What I use instead of Google services - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html <comment><USER2> > _" Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of > the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo."_

It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain...

Google is a service provider that I frequent, just like my coffee roaster or my stock broker or whatever. Over time, service providers develop a relationship with their customers based on knowledge of that customer. This knowledge helps inform how they provide and improve their service. My coffee roaster knows what kinds of coffee I like and makes appropriate recommendations when new beans arrive. My stock broker knows what kinds of risks I like to take and gives appropriate investment direction.

Ok, so I don't really have a stock broker but... My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first.

The problem (as with most things that are hot-button issues) is that the most talked about thing - "tracking" \- is a red herring. The REAL issue is _accountability._ True information lockdown rarely benefits anyone, but openness without accountability is useless and downright dangerous.

Suggesting people flee one provider's services and head to other providers who are not concretely more accountable (just because they "say so" doesn't make it true) is simply being petty. We should instead be spending out breath advocating for greater accountability in the system as a whole.

<comment><USER3> His point is more about not putting all your eggs in one basket; you certainly don't tell your barista about an upcoming physician's appointment, or that you are in the market for a house. Your barista is also disconnected from parties who may leverage the information you provide him/her. Similarly, you don't tell your broker that you prefer Ethiopian coffee. Google offers so many services that it has a much broader insight into who you are. To the privacy- conscious, that's an unacceptable fact. Nothing to be pained about.

<comment><USER4> Except the author then proceeds to toss all his eggs into Apple's basket. No, it's not about putting all the eggs in one basket, it's about paranoidly avoiding Google at all costs for some unknown reason.

<comment><USER5> What are you talking about? Of 12-14 services he listed, 4 were from Apple (iOS, Mobile Safari, Apple Maps for directions, and iCloud for Calendar sync).

And quite likely, he is not paranoidily avoiding Google, but partly experimenting as he is running one of the very few companies that are directly trying to compete with Google in search.

<comment><USER6> Just going from your examples above:

\- Safari/iOS will let Apple know you're in a market for a house \- Safari will let Apple know you like Ethiopain coffee \- Also it will probably allow them to track your searches \- Along with Calendar sync and maps Apple knows both where you are currently and where you'll be next

While not all of his eggs are in one basket, there's an awful lot of them providing an awful lot of "tracking" information to one entity.

Sure, if he's experimenting with replacing Google's services that's a valid reason.

<comment><USER7> The only difference is that Apple is not an advertising company. Google explicitly uses your information to advertise against you. Apple is not yet in that vertical.

<comment><USER8> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd)

 _iAd is a mobile advertising platform developed by Apple Inc. for its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad line of mobile devices allowing third-party developers to directly embed advertisements into their applications. Announced on April 8, 2010, iAd is part of Apple 's iOS 4, originally slated for release on June 21, 2010, the actual date was changed to July 1, 2010._

<comment><USER9> Safari has 3rd party cookies turned off by default. And how many iAds have you seen?

Also iAds have quite strict requirements as to what kind of identifying information they receive from the device.

Google/Android doesn't have any qualms about giving every bit of information they can get to the advertisers, that's the main source of income for Google. Also, 3rd party cookies will not be turned off by default in any Google product ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> OK, there's some value in diversifying instead of using one provider for everything but mostly he just swapped Apple, Fastmail, or Clicky in place of Google. They can still track him, read his email, know his calendar... The benefit here is marginal.

And how do those companies stack up against Google when it comes to security? It's one thing to protect the data against snooping by the provider, it's anoter to protect it from everyone else. Google is pretty solid, often on the cutting edge (PFS, certificate pinning).

<comment><USER11> The difference between data privacy now, and data privacy 10 or 20 years ago has little to do with how many people have access to it, or how secure it is. It mostly has to do with who can analyze it.

An example: where you walk in public is public information, but for most of human history, no one has had the capability to keep a database of that information and query it retroactively. Your location information is therefore less private now than it was before, because that information used to be impossible to reference meaningfully.

The same concept goes for email, calendars, contact graphs, etc. Using providers that don't have, or consciously avoid the capability to aggregate, analyze, and query it improves your privacy. Google is not one of those providers.

<comment><USER12> Ok, say someone has a complete database of my location sampled at 10 minute intervals over the past few years. What could they do with that information that would be harmful to me?

<comment><USER13> So you're saying you're ok with me knowing everywhere you've been for the past few years?

I'm going to assume then that you don't visit strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores, the house of your drug dealer, the house of your secret lover, a proctologists office, an OBGYN, an abortion clinic, or a million other places. You may not visit these places, but many others do, and having that information publicly available could be devastating to families, careers, entire lives.

On the other end of the spectrum, say you happen to be in the general vicinity of multiple burglaries at the time these crimes are believed to have happened. You're arrested and have to prove your own innocence.

Or maybe someone who wants to do you harm looks at your data for patterns, and goes to the right place at the right time to rob, extort, harass, rape, even murder you.

In general, I think having your location information public is a terrifying prospect.

<comment><USER14> You don't even have to have been there at all. Once an entity holds all your personal information like that, they can just say "Oh you were here, here, here and here at these times" even if it was not true. Who would doubt them? After all they have all the information right? RIGHT?

Perfect way to set up someone you don't like.

<comment><USER12> If the government has devolved to the point that we have to worry about them framing people unjustly, we have FAR, FAR bigger problems than a database of location information. Hiding the information in that scenario is, at best, a temporary band aid. The appropriate fix is limiting the power of the government and requiring strict and transparent conditions on when and why someone can be arrested.

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry, I just don't follow this slippery slope argument. We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. For the haves, we have the still-minor indignities of the no-fly list and targeting certain political stripes for IRS audits. For the have-nots, it is terrorism fusion data centers, predatory civil forfeiture and, jeez, a lot of the criminal justice system. So that world does exist now.

Many of these excesses have been driven by "limiting the size of government" by defunding local governments and relying on private information brokers (license plate readers, etc), rather than passing better laws.

<comment><USER12> The things you've mentioned are all generally Bad Things and things that we should be fighting to stop. Fighting to obscure your location information and even protect your privacy in general doesn't stop any of the things you mentioned if you believe the government is acting in bad faith.

<comment><USER16> It mitigates the risk. Someone cannot do bad things with your location information if they do not have your location information.

<comment><USER12> I think it is naive to think that a bad actor who intends you harm will be stopped or even slowed down by the fact that there isn't a log of every location you've visited.

<comment><USER16> I think that that is a ridiculous statement. Of course giving a bad actor more opportunity to act badly increases the risk.

<comment><USER12> A threat to your safety or your freedom needs to be dealt with directly by eliminating it, not hiding from it. If you're envisioning a bad actor with the resources to compile and analyze a comprehensive log of your location, the simple fact that you use service A instead of service B is not going to do a thing to stop them if they're out to get you. You have far bigger problems on your hands.

<comment><USER16> What about a potential threat? You are not allowed to "eliminate" those. Maybe just don't give that potential threat more power.

<comment><USER12> "Potential threat" is an unbounded set. If you're going to guard against every potential threat you will not be able to spend your time doing anything else.

I asked because I was curious about what sorts of unique threats are presented by, for example, a database of location data. So far I haven't seen any that aren't already present via far simpler means.

<comment><USER16> It does not take an unbounded amount of time to simply not give information to an unbounded set. In fact that takes no time at all.

The point is not that the world will end if we give away our location data, only that doing so has a non-zero cost.

<comment><USER12> If you have a cell phone, it is constantly pinging nearby cell towers. If it has wifi, it is pinging nearby wireless networks. That information is out there, waiting to be collected. If you want to go without the benefits of a cell phone to avoid whatever threat is posed by somebody knowing where you were at some point in time, go for it. I think it's a waste of time.

<comment><USER16> I think there has been some confusion here. When I said that "The point is not that the world will end if we give away our location data, only that doing so has a non-zero cost" what I meant was that the point is not that the world will end if we give away our location data, only that doing so has a non-zero cost.

Cell phones are like cars, they are very useful but also have their downsides (cell phones reduce privacy, cars kill people). I have a cell phone and a car because I made a decision that the cost was worth the benefit. I did not need to delude myself into thinking there was no cost nor did I need to pretend that the cost was inevitable.

<comment><USER12> The threat of a comprehensive database of everywhere I've been is extremely minimal. There's not much someone can do with that that they couldn't do without it. If some whackjob want to wait for me to turn the corner so he can hit me with a sock full of nickels or something, he's not going to get a database of everywhere I've been over the past two years and hang around the coffee shop that I have an 84% chance of visiting on the third Thursday of odd numbered months. He's just going to look up my address and wait in the bushes outside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. I tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before I got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs.

But, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. If you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. It's not realistic. Yes, you can be an idealist and try to run your own email server, etc. but it's really about balancing tradeoffs. I also use Apple maps and iCloud and dropbox and Evernote and... many other services we should give just as much scrutiny to as Google.

I don't see my choices as being about riding a high-horse, it's about a diversified portfolio of services that helps me avoid total lock-in. The day that google heavily oversteps with the G+ product strategy or twitter completely goes to shit, I've got a series of alternative services that can pick up the slack.

<comment><USER18> My thing isn't that I don't trust any one particular Google product. It's that I don't feel safe putting all of my eggs into one basket. A year ago, Google was my phone, my search engine, my email, video hosting, my DNS, my IM service (GTalk when it was still a thing), and cloud storage system. That's a _lot_ of personal stuff all tied together under one account. So I split things up. I hosted some stuff where I could (email and online storage) and used different services/products where I couldn't. But I also continue to use Google for my search engine.

I don't really see it as a question of if Google will screw up with people's data, it's a question of when.

<comment><USER19> By the time when, Google will be our overlords. Running the world with no one to be able to resist their ironclad rule. Because they know you, they know where your most loved live, what you need most to live, what your habits are, what medications you need.

Doesn't that sound bit too pessimistic? Of course it does. You already trusted Google, why trust another company and risk your data?

What if, from the 10 companies you trust your data with, 2 of the go rogue and use your data against you? OR what if they get hacked, and lose everything? That's what I fear more than giving too much data to Google. I'd rather trust one super reliable guy (Google), than trusting 5 (Self hosting) maybe trust- able, 3 shady guys, and 2 unreliable guys. But that's just me, I make sure all my accounts have 2 step auth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Browser: Safari / ...

Maps: ... / Apple for directions on mobile

Phone OS: iOS

Calendar: iCloud

And then talks about data not given to one company.

Really, is it just a strange joke?

<comment><USER21> It's obviously not smart to rely on one company that heavily, but I can see his reasoning behind using Apple products. I too am not using any Google services if I can help it but if I had to make a choice between giving my data to Google or Apple, I'd choose Apple. Not because I trust Apple more than I trust Google, but because I trust their source of income. Apple's business is to sell you hardware, while Google's business is to gather information about you so it can show you ads.

<comment><USER20> Ah, so the problem is not having your data.

By the way, I think iAds pertains to Apple, not to Google.

<comment><USER21> What Apple earns from iAds is chump change compare to Google's ad revenue. I don't deny iAds exists, but read my comment carefully. That's not their main source of income. Google's almost whole business is to sell ads. Apple can survive without selling ads, Google can not.

<comment><USER20> And? Both of them track data, both of them do target ads.

What is the real difference? One is better at doing it than the other?

<comment><USER21> I just told you the difference. What is it that you don't understand?

Google's whole business revolves around showing you targeted ads. Apple's business is to sell you iDevices. Apple will not target you to the point where it's invasive and creepy (although I'd argue even the smallest amount of tracking is invasive, but I've been trying to look at this from Gabriel Weinberg's point of view) because Apple can not do anything to harm its main source of income. Google's job _is_ to track you and they legally (and sometimes illegaly) do everything they can to be successful in their business. They can not hurt their main source of income by being invasive, because being invasive is their business.

For the record, I'm not saying Apple is any better than Google or vice versa. As I said, I've been trying to play the devil's advocate.

<comment><USER22> The point is, Apple does track you AND charges a premium. Google doesn't do both.

If you look at EFFF, Google has had your back longer with lobbywork before the EFF report came out ( [https://www.eff.org/who-has-your- back-2013](https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013) ) as soon as that got popular last year, all of them upgraded their lobbywork (Apple)

Yes, now they all have 5 stars, but the EFF report first came out in 2011 without them knowing ( [https://www.eff.org/who-has-your- back-2011](https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2011) )... But there was a lot of hype about it last year, so they had to improve their "score-card".

It sure took Apple long enough though :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Email: Fastmail

I recently migrated to Fastmail, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was. Fastmail automatically imports your emails from Gmail, and it took me so little time that I kicked myself for not doing it before.

> Calendar: iCloud

For those of us who don't use both OS X and iOS, this isn't feasible. Fortunately, though, Fastmail also provides a calendar service. It synchronizes with Google Calendar in case you still need to use Google (e.g. for work), and it was also a seamless switch.

As for a client, I was very surprised by this, but I've actually found that the latest version of Mozilla Lightning[0] is the best calendar interface. Fastmail's is okay, but still in beta (it's less than a year old). Setting up Lightning to sync with Fastmail's calendar took just a minute, and I actually like the interface more than I liked Google Calendar's[1].

Thunderbird is an okay mail client (not a terrible interface, but not a great one), but even if you don't use Thunderbird for mail, I would recommend trying out Lightning for calendaring.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29)

[1] It's okay for viewing events in the week view, but there are a lot of UI quirks and bugs that catch up with you after daily use - this one is the most pernicious, but there are a number that are simply annoying as well: [http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google- calendar-...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google-calendar-can- tip-off-your-boss-you-want-a-raise/) [2]

[2] Since I know people will ask - I consider this a UI issue because it's fairly easy to imagine a minor UI improvement that would indicate this unexpected result of Quick Add (and others) before clicking "Add" _without_ sacrificing this functionality in case it is desired.

</comment><comment><USER24> Where I shop instead of Walmart: Sams Club

</comment><comment><USER25> I was hoping this was suggestions for services you can host yourself. Switching from Google to Apple doesn't really change much.

<comment><USER26> Maybe I can oblige here then :)

owncloud, owncloud, owncloud!

It has CalDAV, CardDAV, and files support. There's even a rudimentary (though scary) online editor with support for openoffice. I use two-factor with owncloud, and happily share files, too. And... it supports an encrypted backend!.

Now, if you're happy to host your own mail, you can also look at adding RoundCube.

This can solve the Calendar/Contacts/Email/Filesharing main case. Works across Windws/Mac/Linux, even mobile... which in my case is Android. It's not amazing, but it's pretty fantastic.

<comment><USER27> Another happy owncloud user here, though the funny thing is what I want it for is specifically NOT syncing - in fact, I don't like that it even tries to sync folders. I mostly want a media player/NAS/photo gallery/mail server (though I might just install a mail server separate from owncloud; I'd still want a webmail interface though).

<comment><USER28> > I'd still want a webmail interface though

A few ones to check:

* [http://roundcube.net/](http://roundcube.net/)

* [http://rainloop.net](http://rainloop.net)

* [https://www.mailpile.is/](https://www.mailpile.is/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Personally, I have a VPS where I keep my own mail server, webmail, ownCloud instance (calendar, address book, file storage, etc), IRC bouncer... All courtesy of Sovereign ([https://github.com/al3x/sovereign](https://github.com/al3x/sovereign))

<comment><USER30> Very interesting resource, thanks for posting ; even if not for the playbook itself, the collection of tools is interesting.

Having your own server is definetely a good solution, it just needs experience and comes at a certain price, even if it stays reasonnable. But most people just don't want to be bothered with maintaining the box (hosting payment, security updates, domain name renewal, SSL ceritificate renewal and so on).

However, it is a fantastic way of learning by yourself!

<comment><USER29> Well, if you use the supported Debian 7 pointing Ansible to your box is all that's needed. Since I decided to go with Ubuntu 14.04 (unofficially supported), it took a little longer and I had to submit a couple of patches to make it work there. The "hardest" part was figuring out how to set-up the DKIM and SPF records in my registrar's DNS control panel (namecheap). Other than that, I don't really have to babysit the thing: I get a weekly logrotate report by email and rarely, if ever, SSH into the box to check that everything works. From time to time I re-run the Ansible script to ensure everything is in proper order but, still, I almost never have to spend more than 10 minutes a fortnight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another Fastmail endorsement--they really are fantastic. I confess to still using Gmail for some things but it's mostly just because I've been too lazy to switch over all of my accounts. Fastmail is truly a better service.

As for calendar, I've heard good things about [https://fruux.com/](https://fruux.com/) although I haven't tried that myself yet. (And apparently Fastmail does calendar too--again, haven't tried.)

<comment><USER32> Is their spam filtering good? That's the primary reason I'm sticking with Google Apps for now.

<comment><USER33> Coming from Google Apps and currently using Fastmail: It's not as good as Gmail. I still get spams in my Inbox but they are not really a deal breaker. I've been using Fastmail for over 3 months and I'm rather happy about it (just paid for a yearly subscription). I'd suggest you to try it out with a 3 month subscription. You can always switch back; it's just a couple MX records after all.

Oh btw, fastmail also has CalDav (Calendar only; no Tasks) and It's been working well for me too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > "Practically, switching away from as many Google services as possible will > help alleviate the most obvious issues like most of your personal data being > in the hands of one company and the related issue of ads following you > around the Internet."

Ads that follow you has absolutely nothing to do with Google services. These are retargeting companies using their cookies to track you. They use ad exchanges, so even that is not principally Google.

</comment><comment><USER35> I, too, am very unhappy with Google. They're obviously intentionally trying to get people to get used to giving up privacy. From the moronic system Android has, to the tricky dialogs Chrome puts up, they don't like the anti-tracking sentiment.

But... DuckDuckGo just doesn't compete on search results. I changed to it as my default search engine, but I ended up going to Google most of the time.

And switching away from Android... I tried to move to Windows 8 / Phone, but the ecosystem is a joke. Desktop apps don't work well on their small tablet form factor, and the Metro apps are laughably terrible. Microsoft can't even prevent total scams, like $9 fake Netflix and HBO. And they ignore reports about them.

<comment><USER14> Apple spies on you as much as google, without a doubt. They're just not as open about it. After all, why wouldn't they do it when it helps them build "better" products that make them more money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The PRISM break list is far more comprehensive: [https://prism- break.org](https://prism-break.org)

</comment><comment><USER37> I sleep comfortably at night knowing my private photos are stored safely on iCloud.

<comment><USER38> and on everyone's computer after the leak of the day, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Until recently, I also was very concerned with privacy, partly not wanting my personal data available easily to many large corporations, and also wanting to keep resources for client work very secure.

What changed is that I have retired (except for some mentoring and writing). Now, I would like the tech side of my life to be as simple as possible in order to free up my time for other activities. So for right now I am massively using Google services but I am considering, depending on how much I like the iPhone 6, just living in Apple's little walled garden. I trust both Apple and Google to generally do the right things.

I still advise friends and family to run Adblock software, and to be generally prudent privacy and security wise. But for me personally privacy issues are not as important as they once were.

</comment><comment><USER40> > On top of the browser I use these add-ons to reduce tracking further; also, > note that private browsing mode and the do not track setting will not stop > you from being tracked.

(Almost) nobody can escape the tracking, as long as fingerprinting remains possible: [https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

Google's/Facebook's/Twitter's JS scripts are literally on every site. Fingerprinting allows them to increase their ROI since it builds more precise profiles on you. The advertising industry is happy and the government is happy. So forget about them not fingerprinting you.

<comment><USER41> Most fingerprinting can be avoided by not allowing Javascript. Social tracking scripts can be specifically removed by addons like Disconnect.me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Storage: BTSync -> syncthing ([http://syncthing.net/](http://syncthing.net/))

</comment><comment><USER43> Video hosting: [https://mediacru.sh](https://mediacru.sh)

Benefits over Vimeo: FOSS, deployable on your own servers, pro-privacy, also supports audio and images.

I helped make it, so take this with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's sad that the only alternatives he can come up with for one set of cloud based services by one set of providers is another set of cloud based services by another set of providers.

</comment><comment><USER45> Mostly its using Apple stuff instead of Google stuff..

thanks but no thanks

</comment><comment><USER46> One thing I've been looking to replace is Google News. Anyone know of another similar news aggregator? (Don't say "reddit".)

<comment><USER47> SkimFeed[0] aggregates mostly tech news, but it's not nearly as feature-heavy as Google News. Maybe check it out?

0 - [http://skimfeed.com/](http://skimfeed.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This website is somehow blocked for me:

      This Page Cannot Be Displayed

      Based on your corporate access policies, this web site ( http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html ) has been blocked because it has been determined by Web Reputation Filters to be a security threat to your computer or the corporate network. This web site has been associated with malware/spyware.

      Threat Type: othermalware
      Threat Reason: IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS.

      If you have questions, please contact your corporate network administrator and provide the codes shown below.

      Notification codes: 	(1, MALWARE, othermalware, IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS., BLOCK-MALWARE, 0x037419bb, 1409690418.913, AAAEOQAAAAAAAAAAJf8ACP8AAAD/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAE=, http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html)

<comment><USER49> Same here, the "web reputation" is low according to SenderBase. See [http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielw...](http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielweinberg.com)

"Fwd/Rev DNS Match" is said by SenderBase to be "Unknown" (this is odd). Checking on my laptop:

$ dig +short www.gabrielweinberg.com

gabrielweinberg.com.

22.214.171.124

$ dig +short -x 184.108.40.206

blink.duckduckgo.com.

It is on the Verizon FiOS network, which has a number of poor reputation hosts:

[http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%...](http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%20FiOS)

The site appears within the CBL too, which gives some details: IP Address 220.127.116.11 is listed in the CBL. It appears to be infected with a spam sending trojan, proxy or some other form of botnet.

It was last detected at 2014-09-03 06:00 GMT (+/\- 30 minutes), approximately 4 hours ago.

This IP address is infected with, or is NATting for a machine infected with "Gameover Zeus" or "GOZ" \- previously it has been referred to as "ZeusV3" or "p2pzeus". GOZ is a version of the ZeuS malware that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) command and control mechanisms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Is there a good, paid, gmail alternative with the same conversations, labels, keyboard controls, and decent search? Ideally with both webmail, calendar, and an app? Also, ideally not associated with microsoft, yahoo, or even the valley? I keep seeing fastmail but it looks like just another email provider.

I keep pondering creating a service like this for say $40/year, but I'd rather to it than build it. I'm currently a tuffmail subscriber but I really want gmail with a clone of their android app, just in exchange for money and a strong privacy policy.

<comment><USER51> FastMail has conversations, keyboard controls and decent search, with both webmail and calendar and is $40/year for a 15GB account…

(Disclaimer: I work for FastMail. But seriously, it sounds like we might be just what you're looking for).

<comment><USER52> Only issue I have with FastMail is they don't accept Bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> In the face of nefarious agencies and companies that track, I don't think there's a 'best' option to switch to, per se, only a harder (to be tracked) option. Tracking, in my belief, still goes on, in one way or another.

So what are we left with? Trying as hard as possible to use online services for work (assuming that's your bread and butter) and to be in the real world for leisure, etc. Not always possible, and less possible as the years go on, but a lot better than thinking one (popular) online service will be a safe haven from another.

</comment><comment><USER54> For those of you in this thread that are dismayed that some of us don't enjoy being tracked, I highly recommend a short, entertaining documentary that's currently available on Netflix, iTunes, etc. called:

Terms and Conditions May Apply

[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_app...](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_apply/)

[http://tacma.net/](http://tacma.net/)

Actually, I think even some privacy-conscious folks might learn a thing or two from it as well. I know I did. :)

</comment><comment><USER55> Is there a good non-google alternative to Docs / Drive. I read the article hoping to find one, but didn't see any mention of one. Having a non-google version of a service which allows collaboration and modification of documents through a web browser, without additional software installed would be nice and I feel it must exist, but don't know where to look.

Anyone got a recommendation.

<comment><USER56> The App Suite provided by mailbox.org is quite good, but I'm not sure how well it does with collaboration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> The problem that many people (me included) have with being tracked is usually that they don't know what's being tracked and/or how it is being used and stored. DuckDuckGo thinks that the solution is to stop tracking altogether, when really I'd be happy with just a search engine that was more transparent with what they were storing and using.

</comment><comment><USER58> While it's not trivial it's not that hard to spin up a mail server on a VPS (which can run smtp, imap and/or webmail). For that matter you can run it off a static internet connection or even a dynamic IP from your home or office PC. (Running linux or Mac OSX never done it with windows although I'm sure you can).

<comment><USER59> You can then get shotgunned by spam filters, too. =( Running your own mail is not for the timid.

<comment><USER58> "You can then get shotgunned by spam filters, too"

Have you had that problem and weren't able to get by it? I've had IP changes over the years and while it's taken a _small_ bit of work to get the new IP accepted (in _some_ places most places don't seem to care) I'd say it's hardly a show stopper. Of course all the email deliverability people selling products and services in that market want to make you believe you'd be a fool to roll your own.

Of course if you get a VPS with some IP address that someone used to spam sure you have a problem. The idea is to do your homework and not have any of the obvious problems. (You can run the IP by the blackholes to see most issues.)

Also (not a comment directed at you by the way) I love the way a forum such as HN where people spend all sorts of time doing things just for fun seems to have a problem with the "work" involved in doing something that actually has value or might take a bit of work in order to solve a problem that they have.

The downvotes seem to indicate a reaction such as "wow what a stupid idea why would you run your own mail server hey you can just use fastmail that's what we all use".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Personally, a bunch of your suggestions are based on Apple = severly censored, anti-competitive,... i REALLY don't like that.

If walking away from Google means switching to Apple, then it's a no-go for me. I'll rather have Microsoft ( fyi. i'm mainly a c# developer, but also python, RoR and nodejs )

</comment><comment><USER60> tl;dr: give your data to Apple instead of Google because...?

<comment><USER61> Because Apple's free services are a value add to increase their device sales off which they make a ton of money, while Google's free services are typically monetized with targeted advertising based on a profile built off your private data, so they tend to collect and retain a lot of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> And for everyone ready to self-host, yunohost.org is a great and super easy solution to host email, calendar, files etc...

I would recommend, I think this distribution doesn't have the popularity it deserves.

</comment><comment><USER63> Fastmail still has hardware inside the US; not a viable alternative to Google, privacy-wise.

(have just checked out MyKolab, they seem pretty awesome, although alas too expensive for me right now.)

</comment><comment><USER64> I think that recommending BTSync is a bit scary.

Instead of accounts and a potentially long brute-force process as provided by Dropbox, BTsync relies on a public and "secret" key having been generated. This seems fine and dandy until you realize that the concept of brute force is an applicable means of getting access to anyone's BTsync if they are using the standard tracker.

Given enough storage space and bandwidth, someone could just create any number of shared folders assigning them all a different set of keys (this doesn't need to be done one-at-a-time) and wait for data to fall into them.

Doesn't this completely sidestep the concept of the data being supposedly secure in BTsync?

<comment><USER65> As long as the secret has enough bits, then the risk of collision is so negligible that it's basically zero in our finite world.

I think the concept of just how large some numbers are really sunk in for me when I read this article [1] from Bruce Schneier. One thing I learned was that it would require more energy than the total energy output of the sun just to power a computer to _count_ to 2^256. Ultimately, this quote from that article sums up his point well:

> These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they > are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply > that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until > computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something > other than space.

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Fastmail would be more attractive if they accepted bitcoin.

<comment><USER67> We're actually testing bitcoin payments at the moment. If you want to take the time to contact support, we can tell you how to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> "But what do you use for search when you can't find it with DDG" is my question. (I do not work for the answer)

<comment><USER69> Startpage?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> The bigger problem is that almost every message you send or are sent ends up going through one of goog, fb, or twitter anyway

</comment><comment><USER71> >Phone OS: iOS

I guess there isn't much you can do with this, but is changing from Android to iOS really big enough difference?

<comment><USER72> As he said, degrees matter. By which I guess he means differences of degree.

The two companies involved (Google, Apple) have a fundamental difference in their business model. One involves you and your private data as the product; the other does not.

<comment><USER23> If what you care about is privacy, I really don't think iOS is appreciably better than Android. (Not marginally or theoretically - I mean practically).

If you're looking to be as private as possible[0], you should either use a custom ROM of Android with Privacy Guard and with Google services disabled (or use something like Replicant or FirefoxOS, if you're comfortable straying from the two dominant mobile OSes).

[0] As private as possible while still carrying around a tracking device 24/7, mind you (cell phones constantly report your location to your carriers, who are not at all modest with this data)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I did not know iOS and Apple Maps are more privacy centric than Android and Google Maps. Is that really true?

<comment><USER74> I'm sure people will leap out to argue with me when I say yes, but: yes.

I don't say this out of a belief that Apple is pure and Google is evil, and certainly not out of a belief that Apple shows a deep understanding of security (boy, howdy, do they not show a deep understanding of security). I say it out of my understanding of their business models. Basically, Apple makes money from you because you give them money. Google makes money from you by analyzing the data you send through their services.

"If you're not the customer, you're the product" is too glib by half -- both Google and Apple want to make good products that you want to use, and it's certainly in Google's interest to keep their users (i.e., you) happy. They're arguably much better at online services than Apple is. But Google has a vested interest in "reading" your mail, tracking your searches, and so on. Apple not only lacks that interest, it's arguably a competitive advantage for them to _not_ keep any more information about you than they absolutely have to. They've spelled out in the recent past just what they keep, and it's largely "what they absolutely have to." Apple's corporate culture genuinely seems to be supportive of privacy, albeit tempered with profit-driven pragmatism.

This is not an argument that Apple is full of good and wonderful people (I believe the ad copy should be "magical and revolutionary") and that Google is full of terrible people who hate their users. Not at all. And Apple has had a few high-profile privacy biffs where they _were_ collecting information they shouldn't have been, which leads some people to be highly suspicious of them. I get that -- but we're often handing even more data over to Google routinely because that's what they require. That's _their_ corporate culture: their mission is to organize the world's data, and fulfilling that mission requires them to have access to the world's data. All of it.

And, last but not least, none of this is particularly relevant to government snooping except to the degree that the less information is stored on a server that isn't under your control the less information there is to be compromised. (At least compromised via that particular vector.) If you're deeply worried about that you shouldn't be using _either_ Apple or Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> google is not a "search engine" anymore.. so why would I keep using it for?

all services that I keep using, are those that kept me from going somewhere else (gmail replacement?), or those that I'm forced to use (not-removable android apps?)

so seems to me, I'm stuck with google -- at least for now

</comment><comment><USER76> I use fastmail, I'm happy to pay for an email service instead of seeing ads

</comment><comment><USER77> Looking forward to use instead of Google's Hangouts: Signal on the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER78> That's all fine and dandy - however most of the time when I'm working as a consultant, I'm created an email account on the company's domain. Typically hosted on, you guessed it, Google Apps.

For some people leaving Google is literally not an option, and that's a shame.

<comment><USER79> Have you tried Zoho? I have used both and it comes pretty close to Google Apps and additionally they still offer a free option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Another day, another anti-google article by the duckduckgo guy, more FUD.

</comment><comment><USER81> I really do not like google or they spying.

</comment><comment><USER82> Who has time for this? Google can track me all they want but I'm not that interesting of a person to track :)

</comment><comment><USER83> great

</comment><comment><USER84> "Apple Maps"? This is shameless.

Not sure how to reconcile that with the seemingly mandatory PRISM invocations, the post was almost stomachable up until the Apple cameo especially with the recent privacy headlines. At Least recommend something that isn't a huge downgrade in functionality, an OSM client or something.

I'm sure that Apple adding DDG to Safari is the reason for this thinly veiled reciprocity.

Privacy or not these are people selling their wares and they are willing to be sleazy about it, this is not unlike the bullshit post about the fake cell antennas and the magical ROM that detected them that is making the rounds, it's disheartening.

<comment><USER85> I find it most interesting that he doesn't use some map provider using OpenStreetMap data because that's what embedded in the DuckDuckGo search results: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam)

<comment><USER86> Apple Maps does use Open Street Map data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Interesting he uses Google Analytics as a "Google is tracking you" story when the real trackers are the companies that put Analytics on their web site. And all that tracking is now from a company they only bought relatively recently (Double Click) that had been tracking you long before Google bought them. But Google isn't the only company that does this and it's been done in far more places than just the web and not by Google and for decades.

Tracking you by marketing companies has been happening since I was growing up in the 60s. The only difference between then and now is it's also happening on the new internet thing. Everything else tracks you, too.

</comment><comment><USER88> do you work for apple?</comment>


Dwolla Launches Guest Checkout – Ability To Pay Without Dwolla Account - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dwolla.com/guest-checkout/

<comment><USER2> How are you verifying the user owns the routing and account number being provided?

<comment><USER2> I guess, what stops me from going to a site like this: <http://www.routingnumbers.org/>

Finding a routing number for my appropriate zip code, and inputting a valid account number?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> is this just ACH?</comment>


The mobile games industry is kept afloat by less than 1% of users - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/23/free-to-play-games-are-not-the-way-forward-for-mobile-gaming/ <comment><USER2> This article and the comments here saying "This is common knowledge in the industry" and "I'm getting tired of people saying this is a bad thing" are a beautiful illustration of why mobile games suck and freemium is destroying the industry.

There are plenty of good games out there. The problem is nobody plays them. Then the devs of those games say "Fuck this, I'm out" and go on to start making pay to win games because that's how to get paid making games. It's gotten to the point where the games we play aren't even fun; we just find an easy game that lets us shoot up a shot of dopamine once in a while and settle for that. Or maybe we pick up clash of clans, play "free" for a month, then once we're hooked we pay way more than we'd ever pay for a real game every month just to be competitive. And we still lose, because someone else has more money.

The majority of popular mobile games are a costly addiction, not a hobby.

<comment><USER3> Seems like the problem is mobile games discovery.

I play 10-20 hours of games a week, all of them on consoles or handhelds that are >10 yrs old.

Do I want to be playing only old games? No, but it's easier to find a Game Boy game that I love than having to poke through a hundred awful mobile games on the various app stores first.

It seems to me that there's a good market for an App that simply curates excellent games and sells them to you.

Anyone know of anything like that? I'd be all over it.

<comment><USER4> I just came across your post while I'm working on a possible solution for your problem.

A friend & I are trying to build a Netflix for mobile games. The app is called GameGif and we believe that mobile game discovery should be about video content.

That's why the unique part on GameGif is that you swipe though short game videos rather than looking at screenshots or reading boring descriptions.

If you have an Android phone, you can check out our Beta here: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.betterworl...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.betterworld.gamegif)

If you have an iPhone, you can check out our trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGX8CzbgvbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGX8CzbgvbA)

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty common knowledge within the industry. In fact, more than 4 years ago, they were already calling these users "Whales" (as a fishing metaphor) and actively catering to their interests.

There are people who will spend well over $10,000 a year to fulfill their compulsion for their "chosen" game. The advice in the article is actually rather asinine unfortunately:

>"Game creators should begin to look at pushing more sales after install. Swrve suggests this should be done one month after the game has been downloaded. Another way to keep keen players coming back would be to reduce the privileges given in purchases so they will need to buy more to play more."

It's implying that game creators haven't been carefully playing the analytics game since before freemium was a word. Any of these proposed changes will typically have catastrophic effects on the casual user base which could reduce game popularity and then tank the whale usage (depending on how much the game depended on network affects). Freemium games face the problem that TV networks do, there's too much alternative content out there.

>"Although, perhaps restructuring or ditching the freemium model might be the safest bet."

This is the right answer if you want to make good games. Freemium is an excellent model to optimization profit but it typically is directly counter to what can be considered a "good" gaming experience. The freemium games that have been largely successful (Clash of Clans, Hearthstone, Candy Crush, etc.) were all successful because they were easy to play for free, this garnered more popularity, which brought in more "whales" to support their creators.

I see mobile gaming as a race to the bottom, the margins are razor thin for the company, the pay is mediocre for the employees (as well as growth opportunities). Occasionally King comes along and wins it for a year but there are hundreds of these companies out there and the odds aren't good for them.

<comment><USER6> > There are people who will spend well over $10,000 a year to fulfill their > compulsion for their "chosen" game

Undoubtedly the free marketeers will downvote, but to my mind it's simply not ethical to make money feeding off someone's addiction in that manner. At least drinking, gambling and other compulsions have heavy (but inadequate) regulation. Freemium needs some regulation too.

Buying a monthly sub, at $15 to compare with WoW, or buying the game outright is at least a fair trade. You still get addicted but your business no longer depends on bleeding people dry.

<comment><USER7> Abusing mental illness is not taking advantage of voluntary exchange, so any reasonable free market / libertarian advocate would also not say "tough luck you have mental disease compelling you to behave irrationally".

It really is no different than how transactions done under compulsion are not fair or voluntary. If you are mentally compelled to participate through psychological manipulation, that is no different than someone pointing a gun at your head and telling you to give them your money, or using socioeconomic influential factors and market capture to force participation in unfair transactions (ie, monopolies).

<comment> nommm-nommm So what about alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, weed, sugar, or fat? And isn't the goal of all ads psychological manipulation?

<comment><USER7> There is a difference between allowing the temptation, and exploiting psychological conditioning.

I'd definitely consider arguments that western culture has in many ways developed the advertising industry as a means of systemic psychological manipulation. There are a _lot_ of people who make irrational purchasing decisions based on what is on the TV, and there is some degree of exploitation in that behavior.

Practically speaking we want to think that anyone over the age of 18 is a competent rational capable human adult with acceptable brain chemistry, but in practice I'd imagine very few people are perfectly healthy mentally, it is just the degree to which mental illness is apparent. Look at how common depression is, or how diagnostic rates for Autism and ADHD have risen dramatically in the last three decades. That is not to say we have more mentally ill people today, we are just paying more attention to individual psychological profile to deduce that there is much more nuance to mental health than just being insane or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's pretend video games on console/PC are music albums. Let's pretend board games are live music. Let's pretend mobile games are ringtones.

They're all "music", but they're all very different products.

Ringtones are cheap, disposable, mostly looked down upon, but still popular at the same time somehow.

Live music is seen as requiring a greater level of commitment; perhaps a little more exerting or rough around the edges, strangely pricey, but generally worth the above-and-beyond effort you have to make.

Music albums are ubiquitous, real effort went into many of them and they are not really disposable. There are a lot of sad "me too" attempts to capitalize on other trends created by first-movers. Most people have at least a couple they are into, and connoisseurs can dive into a pile of esoterica to unearth unappreciated artistic gems. Every once in a while, a major production turns out to actually be artistically important too, and people freak out.

What's my point? The "game" in "mobile game" seems pretty weighty, implying a closer kinship with other kinds of games, but, really they're as distant in kinship as ringtones are from "music". They're another product altogether. And ephemeral. And dangerous to tie your long-term longevity to as a content producer.

[edit: typos]

<comment><USER2> There's really no reason it needs to be this way. Obviously, some games require controllers with their complex controls and aren't a fit for mobile gaming. But there are so many great games to be made with minimal interfaces that can run on these amazing little computers in our pockets we call "phones".

Phones don't just have ring tones anymore. I can listen to just about any song ever published on my cell phone with spotify or pandora or slacker. There's no reason we should only be writing garbage "ringtone" games for mobile.

<comment><USER7> > we should only be writing garbage "ringtone" games for mobile.

Nobody is buying non-ringtone games, predominantly because the ubiquitous exploitation of users through ringtone games has driven away any significant gaming crowd.

Nvidia has interestingly been pushing for Android gaming for years, making handhelds and consoles for it, but I'd really wonder how their success is doing. It is a really fascinating behavior that consumers will buy Nintendo games on their handheld for incredibly high relative prices, but balk at spending a quarter as much on the Tegra Store for a more expensive to produce product.

<comment><USER9> The Shield portable is a goofy looking PoS that you can't easily put into a pocket. For $200 the Nintendo or Sony options are a lot nicer.

The barrier to entry for Android gaming is lower, but no one is going to develop for the form factor if the unit isn't going to be in a lot of people's hands.

So instead we get games designed for touch that can optionally controlled with a traditional controller. Maybe.

The games brought to Sony Vita and Nintendo xDS have higher budgets and teams targeting the features of the console, so they sell even though the cost is high.

And touch is a pretty shitty input modality for anything beyond puzzle games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is what happens when the race to the bottom goes too far. People start realising this sort of tactic makes more money than traditional sales, so people start expecting all mobile games to be free with microtransactions and eventually you have an industry which is pretty much unsustainable in the long run.

Still, it's not as bad as it could be, at least not in the US or Europe. If you think it's bad that people are encouraged to pay money for things in mobile games here, well, the 'kompu gacha' type stuff is another level of scary:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWFvlBPnk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOWFvlBPnk4)

It's basically literal gambling in some areas. You don't pay for items or even advantages in game mechanics, you pay for the 'possibility' of getting characters and items. It's between 1 and 5 dollars for a roll of the dice, and the probability of getting a rare character can be less than 0.1%. There are stories of people spending thousands of dollars in a few hours playing these games in a livestream on Twitch or the likes...

Fortunately, this isn't as common in most games on the US app store just yet.

<comment><USER11> I am worried that this is sustainable in the long run and that we will be saddled with these types of microtransactions forever. They have figured out the perfect topamine release methodology and people will pay for that.

<comment><USER10> Well, the Japanese legal system actually put laws in place to stop some of the worst excesses. That's probably going to happen to the mobile market in the rest of the world too. The 'freemium' games with microtransactions go too far, so the legal system puts out laws banning various practices and the industry crashes hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally I feel that both Play and App stores are partially to blame for this.

The stores really reward clickbait games and make it nearly impossible to discover good/serious games.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you. But the fact is that those clickbait games exist for one reason and one reason alone -- to make money. Unfortunately, this aligns well with the interests of the app stores; their interest is to make money, and not to make it easier for consumers to find good content.

<comment><USER14> Everything we buy exists to make money; everyone is interested in making money. But some stores actually do a better job stocking theirs shelves with things I will actually enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "... the report looked at over 40 free-to-play games through February 2016, > analyzing the uses of more than 20 million players."

If they're looking at 40 games with 20 million players during one month, they're looking at a specific class of mobile games, not mobile games at large.

Also,

> "A new report is highlighting that risk, showing that almost half of all the > revenue generated in mobile gaming comes from just 0.19 percent of users. > That means the other 99.81 percent of users aren't worth anything money-wise > to the creators."

Uh, aren't they worth 'half'?

edit: anecdotally, I've probably spent about $100 in the past year on random puzzle games that probably don't end up on the top of lists. Not sure how weird/errant I am though.

</comment><comment><USER16> 0.19% of mobile users have "more money than sense".

99.81% of users don't see the point in buying the $5 "valu-pack" of [insert contrived currency here] to unlock an extra few hours of playtime every day.

Mobile developers get angry and post rants about people being averse to spending as much as a cup of coffee on their abusively designed time sinks.

And other gaming industries are starting to follow suit. There are AAA console/PC titles with microtransactions now, it's ridiculous.

<comment><USER17> You have a point but it's also ridiculous that mobile game consumers expect every game to be free. Game studios often spend tens of thousands of hours developing a mobile game, why should that be free? The freemium model is just an unfortunate consequence of this cultural shift towards expecting all mobile apps to be free.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. Freemium is an attempt to maximize revenue given the following parameters: 1) 99% of the population won't pay more than $0.99 for a game, regardless of its quality; 2) 1% of the population will pay a fuckton.

So what do you do within those parameters? You try to make a game that relies on #2 to subsidize #1. The alternatives? Release totally free games (where's the business model?). Release ad-supported games (everyone hates ads!). Release games on a flat subscription model. Or accept that the whales are your actual paying customer base, and make games explicitly for them.

By and large, the mobile gaming industry has concluded that the latter approach is the optimal way to run a profitable business. The result is the shitty, manipulative, cookie-cutter approach to game design that has become so dominant today. But unless and until some of the 99% of us decide that games are worth paying for upfront, this seems to be the world we're stuck in.

<comment><USER19> >Release ad-supported games (everyone hates ads!).

Do people hate ad-supported games more than they hate games that nag you to spend money on them constantly?

<comment><USER20> Not sure it matters. Only a small handful of people can turn a profit on a solely ad-backed games. The Flappy birds of the world, which immediately inspire a wash of cheap copy-cats. Games like subway surfers and sonic dash still need some IAP money -- a high production value game costs about $3m to make these days so no major studio would trust a solely ads backed game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if the same applies to say... Google. That they're kept afloat by less than 1% of their users.

</comment><comment><USER22> Note that this is mostly caused by the fact that mobile game developers are courting such a distribution by making "pay-to-win" games where you can pay more to get advantages without limits.

While such a structure means that a game developer can earn 10k or more from a single player, it also makes the game worse for those who aren't willing to spend unlimited amounts of money and thus drives some of them away or causes them to decide to not spend any money at all.

If this is not desired, the simple solution is to have an "unlimited pass" that gets you access to all current and future IAP/DLC content that gives a game advantage for either a fixed one-time fee or a fixed subscription fee.

This is probably not often done because the game developers believe that it would be less profitable overall.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am getting tired of people complaining that this is a bad thing. Freemium monetization works: developers get paid and consumers get a lot of great content for free.

I disagree with the recommendations of this article to basically put the screws to the customers until they pay up

> Another way to keep keen players coming back would be to reduce the > privileges given in purchases so they will need to buy more to play more.

Keeping happy users that recommend your game/app is the driving force of freemium. Pissing them off just kills the golden goose. All you need is to make certain that if a customer WANTS you to take their money, there is always something to purchase at high and low price points.

<comment><USER24> I dislike the model for this reason:

1\. Game devs have an incentive to make the game crappy unless you pay 2\. When it comes time for you to pay, you have to support all the freeloaders.

I would venture a guess that most games could have higher median "fun" and still only charge $2-$5 . Instead of charging one person $10k and 5k ppl nothing.

just my thoughts though, no science/data to back it.

<comment><USER7> > When it comes time for you to pay, you have to support all the freeloaders.

Digital information has never, and will never, work like that. The price of movies is not influenced by pirates. The price of music is not influenced by how much radio stations charge to wholesale play it. There is absolutely no limit on supply of said information, the only scarcity is the revenue to produce it.

If you make a game for 100k, it does not matter if you have 10k buyers at $10 each, or 1 million players where 1 in 1000 spend $100, you recoup your costs either way. The only difference is that your 10k player game is seen as "dead" or "unsuccessful" if its competition has 1 million players, and on mobile stores that prioritize install base, the former will always lose in market growth.

But money made and money lost on a game have nothing to do with one another. You lose money when you cannot recoup the developer hours to make it, and you can only _gain_ or break even on money that users spend on it after release. The closest you can get to "losing" money is bullshit MAFIAA propaganda about how all the pirates / freeloaders would have bought the game if it cost money, when we can demonstrably see here, and in almost every other instance, that if you paywall things people want for free they will _very_ often just go for other things rather than stick around paying for yours, and that the conversation rate of pirates / freeloads - especially in mobile gaming - almost certainly does not offset the increased userbase and word of mouth you get from them to attract whale customers.

<comment><USER25> Freemium players who don't pay aren't "Pirates". Also they take up server resources (and complain even louder than paying ones when the occasional defect happens).

<comment><USER7> I never equated freemium players with pirates, just that the surrogate equivalents for other digital assets is piracy, because the rights holders of those other products want money per copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The big problem of the freemium model is, that it seems to push developers to make bad games. The model is based on making people repeatedly spend money on the game - and that is too often done by blocking the game until more money is spent, which of course creates a bad gaming experience. With a fully paid game, the incentive is to entertain the user to a point that he is happy with the purchase and spreads the word.

Around the time the mobile world got dominated by freemium games, I bought myself a Nintendo 3DS and I have not regretted it. The games are much more expensive up front, but they do offer very elaborate gameplay and long time fun.

</comment><comment><USER27> The game industry was born in arcades. You know, those arcades filled with people slumped over bright, flashing machines, pulling levers and plopping in quarter after quarter. No, no, not the casino. The arcade! The one where all the games were specifically designed to make the player lose, forcing them to insert more quarters to keep playing and get another chance at winning. Yes, I'm sure I'm talking about an arcade, and not a casino...

Then came consoles, and everyone pretty much ditched arcades and stayed at home. We went from spending buckets of quarters drawn out over the course of an evening, to spending buckets or quartuers all at once every month or two, and taking out a loan to afford the next $400+ console. The arcade model died, because consoles were better in every regard. People wanted to stay home, the games were better and more engaging, the platform and context allowed for games with more depth and value than could ever be achieved in an arcade, and you didn't have to worry about the console eating your quarters. And no more collecting 10 million tickets only to realize that the best item you can redeem them for is a plastic transformers ring.

Then came PCs, and PCs and consoles lived happily together alongside one another for the next decade or two. So how does the story end? Well, arcades are back baby, but in the form of pay-to-win freemium mobile games. They've evolved; now you don't have to go to some sticky floored dungeon to play Time Cop 15. You can do that from the comfort of your own phone. Just plop in $1 every now and then to keep playing. Best of all, game devs found out a way to price discriminate. Poor? Here's some ads and patience. Rich? Push a button and Apple will take care of the rest.

But the games haven't changed. Mobile games are just as shallow as arcade games ever were. But weren't arcades great? Of course they were; those games were a blast. They're a different kind of fun. A kind of fun you can pick up, enjoy, and then leave without another thought. These aren't grand masterpieces like The Witcher 3, or thought bending games like The Stanley Parable. But they were still fun, exciting, and a great way to relax or kill time.

So, my question is, why is everyone so caustic towards mobile gaming? Because it's exploitative? Sure, I can understand that, but so were arcades. If I had to guess, it's perhaps the pervassiveness of the games and the manner in which they present themselves that people find so offensive. See, arcades were at the arcades. You had to drive there, and physically be there for awhile. Mobile games are constantly with you, just one finger swipe away. And they take advantage of that, with notifications and constant come-hither looks to get you to play and spend. Also, arcade machines were upfront about their pricing model. The quarter slot is right there on the front of the machine, and the screen is flashing "Insert Coin". Mobile games advertise themselves as free, and even let you play a little bit before revealing their true payment model. That's deceptive in ways arcades were not.

No real point other than to remind everyone of history. It's clear that mobile gaming shares a heritage with arcades. And it's perhaps clear that they've evolved the model, but perhaps that evolution is not what everyone was hoping for. I'm more curious what the next "console" evolution will be.

<comment><USER28> The critical distinction between the arcade and mobile freemium models is that arcade pricing was skill-based. It's entirely possible to complete Raiden or Street Fighter on a single credit, and indeed the 1-credit-challenge is a convention that keeps a lot of people playing emulated arcade games.

If you tried to "1cc" most mobile games, it would take a fixed amount of time while you wait for your gems or energy or whatever to recharge, and you'd spend most of your time refraining from playing. The two models are certainly on the same evolutionary line, but mobile freemium games are a more blatant and direct psychological hack. The "challenge" is from overcoming your inbuilt desires and delaying gratification - exactly the sort of boring, responsible, real-life stuff people play games to avoid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm wondering when we might see regulation, at least in the US, regarding certain gambling-like activities some games have (not just mobile). What I mean is some games have you build a team of characters. They'll have an in- game shop where you buy "card packs", with chances of getting legendary or what have you versions of cards. Yet nowhere are the chances of getting those type of cards listed and even if there were, there's no regulatory body ensuring that those chances are correct.

From what I understand, Vegas voluntarily has rules in place that test this to keep from being regulated?

</comment><comment><USER30> Isn't the freemium games on other platforms more of the same? I play a few and there never seems to be a game without those few who buy up every perceived advantage they can. If not advantages then every special item or unit.

I remember Mechwarrior Online coming out with GOLD colored mechs for some obscene price and seeing them in game. I want to say they were like five hundred bucks. Wargaming also follows a similar model but I haven't see individual tanks or ships cresting a hundred bucks but there are enough that are in the fifty range and they are plentiful in matches

</comment><comment><USER31> If I download a game that's made by a company who make a loss then it's their backers/founders/previous successes who have subsidised my gaming, not the 1% of people who buy things in Candy Crush. Candy Crush players have nothing to do with what I'm playing. Consequently the premise that the 1% of the players who buy in-app things keep the industry afloat is wrong - the industry is kept afloat by the money people risk speculating on investing or producing games in the hope of becoming the next Candy Crush.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can anyone recommend me a _good_ Android game? Good is subjective, but I find that Android games pale in terms of gameplay and replayability. I'd much prefer to play a GBA emulator on my phone.

I'm more than willing to pay for mobile games, but I've been continually disappointed and how shallow the mobile games industry is.

Mobile games currently have much more in common with Flash games (remember when those were all the rage), than the gaming industry. Cheap, and quantity > quality.

</comment><comment><USER33> Humans are flock animals. Witch app would you choose, the one who has 1000 stars and 100 contributors on Github, or the one who has 1 star and 1 contributor? Do you read the top news on HN, or the _new_ ? It doesn't help that the app store & play store are setup to favor popular apps, rather then quality apps. By giving away your app for free you can save a lot of marketing costs. A game budget usually is 79% marketing 1% production, 20% profit.

</comment><comment><USER34> The bigger problem is the consolidation in the industry. 4-5 years ago, there were lots of relatively small studios making good money off of this 1-2% freemium model, while also releasing high quality games.

However now, that money has dried up. Formerly successful studios that used to make a lot of money are having a hard time making ends meet on their own IP. The cost of user acquisition has gone up way too high, because the biggest players have effectively infinite ad spend.

</comment><comment><USER35> I haven't worked in this space, and I don't play this type of game, but ads for these freemium mobile games seem to show up everywhere. Are the ones with the giant ad spend the only ones making money? Are they not making money either? At first it seems that more discoverable app stores or even some other "curation" services could help lower the required ad level, but then it occurs to me that perhaps whales really only respond to flashy expensive ads on popular media properties?

<comment><USER20> Like most businesses, most mobile games run on a customer acquisition cost vs. LTV model. Buy customers for $5 a pop, with LTVs of $7, which you can scale till you've used up all the profit. If you can drive that CAC down via better social (Words with Friends), better 1st party featuring (Clash Royale right now), IP (Star Wars: GoH), then more power to you.

<comment><USER35> Thanks, that makes sense, except I have no idea what "1st party featuring" is. It's not a term that seems amenable to googling, either.

<comment><USER20> Sorry, that'd be Google Play and App Store featuring (in their featured apps section). Quality editors choice or "best new games" featuring can mean hundreds of thousands of free installs, and a ton of momentum to drive word of mouth/virality.

<comment><USER35> Ah, that makes sense: "1st party" as opposed to "3rd party". This doesn't seem like an option for "indie" dev shops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Although, perhaps restructuring or ditching the freemium model might be the safest bet"

Sadly there wasn't room in the article to elaborate on what form this might take.

<comment><USER37> That's OK, because that's a pretty ignorant comment by the author anyway. We had a time when we didn't have in app payments in Android, and Google frequently showed slides showing a 20x increase in revenue for companies that switched from paid apps to in app purchases. Freemium definitely makes you more money.

The biggest problem with apps nowadays is that you write it and no one ever hears about it or finds out about it, let alone downloads it, not how to get money out of your users once you have them. That's a much easier problem. The author probably just has no clue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > is so reliant on a few hardcore users for revenue

I might replace 'hardcore users' with 'children who don't know what real games are'

<comment><USER19> I doubt anybody is relying on children for revenue...

<comment><USER38> In my experience, they are the ones buying the IAP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'd ask another question : are in the mobile world of instant gratification with social networks, image crafting and everything reachable at a click mobile games even "fun" enough to compete with all that ? If I get more gratification from other instant things, why even bother with a game ? Hell, why pay for it ?

</comment><comment><USER40> Tapjoy posted an infographic recently as well: [http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/infographic-whales- account...](http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/infographic-whales-account- for-70-of-in-app-purchase-revenue/635073)

</comment><comment><USER41> Am I the only one who sees that this is eerily similar to the US federal tax model, the 1%, etc?

<comment><USER42> It's called the 80/20 rule -- 80% of a result caused by 20% of its participants: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I would love to see similar statistics for gambling and taxation.

</comment><comment><USER44> It just means that there is a small number of customers that pay A LOT to play those games. So the real price of those games might be $150 or $500+ for those customers.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why is this article getting up-voted on HN? It is poorly written, contains very little information and completely mangles it's interpretation of the statistics.

<comment><USER46> Because I think many people here have developed a game or app for the App Store with little to no traction and are upvoting out of frustration.

Here is mine [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/5-differences-2/id816500190?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/5-differences-2/id816500190?ls=1&mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Its truly an amazement - I can't think of another field with such advanced, accessible tools yet such a shitty market to enter than the games industry.

</comment><comment><USER48> The most successful game I made was my first and simplest but it was Nov 2011. By mid 2014 I was outmarketed as an indie dev.

</comment><comment><USER49> There is a potential market for an App Store which refuses to offer any free to play titles.

<comment><USER50> I don't think there is, sadly. It isn't possible on the iOS side (although Apple has started to feature games that don't have pay-to-win or freemium mechanics), and while possible on the Android side, 99% of people are going to get their stuff from Google Play anyway, so even if such a store were to start up, anyone offering their wares on that store would be offering them on Play anyway.

<comment><USER20> The majority of premium titles on Android are pirated, especially for the most popular games. If someone wants to go to a 3rd party app store, it will be to pirate a premium game, not better curation to pay for one.

<comment><USER49> Most people, before GOG.com, would have said many of the same things about an ardently anti-DRM marketplace, whose main selling point is the same titles but without DRM.

I've heard from a lot of gamers that would love to purchase a given version of a game outright for ~$15 than to be sapped with free-to-play mechanics. For example, take a look at the feedback on the Torchlight Mobile facebook page from 2015-06-25:

[https://www.facebook.com/torchlightmobile/photos/a.885045108...](https://www.facebook.com/torchlightmobile/photos/a.885045108228499.1073741828.876227465776930/890591147673895/?type=3&theater)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> There's a semi famous aphorism about advertising:

If you're not paying for it, you're the product.

People who pay for consumable in-game resources aren't interested in the same kind of games that I'm interested in. Reading this article made me realize:

If you're not paying for it, it's not designed for you.

</comment><comment><USER52> People defending the freemium model are detestable IMHO. I don't agree with the notion that companies are justified in doing "anything" if it is going to make them money. Unethical practices should be publicly shamed as much as, and as often as possible.

<comment><USER53> > _People defending the freemium model are detestable IMHO._

You sound like a grade "A" human being.

<comment><USER52> You are free to support unethical behavior. Don't expect people to like you.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Correctly pronouncing equations in CS papers - <AUTHOR>

I try to read a few papers a month (like the Bigtable or Chubby ones) to stay current with what the state of the art.  But, I frequently find myself stumbling over the right way to "pronounce" the equations in my head.  I imagine most people learn this sort of thing by listening to a professor read them out loud in class.  Does anyone know an online resource for this? <comment><USER2> well , you might want to watch an video(online) about Bigtable or Chubby.</comment>


Buildah – build your containers from the ground up - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectatomic.io/blog/2017/06/introducing-buildah/ <comment><USER2> Tools like buildah and cri-o really give us some hope on the backend. I want rock solid components that do one thing well and fail in predictable ways.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just had a play with this on a VM.

Really not much of a challenge to adjust to from docker. The posix style CLI args are quite similar as is the stdout.

This was enough to get me into a container:

        debcontainer=$(buildah from debian)
        buildah run $debcontainer /bin/bash

        root@61badeb3d050:/# uname -r
        4.10.15-200.fc25.x86_64</comment>


Ask HN: Laid off after 2 months. What exactly should I be doing? - <AUTHOR> I'm a guy with very little experience, CS degree, currently living in Texas, and was laid off by another company before this.
I found a job after a long job search. I cancelled my other job offer, spent all my savings ($2k on rent, flight, AirBnB, etc), and moved across the country to work here in a sort of suburban city with no way to get around. I was planning on saving up money and building up my life here.
After 2 months, I was laid off. I have no car, no insurance, practically no money, etc. It costs $50 round trip just to Uber into downtown, so I end up holed in my apartment. Not to mention the cost to go to meetups and on-site interviews (yeah, no one has once offered to pay). I've been searching for about 4 months. I've made it to several on-sites, but never got an offer and don't know exactly what I'm doing wrong. Like one company would say I passed, then ghost me after the on-site, or they said I did good then decided to go with an internal candidate.
I signed a year long lease. It will cost $7k to break. If I somehow get a job offer from another state, what kind of company will even help with that? Like I said, I have trouble even getting companies to pay for interviews.
Regarding my health. I'm totally depressed and have developed heart problems. It's impossible to function doing anything. I also tried my best when I was working, and would even try to code all night and on weekends. Now I have to see all my energy go to waste and have to restart from step 1 again.
What would you do if you were in my shoes? <comment><USER2> I'd stop using Uber because you can't afford it and I would talk to my landlord to get them to give you better terms to break the lease since you clearly can't afford that either. Offer them to help find another tenant or try to get them to allow you to leave without another tenant lined up because they will end up with a renter in default, which will make it harder for them to get rid of you and will likely lose them money.

Also, I would take _any_ job, even a non technical one, just to stay busy and to try to keep the bills paid and to stay in a regular rhythm.

For your medical / mental issues you should most likely simply consult a professional, no internet advise will help you there in ways that move the needle and/or are positive.

best of luck!

edit: And if you have family don't hesitate to call on them. I did so in hard up times and my kids do it with me and that's how it should be, it can take a while to find your bearings and that is one reason why family members should support each other. Of course if you don't have much family or they are in no position to help then you can safely ignore this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I only use Uber because there's no other transportation except for the 4 hour bus ride one-way.

<comment><USER3> 4 hour bus ride it is then, the one thing you do have an abundance of is time.

<comment><USER4> Or at least $25 Uber ride in to arrive on time, 2-hour bus ride home. Or the reverse if you have groceries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been in a similar position before. It really helped my mental health to have productive daily rituals. For example, I spent about one hour each day between exercise and duolingo. Just get out of the apartment and run like hell. Even if the remainder of the day was demoralizing, I at least felt like something meaningful was accomplished.

Like others have said, find any job, contact family and explain situation, etc.

If I absolutely had no other option, I would join the air force. Worst part is the minimum four year commitment. A few of my friends have done so. You can be an equipment technician in a hospital, see the world, and not deal with any violence.

</comment><comment><USER6> Stop mopping about it. Search for remote work as well, pick up cheap programming work online even if it's $10/15hr. Anything to get some pocket change coming in. Get a night job somewhere (security, inventory at a grocery store) that way you have your days free for interviews. Whatever you do you need extra income coming in, lack and loss of money is a major stressor. Talk to your landlord, they might someone to take over the lease. Place an add looking for someone to take over the lease. If a nice city, AirBnB the place once in a while, or sublet your room and sleep in the living room. Get outside everyday, go for a walk/jog, it's important to get fresh air. Everything will be alright.

</comment><comment><USER7> You planned up on saving money by taking a $2k/month rental? You just started your career. People start their career by co-habitating with several of their colleagues.

The first step is to stop haemorrhaging cash. Check your local renting laws. If it allows you to stay for a few months before the law kick you out, then stop paying rent.

Take a side job (preferably night job) to make some cash to survive. Keep looking for a job. If you don't find and your rental kick out is approaching then rent a room.

And forget about Uber. Pretty sure there is some public transport bus that goes your way. (not necessarily your way but will connect you through). How do you think the majority of people are doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> My apartment costs <$1k/month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you need help, I can coach you for job interviews. I can say confidently that you will start clearing interviews a lot more often. I have been there and just would love to help you out of this situation.

Hit me up on firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER9> Most importantly, talk to your landlord. Explain the situation and the effect it has on you. More often than not, people will surprise you with their empathy. The essential point here is honesty. Just open up to him. He may just offer to help you out. This can be even more valuable if you know no one else where you live. Also, file for unemployment and explain your condition there as well. You may get helpful pointers.

As has been said before: if you have family and are on good terms, don't wait any longer to ask for help. Everyone gets into shitty situations due to no fault of their own at one time or another, makes mistakes and needs to start over. That's one thing families are for: a safety net, a safe place. If you have none, get in touch with your closest friends. If you have none (like zero), search for a local depression self-help group and go to a meeting. People there will understand what you're going through and attempt to help you in getting your affairs in order. Seriously. It sounds unappealing, I know, but it works if you have no one else.

Also, get a used bike. Get used do riding it for extended periods of time. You have time, not money, remember. Plus, you'll get exercise this way, which is something that helps keep depression at bay. I realize that American suburbs are not the ideal place to get around in one but it can be done. If you're completely opposed to this, Google for ride-sharing or carpooling offers in your area.

After that, with the help of family, friends or empathetic people, either move back home, to a much smaller apartment, or join someone as their roommate. If you're truly paralyzed by depression, try to get a job (for the time being) that just requires simple tasks of you, showing up and doing easy work, like a local shop clerk, that's closest to your apartment. Avoid fast food jobs, they are soul-crushing. Adjust your living conditions to a student level.

If you can, try to volunteer for an open source project. It does not generate money but you get to interact with people, learn new things, success may lift your spirits and you have actual public work to refer to when applying for a coding job later.

</comment><comment><USER10> Get out of suburbia. Unless you have kids and the best school in the world is nearby.

Get help for your depression right away. It might be coming across unconsciously in your interviews.

Good luck! You can do it. You're in a better situation than a huge percentage of the world. Think positive.

</comment><comment><USER11> You didn't mention your specific skills, but no matter what, start building a decent profile on linkedin and a portfolio ( take projects on upwork, fiverr, toptal, crossover... whatever ) right now. Heck, write a "how to" tutorial on medium....

Also look for a roommate, to decrease your fixed costs without breaking the lease. This could give you some ideas too: [https://andrewhy.de/how-to-live- comfortably-on-36-a-month-fo...](https://andrewhy.de/how-to-live-comfortably- on-36-a-month-for-food/)

Buy a second hand bicycle, and ditch uber... and, as soon as you can afford, _go see a doctor_ !

</comment><comment><USER12> Establish a daily routine where you are doing some moderate exercise and getting quality sleep. I highly recommend practicing job interviews so that you come across with the confidence and initiative that you would have if already employed.

You might want to get in touch with career office of the school where you got your CS degree as they may have resources that are useful.

Identify the technology that is most in line with your interests and the jobs to which you are applying and become proficient or an expert in it, preferably making something along the way that can be shown, demonstrated, or discussed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not any where near my school. Anyway, I already did mock interviews with my school last year, and did several mock interviews with principal engineers a few months ago. I'm also attending Toastmasters.

I already have several projects in Vue. No one asks about them during interviews.

<comment><USER13> Mention them during interviews. You can't expect people to ask about the things that make you great. You have to use the things that make you great to justify yourself in interviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1\. Stop using uber, that is a total luxury. Get a used bike off Ebay/craigslist/whatever for like $100.

2\. Do something useful in your spare time. Like get a job at a fast food joint so you can pay your bills.

</comment><comment><USER15> I broke my lease last year. All I had to do was find a replacement tenant. I basically incurred no fees except the new tenant moved in slightly later than I moved out.

</comment><comment><USER16> You are living life backwards. You have increased your expenses on how much you are making, not now much you have.

Regardless of the amount on your first paycheck, 7K should be your goal to cover rent FOR THE YEAR. 7k to break your lease, and uncertain employment, measures that you are living well beyond your means.

you cannot afford your place. Live like a student until you can manage your expenses.

Also immediately file for unemployment.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you know your way around the web it is very easy to make a few grand per month. Build websites in WordPress. Post to social accounts for businesses. Offer simple SEO by using the yoast plugin. Host websites and provide updates. Blog for people.

I'm sorry your situation turned out poorly but it is far from grim. You have the power and ability to fix it. Do you have the motivation as well?

</comment><comment><USER18> A somewhat related aside: If you have any retirement savings, do not spend them unless you absolutely have to. Go bankrupt first. Many people who file for bankruptcy do not realize that retirement savings are generally untouchable even by a bankruptcy court.

</comment><comment><USER19> TBH I don't know. I can propose you to come to the chat I'm on (in my profile). Some people could help you and you might feel better to talk with other human beings. You don't need to say you're that HN guy.

Courage and good luck.

</comment><comment><USER20> Have you tried freelancing? Try creating a profile on freelancer, upwork, etc. You can try it in the meantime because at least that may help you out with things like paying for uber. Good luck

</comment><comment><USER21> No one is going to hire someone who can't function, as you mentioned at the end.

</comment><comment><USER22> One of my friend was in your shoes. After he got fired from the startup where he did lots of hard work without payoff. He just lost his faith in the system and sold off everything, moved to China.

Now he gives talks in local Chinese and Indian conferences shillings consultancy for companies.

He meets a lot of Chinese and Indians and now he has saved a lot of money to retire even by American standards.

One thing we don't recognize is that we might be more valualed in a country where we weren't born.

You are failing in America doesn't mean you'll fail in Thailand, India, China where my friends just because they are white get paid thousands of dollars for smiling for photops

There are many businesses in East who don't know anything about the US but still have software products which can potentially undercut western products on prices, if you show them the way to enter western market - you too can charge a premium for this.

<comment><USER23> > One thing we don't recognize is that we might be more valualed in a country > where we weren't born.

That's not quite true. Asians often think highly of Westerners for some reasons.

<comment><USER24> Great, send the losers to Asia.

<comment><USER23> i talked with an American guy. He said he was washing dish in America. Decided to go to Thailand to teach english, ended up marry with a rich thai girl. Turned out pretty well for him.</comment></comment></comment></comment>