE as "money printing". It's not. Monetary policy doesn't increase the net financial assets available in an economy; that's only achieved by fiscal deficit spending. QE is just an asset swap (reserves for tsy's)--it's shifting the yield curve, but not adding anything new.

<comment><USER4> You would have a point if the 'libertarian-oriented site' referred to QE as "asset printing." It didn't though. QE may not increase financial assets in an economy, but it does increase available money. The money used to purchase the bond did not exist prior to the swap.

Now if you really wanted to argue that this is not money printing, I might accept the claim that the Fed will at some point unwind this position. But even that is highly dubious.

<comment><USER5> Your post contains a great example of what was called the Worst Argument in the World on LessWrong: <http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_worst_argument_in_the_world/>

To be more precise, you are using the moniker "money printing" to confuse the issue. See, inflation isn't caused by _printing_ money, inflation is caused by _spending_. If there is too much spending power going around and the productive capacity of the economy cannot keep up, then prices are going to be bid up.

QE isn't going to cause much more spending, because as grandparent correctly stated, nobody's total amount of assets is going to be changed by QE. After all, suppose you hold long term treasury bonds. Now the Fed offers to buy them at a higher price. Maybe you will take that offer. And maybe you'll use that money to buy some other class of assets. But will you now actually put that money into the real economy, buying some produced goods or services that you would not otherwise have bought?

Most people won't do the latter, and that's why QE isn't going to cause additional spending, and this is why it isn't going to cause inflation.

Note that this is _very_ different from historical episodes where money was printed by the government for direct spending, e.g. by the southern US states during the civil war.

<comment><USER6> I m not an economist, so i might've understood your point wrong, but you just argued that the Feds offered to purchase your long term bonds for a higher price - logically this must mean you've made some money (ala, profit).

So having made profit, wouldn't you then spend that profit on something that you otherwise wouldn't have afford to spend? Thus, this introduces more spending power, and thus, introduce the inflation that you said wouldn't happen?

<comment><USER5> Let me clarify what I wrote: you have a choice between (a) just keeping the money, (b) buying some other kind of asset, and (c) spending the money in the real economy.

Asset prices can indeed go up, because people do (b), but (c) is almost non- existent, which is why these Fed operations are neither going to help the real economy nor create inflation there.

Keep in mind that those transactions are mostly done by insurances, pension funds, and other types of "money managers".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've heard people say that the Fed is deliberately creating inflation in order to sabotage the American and global economy. This makes it easier to consolidate real estate and business assets, so it is beneficial to the wealthiest individuals and companies.

But I'm sure I'm just latching onto a simplified explanation because I am too ignorant and stupid to comprehend the complexities of "economic science".

<comment><USER5> While I'm sure that there are some people who are quite happy about what the Fed is doing, that sounds very much like conspiracy theory nuts.

From what I understand, the Fed is politically in a very crappy position: they have a mandate for high employment (which is a good thing!), but they cannot really do anything to meet that mandate.

To create jobs, somebody needs to actually spend money. Spending money means moving money around so that afterwards, person A has less monetary assets and person B has more monetary assets.

However, the Fed is not allowed to engage in such actions. All it can do is asset swaps. So it can swap short term for long term bonds, for example, but when they do that, everybody still has the same amount of monetary assets afterward. It is only the maturity and interest rate structure that changes.

The hope is that lower interest rates encourage private investment and thus private spending on jobs. However, that's not very realistically going to happen on a larger scale, because demand for products matters much more to firms than a tiny change in interest rates does. And as long as unemployment is high, demand remains low, which means that firms have no incentive to create jobs.

It's a vicious cycle, that in theory the government (the union of legislative and executive branch) should break out of, because they are in a unique position to do so: they are not bound by market constraints. But the government is instead bound by partisan politics and an unscientific belief in the religion of austerity.

So with the government not doing anything, the Fed at least tries to do the best they can to help the situation, which happens to be almost nothing - <USER2> they still try, because of the miniscule hope that there are, after all, some positive effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> opposite opinion to the submitted article: [http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/09/analysis- bernanke-...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/09/analysis-bernanke- delivered.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is great news for startups because it supports asset prices generally, and means that high valuations will continue.</comment>


Pioneer spacecrafts' anomalous acceleration solved - <AUTHOR> http://www.planetary.org/blogs/bruce-betts/3459.html

<comment><USER2> Submitted a few days ago with a small amount of discussion and context:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3865881>

The story has been discussed many times:

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apio...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=title%3Apioneer+anomaly&sortby=create_ts+desc&start=0)</comment>