Ask HN: Someone here to team up with me on a project to learn React together? - <AUTHOR> Hey there,
I'm a self-taught web developer and I want to learn React right now. Is here anybody who would like to team up with me on a project in order to get learning react together?
Thanks, Alin R. <comment><USER2> I did a course on React from udemy by Stephen Girder. It's pretty good. There are three courses React, Advanced React and React Native. I think this course will save you ton loads of time. Also, it's quite cheap at 30 $ for three courses and 60 hours of content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the resources you recommended! Wanna join the learn react slack group to make some project with us? Please give me your email and I will send an invitation :)

<comment><USER2> Sure. Would love to. siddharth[dot]soka+hn[at]gmail[dot]com

<comment><USER3> Just to let you know, gmail omits the periods in their emails.

siddharth[dot]soka+hn[at]gmail[dot]com siddharthsoka+hn[at]gmail[dot]com siddharth[dot][dot][dot][dot]soka+hn[at]gmail[dot]com

will all go to your email account

<comment><USER2> I am aware of that. I often use the trick to register multiple times on the same website. Also, you can use (+) to create unlimited siblings of your gmail address. Helpful to keep track of spams.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it works with spam anymore - except for naive spammers, they are very aware of this trick.

It IS for organising legitimate incoming mail though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great idea! Please keep us posted on how it goes, I'd like to hear and maybe do something similar when my schedule will permit. Do you already have a project? If not, with a partner or alone, I can propose you to restyle/update and keep open source Has Gluten [1].

I started working on HG two years ago, open sourced the code [2], but never really had the time to give it the love it needs (updating to a newer version of React, make the code nicer, blog about it...).

If you'd like to give it a boost, I'm happy to leave it as a playground and support where needed -- assuming the core functionality will still be there. We've had already a good number of friends from all over the world contributing with UI improvements and translations.

Incidentally this is how I learned React, and in fact this is not much more than React tutorial (searchable list) with a slightly better UI, and backed by a google spreadsheet. I also integrated ads sense, with the idea to pay back the $12/y of the domain, but I think there's some issue loading. Overall I think a project like this could teach you quite a good number of reusable skills.

[1] [http://hasgluten.com](http://hasgluten.com)

[2] [https://github.com/hasgluten/hasgluten](https://github.com/hasgluten/hasgluten)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I think it would be better to give me your email address and join us on slack and we will talk there more on every subject you want. What do you say? :)

<comment><USER5> Oh sorry, just read it now - my email is public in my profile, forgot to mention :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I strongly recommend starting with [http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full- stack-redux-tutorial...](http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for recommendation, the tutorial looks impressive and overwhelming in the same as I'm just a beginner with React.

<comment><USER6> The tutorial is a little overwhelming, but you just take one step at a time and google any concept that you don't understand. One of the best aspects of this tutorial is that it relies on tests, which means that you gain a greater practical understanding of the functionality that you are implementing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Care to be part of the slack group I just made as a mentor to all these guys who want to learn React? Tell me your email and I will fire an invitation right away :)

<comment><USER6> email is judah dot meek at gmail.com. I'd be happy to help out any way that I can. I also recommend the [http://www.reactiflux.com/](http://www.reactiflux.com/) community as a source of answers.

<comment><USER7> Can you explain more about the community? Is it beginner friendly or for freelancing etc?

Sorry, but nothing is mentioned on the website.

<comment><USER8> Reactiflux is a general discussion community for just about anything involving React and various related libraries, as well as Javascript. There's several general channels (#general, #need-help, etc), as well as channels for specific libraries like Redux, React-Native, Webpack, and more. It's _very_ beginner- friendly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi, I got together a few friends to build a language learning site. There are 5 of us: 2 of us have 5+ years industry experience, 3 of them just started college and are hungry to learn. The experienced devs will spend most of their time code reviewing and making sure everybody checks in good code.

We built our product (not launched yet) in React and its primary purpose is to help us learn redux (which explains why we haven't launched it). So far we've had about 3 code rewrites, the most recent being refactoring codebase to use Redux (all of us love it).

We have weekly sprint meetings every Thursday to talk about the project assign tasks and review the team's progress. We have had about 15 sprint meetings.

If anybody wants to join us, we would love to teach you what we learned and assign you a few tasks. My email is song at zheng.club

<comment><AUTHOR> I sent you an invite to the slack group.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> FYI, I keep a big list of links to high-quality tutorials and articles on React and related topics, at [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links) . Specifically intended to be a great starting point for anyone trying to learn the ecosystem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot acemarke! I appreciate it! Wanna join the slack group on learning react together? :)

<comment><USER8> I spend most evenings (and weekends) hanging out in the Reactiflux community on Discord. That generally keeps my attention for the most part, as well as trying to work on updates to the Redux docs, and my blog post series on "Practical Redux".

You might actually want to consider Reactiflux as an option instead of a Slack group. Granted, a Slack group would work well for a smaller, goal-focused group, whereas Reactiflux is more of a general "discuss anything related to React and related tools" set of channels. That said, it'd definitely be possible for us to add a channel dedicated to this learning effort, and there's always plenty of people hanging around who can answer questions.

No problem either way, just wanted to toss out that as an option.

FYI, the Reactiflux invite link is available to anyone at [http://www.reaactiflux.com](http://www.reaactiflux.com) . And, if anyone's interested, my "Practical Redux" blog series can be found in my blog at [http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com](http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am a react-native developer. I too want to get my feet in web development. I am good with concepts of react and redux. But not good on web development. I would love to learn react together as we can teach each other things from our domain. Email me at aakash dot sigdel at gmail dot com.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hi Alin,

I have been hacking with React for sometime now. I am struggling to get better. Can I join you for learning React better My mail id : kumar[dot]sai119[at]gmail[dot]com

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been wanting to migrate pyportify from angular to react. It would be a great project for learning react, if someone wants to do it.

[https://github.com/rckclmbr/pyportify](https://github.com/rckclmbr/pyportify)

<comment><AUTHOR> Give me your email address and join us on slack and I guess you can find someone interested in that project

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, guys you are so awesome. I did not expect this kind of positive answer. I'm making now a slack group, so we can learn together and I will send you invitations. Please contact me on twitter @RautaAlin to give your emails and start sending the invitations.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! Thanks for all your answers and support and I will call it a night for now. If you want to be part of our spontaneous slack group for learning react, just shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I will send you an invite.

Best,

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been using react in my freelance work for a year or so. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. My email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> I emailed you an invitation at parkerault @ gmail . com. Is that email correct?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds like a good idea! Do you have a specific project in mind?

(EE Junior from Germany with basic rails and flask experience)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! You can find me on twitter @RautaAlin and we'll talk there and make a plan. What do you say?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm currently working on my first React side project as we speak. Give me a holler. Email in profile :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't figure out your email from the profile, sorry :)). Please write it here or contact me on twitter @RautaAlin and I will send you an invite to the slack group

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is exactly what I am looking for! If there's still room on the team, I'd love to join!

<comment><AUTHOR> Please tell me your email address and I will send you an invite right away

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds fun! I'm down to learn with you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Give me your email address or contact me on twitter @RautaAlin to invite you on the slack group I just made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am down to learn react.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please give your email address here or on twitter @RautaAlin and I will send you an invite to the slack group I just made for this learning activity

<comment><USER19> could you add me as well? email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I just sent you an invite. I'm pleased you want to join us. Also, please tell me if the invite did not get in your inbox

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm down!

<comment><AUTHOR> Find me on twitter @RautaAlin and we'll talk more :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm down

<comment><AUTHOR> Please give me your email address and I will send you an invite

<comment><USER21> motu@fastmail

.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I sent you the invite</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Myth of the Tech Whiz Who Quits College to Start a Company - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-myth-of-the-tech-whiz-who-quits-college-to-start-a-company#

<comment><USER2> That may be one of the worst articles I've ever read, in terms of suppling anything like a useful group of data. The first comment on the article basically said everything I'm thinking of but NYC is an exceptionally poor choice to study for the tech sector. While it certainly has a thriving tech start up scene, it's mostly driven by other industries (fashion, food, and finance being three of the biggest) trying to modernize. I think SF or Boston would have told a dramatically different story but without data we can't be sure. To me for this study/article to be of any worth it would need to be from many more cities/areas.</comment>


Ask HN: Is starting a UI design service for nonprofits a good idea? - <AUTHOR> I would love to design UI for nonprofit projects, thinking of a 1k -2k price range for a complete UI design service. I have experience doing it mainly for forprofit companies and startups.<p>Question is, are nonprofits able to pay up? Is it a good idea <comment><USER2> There are a few that are loaded and have designers that they are happy with. The ones that aren't rich? There are a lot more of them and they can't pay you.</comment>


How a Pillar of German Banking Lost Its Way - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/the-story-of-the-self-destruction-of-deutsche-bank-a-1118157.html <comment><USER2> Deutsche really lost their way. I used to be their customer for 5 years but then I gave up. Over the past 20 years (roughly what the article covers) they:

\- starting from a more "elite", business customer focus

\- went pioneering into online banking to get younger customers

\- merged the online customers when broadening out online

\- tried to get rid of lower revenue customers

\- bought the Postal Bank (which was focused on low income customers and had a huge number of them)

\- tried to sell Postbank

The back and forth on the local German banking retail market made no sense whatsoever. Twice they were eyeing pools of lower income customers (younger, Postbank), did not fully integrate them and then backed out again.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope there will be a lesson that a steady business or being conservative is often a good thing. It seems there is a lot of pressure to grow until the only way for growing more is to take on a lot of risk or doing unethical things.

<comment><USER4> That is true, but try telling that story to the shareholders. Most shareholders don't care about long term stability, they just want a profit this year and then cash out and move somewhere else.

<comment><USER5> The stock price is set by the expectation of long term increased value, not short term. For the simple reason that if everyone is set to cash out at the peak, there won't be a peak, the stock will tank.

<comment><USER6> The stock market oracle values a dim chance for massive growth much higher than a very large likelihood of continued existence at current levels.

Overoptimistic money drives out realistic money and then suddenly the corporation has to fulfill expectations it might never have actively encouraged. Or else you lose at capitalism, whatever that means.

The only chance to not play that game is to have patient majority owners who are fully willing to ignore temporary devaluation when disillusioned optimists jump ship.

<comment><USER5> Riskier investments tend to have lower current values, which prices in the risk.

But for a more meta point, if you believe you are smarter at valuing stocks than the market is, then you can make a fortune at it if you are correct. Or even just mostly correct. You don't need to convince me or anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It was a horrible place to work.

From a technical perspective they were completely incompetent, refusing to consider that a plan put in place years before might now be invalid.

Investing in hardware and the associated data center, years before a system is due to be deployed 'because my bonus depends on it'.

Outsourcing gone mad.

Obvious quid pro quo arrangements between management and vendors.

There were good people there but they were ignored or marginalized by the Frankfurt crowd.

Most of the technical staff would not get though an intern technical interview at Apple / Google / ...

I tried to build an internal team in Cary to try and prove that outsourcing is not the answer, but it was pointless, the staff available were totally and obliviously incompetent, one of them refused to participate unless we used Erlang, I know Erlang, I really like it, so I quizzed him on why he wanted to use Erlang, you know the outcome, he had no knowledge of OTP, and only a cursory familiarity with the language, and yet I was asked to let this guy lead my development team.

Try hiring technical talent into that environment. They did pay well though.

I bailed and headed back to the valley.

</comment><comment><USER8>
      This is the bank's situation, 146 years after its founding. Once a symbol of Germany
      -- Germany Inc. -- and the country's financial pillar. Its managers were respected, admired
      as people who lived up to the country's values and expected the same of their employees.

      Those times are gone. Deutsche Bank as we once knew it is dead. As one of the bank's former
      senior managers said, the bank stumbled into a "Darwinist niche," a place where there were
      no more competitors and no more enemies. And the gentlemen at the top of the company became
      complacent and inattentive.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not too familiar with the German culture. Can someone explain to me what is this "German provincialism" that they talk about? Do Germans see themselves as provincial? Does anyone else see them as provincial?

<comment><USER10> Have you ever heard of the German Mittelstand? [1] Family-owned companies, long-term and low-risk business strategies, social responsibility, regional ties... I think that's the kind of provincialism the article talks about. Not bad, just boring.

Deutsche Bank wanted to become a global player. Doing investment banking in New York and London instead of giving a small loan to Herr Müller's crankshaft oil seal factory in Hintertupfingen.

[1] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand)

<comment><USER11> Lol, Hinterupfingen. If my German isn't a complete wreck, I believe that implies sticking a digit up the derriere. Similar to our Bumfuck, USA

<comment><USER12> Sadly, no.

Hintertupfingen is merely a invented place which is most removed from the happenings in the rest of the world.

Being from Hintertupfingen implies being somewhat of a Redneck or atleast uneducated of what happens in the world.

<comment><USER13> You're both in agreement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think its important to note that they didn't end up this way because they were stupid or power hungry.

Like alot of companies, they made decisions that made sense at the time that ended up having poor long term consequences.

When they decided to really grow it was due to a couple of things..

1) Their competitors were all doing the same thing and they almost needed to grow their investment arm and international presence just to stay in business.

It used to be that Audi, Porchse etc would come to them for basic loans etc and business was good. But as these firms grew internationally they also needed a bank that did the same.

Audi sells in Brazil it needs a bank with a presence there as well. And along comes the big american and European banks who start selling themselves to Deutsche's current clients as a one stop shop who can do what Deutsche does but also all these new things that international modern companies need.

A company needs to get a currency or interest rate swap, well Goldman Sachs can do that, so Deutsche followed suit.

From this perspective its easy to see how they started down the road they did.

And once you start building out a international team of investment bankers and traders that means you're now competing for talent with the rest of the big players.

So how do you hire the best traders/investment bankers?

You pay them like everyone else does, which is to say you have to pay them..... alot.

You have to provide perks like New York/London/Tokyo offices and the ability to trade the hottest products and markets.

You need to let your traders make money like other firms do or they'll just leave for those other firms.

All just to keep your existing clients.

And before long you are just like everyone else.

Then in the mid 2000's during a huge bull market you have one of wall streets stars Boaz Weinstien ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaz_Weinstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaz_Weinstein) or read "The Quants") running your derivatives desk. And they made money hand over fist..... at the time.

Now the funny thing about bull markets, is that even bad trades can make money during them because everything is up and to the right.

And even if you think you are putting on too much exposure, tough, remember that so is everyone else and if you stop, then the good traders and bankers quit and go to competitors who will let them make money.

It's sort of like raising money as a startup in frothy markets. You'd just better raise money because if you don't and all your competitors raise 20 million then even if you're better they'll often win because they can survive longer than you.

It just happens that Deutsche didn't quite understand the game that was eing played, and when the music stopped, they were holding the bag so to speak.

<comment><USER15> According to the article they were both stupid and power hungry and yet you make it sound like they accidentally manipulated Libor or bet against their own clients.

Should we feel pity for them or what? They could have expanded AND kept some control of what the investment bankers were doing.

Other banks managed to reduce their exposure while DB was blisfully sailing ahead, so your assertion that "so is everyone else and if you stop, then the good traders and bankers quit and go to competitors who will let them make money" is incorrect. This is mentioned in the article.

It also says right in the article that traders were amazed how poor the oversight from HQ was.

<comment><USER14> Wow, I don't normally respond to replies but it looks like you tried as hard as you could to take the most negative outlook possible on my post.

I mean you completely failed in any way to give my note the principle of charity. Have a look:

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

I really don't know how to respond to that:(

My point was that their transformation from a regional bank into an international bank wasn't just a power grab or kingdom building but a very natural progression, that lots of their competitors, to keep their existing customers.

it then turned out that one of their new areas, derivatives desk, was minting money like crazy so it became tougher for them to reign in that team, and as a side effect the risk that team generated, until it was painfully clear that they'd gone too far.

Their problem wasn't in the idea of growing and transforming the bank but in the implementation, and I believe I laid out in pretty easy to follow detail, why they went the way they did.

<comment><USER15> I reread your original message and the underlying theme seems to be the inevitability of ending up more or less in a situation similar to the one of today.

I don't believe the natural progression theory _fully_ explains what happened and I was trying to emphasise that the article contradicts your theory in several places.

In particular: * their failure to learn the lessons of 2008, which most other banks did learn.

* several power struggles for key leadership positions

* outright incompetence in risk management.

To summarise: your analysis about the forces at play is likely correct. However one needs to mix in incompetence and greed to get today's result, something which you explicitly excluded in your first sentence.

I am outraged at what happened (I am a Deutsche customer) and some of that slipped into my message. I do apologize for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The last time I visited Wall St., in 2015, I noticed a giant inflatable rat, directly in front of the Deutsche bank building. I figured someone was pissed off about something.

<comment><USER17> That rat gets used by labor unions across all industries. :)

<comment><USER18> Cool ! I never knew the US actually has a sort of tradition for this sort of thing. Very cool.

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/28466/story-behind-giant- infl...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/28466/story-behind-giant-inflatable- union-rat)

<comment><USER19> The wall Street bull is a bit similar. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lovely long-form piece. Seems very analogous to the choice many tech companies face: focus on growing a moderately successful, proven model, or lever up to the gills with VC money and shoot for the moon. The later being sexier and higher status, but also risking catastrophic failure.

</comment><comment><USER21> One has to view it from the long term perspective. Germanys success doesent seem very stable from the inside. The age pyramid is similar to japan, and a working social system + lots of future retirees means, there is a lot of unseen future debt here.

The main industry - the car industry is flailing and failing, by falling behind when it comes to e-mobility (except for BMW, but thats just the premium segment). Because of that perfectionism streak in engineering and a attitude against "untouchable" aka not real products, we suck at Software, which shows in particular when you look for example on the digital entertainment market. Pols have the Witcher and lots more, Czechoslovakians have Arma and lots more- what do we got? We make chips and databases- both important fields- but both closer to the german mindset.

Europe is falling apart as we speak, and the inability to fix it shows, as politicians promises the glue that held it together is loosing its binding power. They should have abandoned the brussel parliament, and made a virtual parliament from all the national ones- in this way unifying the whole continent, by having a voted for legislator- that actually has something to say to those who rule the continent.

Also germans democracy suffer from the same symptoms as the US- aka the partys kill it with sleeping pills. The media and they political party system) does not allow and does not show any hard debate (reason: "the citizens dont like it when mummy and daddy fight"), but this creates the impression that the voters causes are unheard and not worth fighting over for. It doesent show who fights for them, and as the eternally same faces deliver the eternally same messages (Too Long Did Not Change; TLDNC: "There is going to be a little bit of hardship, but its going to be good, once we are through it, we take the citizens problems very serious, we will take care of all your problems, as long as you dont have any.."). The state is rife with untouchable special interest groups who basically degenerated to something similar to the regressive left in the US. Lobbyism is even more of a problem- the state literally allows to hire company employees into ministry's, to write on the laws legislating themselves.

While all this is going on, the citizens never get a chance to vote a head of this hydra, thus some "populist" alternative has formed, which is going to win the next Vote, and similar to France is going to rip Germany out of the heart of Europe. Which is a shame- in a world where the big bullys push you around on the schoolyard- being small has lost all the comfort remembered from the cold war.

If you have all this in mind and a picture of the outside world, germanys strategy seems like a long term suicide- and what do you do if your own strategy is failing? You blindly copy whatever strategy the successful competitors employ - of course without understanding whats at its core (careful risk management).

I wouldn't wonder if something similar at some point happens at the German software industry (mainly embedded electronics and databases). Because silicon valley seems so much more successful, blindly try to copy the structure and place some German engineering in it. Then wonder why you always get incremental improved products way to late, instead of brittle cutting edge. Anyway that's the state of the nation, which spawned this bank.

</comment><comment><USER22> I used to work with DB throughout the 2000s. Occasionally, I was surprised on the levels of incompetence of middle management. It isn't uncommon in investment banks, especially when the economy is good enough, but DB upped it to the whole new level.

<comment><USER23> examples?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Deutsche lost its way but it was a good stock to buy at $12</comment>


Fine, I'll Go Build My Own Disassembler, with BlackJack - <AUTHOR> http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=604

<comment><USER2> Site appears down for me.

archive.org: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150215195350/http://www.joshba...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150215195350/http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=604)

Google Cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1XzrZ3...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1XzrZ3QoEsIJ:www.joshbarczak.com/blog/%3Fp%3D604+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Maybe a virtual destructor? But then why would the '1′ be there?_

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8052146/whats-this- extra-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8052146/whats-this-extra- parameter-passed-into-virtual-destructor)

It's a little odd to see ELF show up - such a complex format being used to do little more than wrap some bytes intended for the GPU to execute.

(Does the usefulness of writing FunctionName+0xnnnn in call/jump targets seem a bit odd? The addresses given on the left are absolute ones, so it would make sense to give those first, maybe with the relative one in parentheses; the relative one helps little in figuring out where exactly the call/jump goes...)

</comment><comment><USER4> In case anyone didn't get the joke in the title: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-going-to-build-my-own- theme...](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-going-to-build-my-own-theme-park- with-blackjack-and-hookers) haha, very funny

</comment><comment><USER5> and hookers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGi6Q1pNbS0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGi6Q1pNbS0)</comment>


Sheryl Sandberg: Want Privacy? Must Pay to Use FB - <AUTHOR> https://www.today.com/video/more-facebook-data-breaches-possible-sheryl-sandberg-says-on-today-1204254787587 <comment><USER2> It looks like you rewrote the tutorial to editorialize. That's against the site guidelines:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> She clearly says in the interview what my title says. But that's OK: HN/YC being a supporter of startups seems to be too much in love with FB and Google, the behemoths that keep the above mentioned startups from rising up and allowing YC to profit like it should. Paradox to me...

<comment><USER2> I believe you about the interview, but it isn't ok to cherry-pick one detail from a piece and make that the title. That's a form of editorializing.

> HN/YC being a supporter of startups seems to be too much in love with FB and > Google

I doubt most users would agree, after the onslaught of stories in the last few weeks. You might be falling prey to this bias:

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

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

(I don't mean that personally btw—it's one of the most common phenomena we see here.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Mark has apologized and I know he is prepared to apologize in any situation". That's pretty funny.

Anyway, the title is wrong. All she says is giving users the option to completely opt-out of targeted advertising on their platform would be a payed product.

There's a reason why Facebook and all the others don't offer paying for their services. They want to be able to tell advertisers that they can reach X amount of people. If X gets too small advertisers lose interest and they have to charge paying customers more and so on. I guess at some point somebody did a napkin calculation and decided it's not worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Napkin calculation? Really?

<comment><USER4> It's just an expression meaning they made a lot of assumptions (eg how much people would pay, how many would pay, and at what point advertisers stopped dropping out.) Obviously they never actually tested these assumptions, presumably because their simple models indicated it would be disastrous for the company.

While there may have been literal napkins involved, my money's on a whiteboard or Excel. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me just tell you, that unlike you, FB and Goog do not make assumptions, especially a lot of assumptions.

<comment><USER3> You don't have to make a lot of assumptions to realize doing the math is a waste of time. The group of people most likely to pay for services like Facebook are 20-something year olds with some extra money to spend. That's a group advertisers care very much about. If they're gone your customers (the advertisers) aren't going to be happy.

Sure, at this point you could still hire some company to do phone surveys for you trying to figure out how many of you users would be willing to pay and you can make some kind of educated guess as to how that would affect advertising revenue but why bother, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FB's response to this whole thing is been terrible. Zuckerberg and Sandbberg weren't seen for days. And now Sandberg comes out with the defense that "Cambridge Analytica told us so we believed them. We are doing audits to ensure everything is fine now."

And on top of this she even talks about how a privacy focused FB would be a paid product.

I can't help but ask - Seriously? FB doesn't seem even remotely sorry for what happened. Data Breach? Don't blame us, we had legal assurance. Privacy? Don't blame us that will be a paid product.

<comment><USER6> What do you want them to say? That they are shutting down FB?

<comment><USER7> Maybe they're doing something proactive to prevent the next exfiltration? Something where they leave a bit of money on the table as a sign of good faith?

Oh, we're talking FB. I'd sooner expect that behavior from GS first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How can you monetize your own data within these platforms? Is that a viable alternative to a subscription?

1\. You can opt in to data sharing at $X/data or data event used in analysis/ad profiling. This would pay for your free usage of FB and see ads.

2\. You can pay for a subscription at $Y/month and see no ads or analysis.

</comment><comment><USER9> People will just move to the next free service. I guess facebook forgot they mostly replaced classmates.com.

Eventually, a one will take off and won't sell. Facebook will become the next MySpace. Not everyone wants to be bought out.

<comment><USER10> > they mostly replaced classmates.com

No. They replaced the original friendster.com

<comment><USER9> Most people that started using facebook after it opened to everyone were older people reconnecting with their past associates.

Since everyone was getting on the new "cool" facebook, and a lot of their kids were already on it. Facebook replaced classmates.com, friendster, myspace, xanga, and many others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Facebook makes around $5 per user per month [1] Fine, where do I enter my credit card?

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/facebooks-revenue- topped-5-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/facebooks-revenue-topped-5-per- user-for-the-first-time.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> I may be in the minority on HN but I for one would gladly pay Facebook say $10/month for added privacy if all my friends were still there.

And if there is a free (subsidized by ads) version for people who don't want to pay I bet you a lot of people will stay.

</comment><comment><USER13> alternative, i wont pay for fb and I also want privacy

<comment><USER14> Indeed. This seems to be lost in the current conversation. What do we do about the invasive practices of an entity upon individuals that are not their customers and want nothing to do with the corporation.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is sending passwords a good use of JS crypto? - <AUTHOR>

I've read previous discussions on the faults of browser crypto but haven't come away satisfied. Can anyone suggest problems with the following?
A security conscious web developer needs to share credentials with a client. The client isn't adept enough to install a crypto tool. They also need something asynchronous like email - a phone call every time is too intrusive. Existing options include: 1. Email. 2. A third party service with SSL w/ PFS + server side encryption as an intermediary. A malicious service can keep a copy without detection.
With in-browser crypto: - Dev asks client to go to http://sendpasswords.com/. - Client hits the link. Browser generates a PGP keypair, stores the private key in localStorage and sends the public key to the server. The client is shown a link to send back to the developer. - Developer visits link and enters a message which is encrypted with the client's public key in browser. - Client returns to site. Encrypted message is downloaded and decrypted with key from localStorage.
This should be at least as good as either existing option. A few additional security assumptions: - Users know to only access the site via an HTTPS URL or HSTS settings are preloaded in their browsers. - The HTML + JS is simple, unobsfuscated, static and served in one request; subsequent data from AJAX calls is never executed or loaded as HTML. - Only browsers providing a CSRNG are supported. - The HTML + JS is open source and audited by a third party.
The host would have a hard time capturing cleartext without detection. They could target specific users, but third parties could periodically load the app and verify the checksums to detect any code change that wasn't narrowly targeted.
So long as the audited code couldn't encrypt the message for more than one public key, any interception would be detected when the recipient didn't get the message.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> What's the point of this? The server that feeds the Javascript that generates the PGP keys and any server that feeds the Javascript code that performs PGP operations can read arbitrary messages. Why bother with the rubber chicken crypto? Just have users send you plaintext messages over SSL and be honest about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The server can only read arbitrary messages if it changes the runtime that it serves. If it were to serve the wrong runtime to more than a narrowly targeted set of users, it could be detected (by, say, a third party running an automated script to check for changes in the served files).

This also means that targets of interest would have to be identified at time of their use of the service (so as to avoid detection as above) by something other than the content they're sending, whereas a malicious service receiving the plaintext could search through all received plaintext for interesting content without detection.

It would make an attacker expend effort and risk per-target. In a world of mass data collection, that seems valuable for those who aren't targets of particular interest but want to avoid the dragnet.

<comment><USER2> The DOJ didn't want everyone's mail at Lavabit. It wanted Snowden's mail. The DOJ will feed malicious JS to its targets, and innocuous JS to everyone else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. They would. Snowden should be using PGP on an air-gapped machine inside a faraday cage, right? This isn't for him. This is for the rest of us that are at most mildly interesting but don't want to give in to the surveillance state, or just want to send a password without blindly and completely trusting at least one third party. Isn't such a mid-security but easy to use solution valuable? The more PGP-armored messages there are (even if they could be broken with effort), the less suspicious any such use of crypto can be considered.

<comment><USER2> There is virtually no correlation between the people who need to have their secrets protected from hostile governments and the people who are savvy enough not to use applications that make security promises they can't keep.

<comment><AUTHOR> The security promise is simply "this is better than plaintext email, which is what you'd use otherwise."

I'd rather have as much of my communication as possible protected from mass collection by my own government regardless of it's sensitivity.

Edit: Misunderstood your phrasing a little. Yes, ideally we would provide non- savvy users with trivially easy to use encryption strong enough to defeat hostile governments. I haven't seen it yet. I make no pretense of overpromising - I'd certainly expect a service such as I'm describing to prominently note that it shouldn't be used for material above a certain sensitivity and link to info on better options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> First, have you read [http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript- cryptography/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't yet seen that particular article but I'm very familiar with those arguments. Thanks for the link!

I agree with them that building a crypto library in JS that can be trusted regardless of the security properties of the web application is impossible (content-controlled code, runtime malleability).

However, I don't think those points mean that building an application that _as a whole_ has good security properties and uses JS crypto is impossible. If the entire application code is delivered on first load and code is never dynamically loaded, one should be able to audit and trust that complete application. That'd mean no ads, no google analytics, no CDNs, etc.

The next bit is reliable delivery. SSL is definitely needed. Because static code is all delivered on first load, an interested third party could download it at any time and see that it matches the audited code. The host would be caught if it attempted any attack that wasn't narrowly targeted.

And that's why it's better than just SSL. If the host receives the plaintext, there's zero chance of catching them.

Their points about graceful degradation and CSPRNGs are irrelevant; I'm only interested in targeting modern browsers with window.crypto.getRandomValues.

<comment><USER2> You can't just audit the code. You have to audit the whole runtime, every time the app touches the web server. It's not a tractable problem.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most important single thing you'd tell a new entrepreneur? - <AUTHOR>

Anything...advice? <comment><USER2> IMHO, the most important thing for an entrepreneur is to mentally decouple his/her self esteem and feelings of self worth from his/her project:

       You are not your startup!

A girlfriend told me that a long time ago, but unfortunately I didn't listen to her at the time. It is a common pattern for smart young folks (overachievers) accustomed to positive feedback from the external world to "feed" on external validation. Fuck that! Your value as a human is in your (almost) infinite capacity to grow, adapt, build, and love---not because of the js/py/ru code you can produce or the money you plan to amass.

Beware of bosses, VCs, and project managers who feed your need for external validation. You don't need anyone to tell you you're good.

Basically what I'm saying is hustle, put in the hours, kick ass, but also CHILL. There's no rush to prove anything. Rome wasn't built in a day. Easy does it. There's an old saying that goes "The bitch in haste gives birth to blind pups"[1].

________

[1] [http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000...](http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000606.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why only one? I would share whatever I knew.

1\. Start to develop a work/life balance. No one can tell you how many hours you should be working or what to do on your downtime. This is just the beginning - you CAN prevent burn out.

2\. Start to network, find other entrepreneurs and listen to them. One day you will need someone to listen to you. Not all advice is actionable, but it's crucial to get multiple perspectives so you can play it out in your head. Eventually you will have enough plays in your head to tackle most, if not all problems.

3\. Get your product or your voice out there. You need some validation of your ideas and thoughts. I tell you this because I wish I did this earlier.

4\. Most of the best advice you will ever receive will be the regrets of others.

5\. Capital is to an entrepreneur as a job is to an employee. Idea's are worthless if you cannot execute them. Cost to open a business is at an all time low. Low is not free.

6\. Don't fail broke. Know when to cut your losses. I have learned that most people don't cut their losses because they are guilty that they have not done enough to give their business the best shot possible. On the flip side, if you are putting your all and you still 100% believe in your product, you need to get that passion and drive in front of investors to buy yourself as much time as possible. These have been the best times of my life, win or lose, never regretted a moment.

7\. Don't ever stop yourself from doing whatever it takes to be successful. At my current startup, I am in the field everyday (I am building a marketplace), answering calls and doing physical work that is far below my pay grade. Why? Because at this point of the business I am far better off doing what I am doing now and to grow accordingly. Don't build an illusion of success by having office space, hiring people to do things that you can do yourself at first and creating the impression that things are happening. Let it come naturally.

8\. Finally, Learn to build a life without regrets. There is are no hard and fast rules. You will regret shit, fix it immediately. Move on.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask yourself: "Am I just trying to _start a startup_ for the sake of having a startup?"

In my experience (I've bootstrapped some companies, had moderate success, make decent money), good startups and entrepreneurs are born out of simply solving a problem–not from "trying to build a startup". PG and Zuckerberg had this conversation at Startup School in 2012. PG said something to the effect of "I wish more founders were started by the startup" ... that, in my opinion, is the crux of the matter.

It is now popular, cool, and noteworthy to be a startup founder. There are more investors, incubators, and boot camps than ever before. Development costs are at an all-time low. Even here in San Luis, I meet so many Cal Poly kids who are in the entrepreneurship program. I worry they'll go from school-to- startup and never live or work in an environment where they can experience real problems that need solving.

But none of that matters if you're not solving a problem–usually for yourself. When you do, you find other people have the same problem. If you solve it, they will pay you. It's that simple ... but almost everyone has it backwards now. They have their heart set on being a startup founder, so they compromise on the core principle in order to maintain that image. And they build nothing of value–just another to-do list app or useless startup-serving-startups service.

</comment><comment><USER5> Advice #1: Get Good at Making money.

Want more elaboration? Jason can explain: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small- busi...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-business- advice-from-jason-fried.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> First timers should always charge money and judge their success at first entirely based on net revenue. User adoption alone can be good but it's much harder to be sure about.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      "You are your startup"

</comment><comment><USER8> Sleep on it.

</comment><comment><USER9> read way to wealth by ben franklin</comment>


Radio Shack lost its way when it ditched its hobbyist customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21643461-radio-shack-lost-its-way-when-it-ditched-its-hobbyist-customers-making-it <comment><USER2> The final paragraphs about the rise of surface mount PCBs are a more accurate diagnosis than anything to do with RadioShack's marketing strategy.

Just look at AdaFruit Industries and Sparkfun. These two companies couldn't do a better job marketing to the DIY audience and have done an incredible job expanding the reach of DIY, but even taken together, with MakerFaire thrown in, I don't think they'd crack $200MM in revenue. Topline. Assuming margins of 30%, it's a great catalog business, but not one that can support a 7,000 store chain.

The reality is during RS's heyday, if you wanted electronics, you had to build them. Or at least know the rudiments of repairing them. Today, the stuff we get from Shenzen is just too good. Too advanced and too cheap and too disposable.

While experimenting with Raspberry Pi boards is cool, it's a hobby, or educational experience, not a replacement for manufactured goods.

Changes in manufacturing took away RadioShack's raison d'être. Big box retail applied purchasing power leverage to take away many of RS's most profitable categories and Amazon/Walmart piled on. This left them as a weird Frankenstein combo of a Brookstone and cell phone retailer. Selling a few more Arduinos and Zigbee breakout boards wouldn't have saved them.

<comment><USER3> "Changes in manufacturing took away RadioShack's raison d'être"

Being around in the hey day of Radio Shack I will also add that there are many more things that you can do for "fun and learning" today than you could do back them. People (not everyone who would buy things at Radio Shack is hardcore) only have so much time. If they have something better to do than a stamp collection (was big years ago) or a model train set (also a big thing) or building model airliners with glue (did that one myself) then they will do the most fun interesting useful thing with their time. Oh yeah some kids did baseball cards. And we even collected decals and stickers at one point.

One thing I did back in the 70's was I had a darkroom in the basement which I would spend hours in. So I visited specialty camera stores and bought darkroom supplies, cameras and so on and spent hours upon hours doing that (turning it into a business which I made a bit of money from). While there were many reasons I did that, one was that there really weren't many things that I could do with my time that I found more interesting. This was before PC's or at least where I was located and that type of "hobby". I'm sure if I had a PC back then I probably might not have done so much photography or some of the other things I spent my time on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There tends to be a lot of history rewriting in these kind of stories.

Check out

[http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/](http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/)

for a somewhat more realistic and balanced view of their business model.

They always owned the niche of small electronics parts, but what paid the store rental bill and the salaries was CB radios, car stereos, TVs, vcrs, dvd players, hi fi, 80s computers... all that stuff was gone by the mid 90s replaced by numerous big box stores. Nobody has taken over retail parts.

(Part of the history rewriting is I don't think "kids these days" understand life before big box stores. In 1989 you want a VCR you don't drive to the local walmart or best buy because there wasn't a single one of them in the state. You could drive into the city and shop at Sears, or the local Radio Shack sold VCRs, or there were audiophool stores that charged $500 per cable. Thats about it. Then the big boxes arrived in the 90s and annihilated RS's primary revenue stream, so history is rewritten that RS was in business in 1985 by selling 79 cent resistors to proto-makers and nothing else, LOL. Maybe its fear of offending currently existing big box advertisers.)

Selling one clock radio for $49.95 per week was always more important to the bottom line than selling five 79 cent resistors.

Turning themselves into the worlds largest, most expensive, and highest overhead mall cell phone kiosk in the world was at best a temporary delaying tactic. Historically RS stepped into big markets accidentally, look at CB radios in the 70s, early computers in the 80s, and they did pretty well with the first cellphones in the 90s. But they never got lucky in the 00s and 10s so away they go.

<comment><USER5> Bingo. Their strategy, from a revenue/profit perspective, in the 1970s and 80s was mostly to sell high-margin, low to middling quality consumer electronics to often unsophisticated buyers for whom the corner or mall Radio Shack store was a convenient and non-intimidating shopping environment.

<comment><USER4> The quality really wasn't all that bad. Much as today the only difference between brands is the label slapped on the box by the ONE factory in China that makes them all, in the 80s it was the ONE factory in Mexico or ONE factory in Taiwan or whatever slapping different stickers and shipping to different stores.

There obviously was no difference between VCRs stickered as RS or Sears brands, for example.

Some of the toys were junk, but there were no higher quality options. You could pay more money at Sears, but its not like it would be any better quality for the same product from the same factory.

One source of the reputation was ironically parts. The markup being about 1000% customers would expect aerospace grade parts for aerospace prices but what they were actually paying for was the cash and carry convenience of 4000 local stores, and they got all wound up about the quality only being commercial/industrial grade.

They made huge money off what amounts to fads. They cleaned up during the CB fad, early home computers...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Radio Shack definitely missed the niche that Sparkfun/Adafruit and others have filled.

However, I suspect that niche is nowhere near big enough to support Radio Shack's size. All those retail outlets can't be cheap to run. They needed a business/market that was easy to transition to and would support their existing size. They chose wrong, but I don't think ditching the hobby market was necessarily a wrong move in their position. Once the improved experience of ordering hobby electronics online became more widely available, "storefront supply of hobby electronics" was not a business model that could ever support a massive chain of retail stores.

<comment><USER7> >However, I suspect that niche is nowhere near big enough to support Radio Shack's size.

This is my thinking as well. Retail is brutal. Each shelf needs to being in x amount of money as space is limited. You have to worry about staffing, taxes, inventory, etc and knowing the full time that amazon or monocable beats you everytime on your high-margin items must be scary.

All these geek friendly narratives keep getting built (oh if they did this or if they did that) but I think the reality is that retail only fits certain business models. Radio shack not longer fits in one of those models since the rise of the big box store and the web. We're talking, what, 5 to 10 stores per market? That's a lot of infrastructure to support and big bills to pay every month. Even during its heydey it was a dumping ground of low quality stuff, namely its Realistic house brand, and its own computer brand which never really competed with its peers like the Apple //e or c or VIC20/C64. I think there's more than little brand nostalgia applied to Radio Shack. Its always been a poor business and its once formidable component supply wasn't ever enough to keep it afloat.

<comment><USER8> Even in the glory days of Radio Shack, the real money came from CB radios and "Realistic" brand stereo equipment. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_(brand)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_\(brand\))

A Radio Shack-manager friend once told me that his whole business was supported by WWII-era grandparents who refused to buy "jap" stereos. Their business didn't just die; their customer base literally did too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately I couldn't read the article, but agree strongly with the title. (It's like Slashdot, but I'll try hard to offer an informed response).

Radio Shack's problem was that they stopped selling anything you couldn't get elsewhere. They allocated more than half each store to cell phones, which are commodity items available everywhere. When I needed a soldering iron on travel, the selection was paltry compared with the Radio Shack of 20 years ago. But Radio Shack was the only place I could think of to buy one.

As another poster pointed out, electronics hobbyists are not immune to the market forces which push non-service industries like bookstores online. Price is so often king. But there is still room in the market for a service-oriented maker/hobby shop. I've thought for some time that there are areas of the country, primarily cities, where an electronics shop with a collaboration space could do very well. If they could find a way to make the gym model work - long, cheap contracts which aren't worth canceling - it could work out well. It's not a gym, of course, but if you push the education and personal enhancement side of the business, you might be able to achieve the same result.

A company called Techshop just opened a huge subscription-oriented machine shop near my office. The fees are around $100/person/month, and they are paying for a lot of currently empty space in a very expensive DC suburb. There's room for this business model. Radio Shack didn't just miss the boat, they sank their own ship when they switched from being the only place where strange electronic parts were sold, to being another cell phone shop.

<comment><USER10> The profit margin on your soldering iron isn't high enough to keep Radio Shack afloat. That stuff never kept them going.

There's a Radio Shack in West Seattle where I live. There's another a few miles south near White Center, and another downtown, and another near Beacon Hill, and two more near UW, and one in Ballard, and one at Northgate Mall, and still two more a bit further north.

I count ten on the map. TEN. These are all in Seattle proper, not even looking at the surrounding areas. How many hobbyists does Seattle have? No way hobbyists are keeping this going, no matter what Radio Shack puts on the shelves.

<comment><USER11> At Radioshack, literally everything is about the profit margin. The store in the U-Village in Seattle is/was one of the top 5 revenue stores in the entire chain, a fact they were proud of when they hired me.

I worked there for less than a week before I quit because the culture was awful. It was a typical commission-based sales environment: We weren't encouraged to actually _help_ anyone, we were encouraged to push bricks of batteries on people because they had the highest margin in the store. No one was to leave without a brick of batteries. Instead of making it easier for people to find a standard RCA cable, we hid them in the back and only left the "gold plated" RCA cables on the shelf. We were not _allowed_ to sell an Apple computer, because the margin was too thin, so we were expected to push whatever PC we had on the shelf.

It was a poison environment, and I for one don't feel the slightest sympathy for Radioshack's demise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think one of the last times I went into a Radio Shack to purchase something was in the late 1998 or 1999.

I had been looking for a particular part for schematics I had found online. I had been able to get all of the other components at one of the three stores that were within 15 miles of my house, but they were all out of one part. But I was able to find out how much it cost, and it was about 1/3-1/4 of what it would cost ordering it online and having it shipped.

Finally while on a trip out of state, I found a really big Radio Shack that had huge aisles of parts. I went digging to see if I could find the part I was looking for, and still didn't see it. A sales associate came up and asked if there was something I was looking for.

"Yes, a 75pf-100pf variable capacitor."

"We might have those in the back, hold on a minute."

He leaves and is gone for about 10 minutes. Finally he comes back with it, along with a manager. The manager asks me:

"What are you going to use this for? A cable descrambler?"

"Um, yes. That's exactly what I'm going to use it for."

"Get out of my store."

I ordered the part online when I got home.

<comment><USER13> And yet they had no problems selling those pocket tone dialer you could mod into a pay phone red box and make free phone calls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I worked at Radio Shack 20 years ago. The ideal customer would probably be a guy in his 30s coming in with his girlfriend or wife to buy a television and VCR, or a stereo system. Maybe a parent looking for a remote controlled car as a Christmas gift.

Hobbyists were not the customers we looked for. You'd spend five minutes with them looking for a one ohm resistor. The sale usually did not exceed $1. If you were lucky maybe they'd buy a stripboard or some solder.

The Internet has accelerated this, but even in those days hobbyists were buying most of their parts from Digikey or Mouser. Radio Shack's markup was insane so you can't blame them. Mostly they'd run in to buy some part they forgot to order or didn't realize they'd need. Most hobbyists already had a good soldering iron, solder, flux, a breadboard, stripboards and perfboards etc.

<comment><USER4> From familial experience the best way "kids these days" can experience a Radio Shack store from 30 years ago, is simply visit Best Buy. Imagine the small legacy physical media section replaced with a small parts section, that's about the only difference. Then shrink it at least 10x to physically fit the smaller RS store footprint.

A Best Buy IS just a giant 1985 radio shack with lower prices, more selection and legacy media instead of parts. It really is that simple.

Journalists can't talk about "big box annihilating small retail" without offending the very popular big box advertiser contracts so we're being treated to an absolute flood of "it must have been feng shui" or "it must be those darn nerds" or "it must be bad luck"

<comment><USER15> No, Best Buy is more like RadioShack as it was becoming when it was self- destructing 15 years ago. Fry's (which ironically took over an Incredible Universe location where I live) represents what RadioShack would have naturally turned into with proper business strategy.

<comment><USER16> Fry's, which has 34 locations, seems an odd choice to point to for what a company with 4,000+ locations could have aspired to become. If anything it reinforces the thought that the "maker" market is far too small to have saved RS by itself.

<comment><USER15> Precisely. They needed to ditch the old Neighborhood Hobby Shop Full of Expert Geeks marketing strategy in order to be competitive in the mass consumer market. Radio Shack was always targeting the mass market. It would have required a huge change of internal culture in the 1990s for Radio Shack to actually cater to the niche hacker/maker community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love it when the comments here capture it better than the article did. Three things:

jimmyswimmy: _Radio Shack 's problem was that they stopped selling anything you couldn't get elsewhere._

danpat: _Radio Shack definitely missed the niche that Sparkfun /Adafruit and others have filled._

replicatorblog: _Today, the stuff we get from Shenzen is just too good._

Taken together, Radio Shack zigged and the market zagged. As the article points out, Fry's is more what Radio Shack envisioned itself to be than Radio Shack is. But I think the elements of that are above, Radio Shack used to sell parts you couldn't get easily elsewhere (text to speech chips for example), they completely missed the "small boards are the new components" transition (which happened long after they stopped paying attention), and the hobbyist "market" is not quite big enough to support 5 to 10 retail stores per market.

</comment><comment><USER18> I disagree with the premise.

Radio Shack was doomed because of exponential curves.

The price/performance of consumer electronics is on a crazy curve. A $300 camera today is WAY better than a $300 camera from two years ago. The cost of repairing that two year old camera is staggeringly high, especially when compared to the cost of buying a new camera... that is significantly better than the old one.

When you have repairable, hackable, semi-permanent electronics, a Radio Shack makes tons of sense.

When you have hermetically sealed, atomic, disposable, depreciating electronics, a Radio Shack is doomed.

</comment><comment><USER19> Apple also ditched its hobbyist customers a long time ago.

Therefore, I'm not sure that is the (only) reason.

<comment><USER20> Apple sells industry competing products and can differentiate itself using those products. What is radio shack's competitive differentiation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I see no reason to believe electronics hobbyists would be immune to the same forces that put bookstores out of business as purchases moved online.

</comment><comment><USER22> The issue is well described in The Innovators Dilema. Failure to recognize a fork in the road and realign the enterprise. Having 7,000 stores is insane in the contest of a transition to an internet centric landscape.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's obvious in hindsight that the hobbyist market moved, and Radio Shack moved in a different direction. The hobbyists went to Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and quadcopters. Sales of electronics components, wired phones, and Radio Shack PCs dried up almost overnight. Radio Shack went with their remaining big sellers: Cell phones, sound systems, and other consumer electronics that dropped in price and appeared in Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, etc. In the past few years, there was not much to be found in Radio Shack that you couldn't find at Walmart.

<comment><USER24> >the hobbyist market moved, and Radio Shack moved in a different direction. The hobbyists went to Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and quadcopters.

I was in a Radio Shack a few days ago and they had all of those things. It had been at least 10 years since I had been there, and I was a bit surprised too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> In my eyes, it's not so much that Radio Shack "ditched" the hobbyist, they just tried to get their share of a bigger market, and in turn had to subsidize their primary focus to a drawer of components in the back of the store.

Even though Radio Shack was making 1000% margins on diodes and resistors, I'd imagine the lure of selling phones, and headphones, and televisions was much higher. In that transition, they challenged the bigger players in the industry (e.g. BestBuy), and clearly lost.

</comment><comment><USER26> I went to Maplin's (similar sort of store, based in the UK) recently to get some shielded cable. It took 3 "assistants" before I found one who knew what I was talking about at all. I asked the first 2 if there were maybe some rolls of thin looking black stuff out back but they both said they'd never seen anything like that out there. Fortunately the 3rd guy went out back and got exactly what I needed.

It's sad to see after having spent so much of my youth in the NZ equivalent (Dick Smith, who I'm sure are just as broken now too) staring at wonder in the electronic kits.

Similarly disappointing - I was given a DIY Synth Kit for christmas [0]. I thought it would be a great learning experience but they didn't explain _anything_ about what was going on. It was just plug and play. And _even_ more frustrating, the illustrations were inconsistent with the descriptions (though I kept doubting myself, because surely that's just not possible).

Between those experiences I was left feeling like electronics had become rather inaccessible. From the days when there were enthusiastic people around to help you at your local store, now you have to know what you need to even get hold of it in the first place.

[0] [http://www.techwillsaveus.com/shop/diy-kits/diy-synth- kit/](http://www.techwillsaveus.com/shop/diy-kits/diy-synth-kit/)

</comment><comment><USER27> The logic fails here.

Heathkit never ditched its hobbyist customers and collapsed far sooner not even making it into the past two decades.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think Radio Shack could have been saved if it was managed better. In Sweden there's a chain (Kjell&Co [http://www.kjell.com](http://www.kjell.com)) that's doing great doing pretty much the same thing you'd expect from Radio Shack and they're doing well expanding all the time. One thing they do right is having a whole catalog of SKUs in even tiny locations, available upon request (someone goes into the back). They also have knowledgeable staff and even publish a book of electronics knowledge along with pamphlets on different topics.

Being a one stop shop for all those cables, adapters, batteries, bulbs and mobile accessories that's aways nearby, usually open, you can rely on them having what you need, and bring able to help you figure out what you need is a good business idea. This stuff is more confusing than ever and a lot of people have no idea how to get help online.

From all accounts, Radio Shack didn't fulfill any of that, with a poor selection, poor prices and poor service.

<comment><USER15> It sounds like what some Radio Shack stores tried to be, and maybe what Radio Shack marketed itself as in the 1960s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It lost its way when it bet the farm on cell phone plans and crappy rc cars.

<comment><USER5> But before that they primarily sold crappy audio equipment--and consumables like batteries and phonograph needles.

Whenever the topic of Radio Shack comes up there's this nostalgic remembrance of them as some sort of "maker space" but that wasn't central to their business for a very long time if ever. I'm not sure it was even an important part of their brand for most people except insofar as a "place to grab a cable quickly" counts as being part of a hobbyist identity at a time when products were less integrated than today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Never ditched us. To this day every store I visited had a wall of electronic components and breadboards etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> Radio Shack embraced the internet way too late. Without doubt, the internet was going to destroy every hobbyist store out there, and if they'd got out in front of it they might have survived.

That said, I'd wager Sparkfun and the like are still _much_ smaller companies than Radio Shack was at it's peak.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am curious what people on Hacker News feel about ("public", traded) companies that don't re-invent themselves? I have heard 2 conflicting arguments about this:

1.) as one sector dies, and another grows, a company in the dying sector should give all possible profits to its investors, so the investors can invest in the growing sector. Maximizing profits in the short term, and allowing the company to go bankrupt, is the responsible thing to do, since the goal is to maximize returns for investors.

2.) as one sector dies, and another grows, a company in the dying sector should re-invent itself, investing in those sectors that are growing. Making long-term investments in fields that might become big in the future is the responsible thing to do.

Some examples, mostly offered as counter-arguments to each proposition:

Possibly relevant to #1, I have heard people complain that Microsoft has wasted billions on Bing, all of which was money that could have been returned to investors, at which point the investors could have used the money to invest in Google.

Possibly relevant to #2, I have heard people complain that Jeff Bezos is being irresponsible by chasing growth, when he should instead be developing profits, which could then be given back to investors.

Possibly relevant to #1, I recall there were people who complained about KMarts (failed) attempt to re-invent itself in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Harvard Business Review had a write-up of this, as an example of "pre- mature abandonment of core business". The money that KMart spent trying to re- invent itself is money that could have been given to investors, who then could have invested in Wal-Mart.

Possibly relevant to #2, some Western "activist" investors have tried to pressure Japanese companies to focus more on quarterly profits. I recall this was a big thing 15 years ago, there were complaints that Toyota was investing in itself too much, rather than giving back to its investors.

Possibly relevant to #1, some stakeholders have complained that General Motors has continued to pay out dividends for most of the last 40 years, when that money "really" should have been used to re-invent the company so it could better fight against Toyota.

Possibly relevant to #1, Barnes and Noble continues to pay dividends, when the money might be better spent re-inventing the company.

Possibly relevant to #1, The New York Times continues to pay dividends, when the money might be better spent re-inventing the company.

Possibly relevant to #2, in 1997 Apple re-invented itself, when it might have been better for its stock owners if it had maximized payouts, gone bankrupt, and allowed its investors to take what cash they could get and re-invest in Microsoft.

So which should be condoned? Should the law favor one of these options?

<comment><USER33> I think that both of those are valid ideas, and that neither should be encoded it law; it should be up to the shareholders which they prefer to pursue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> what is a radio shack?

<comment><USER15> Like a love shack, but using electronics.</comment></comment>


The wild economy of tabletop board game funding - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/07/05/887283058/a-look-into-the-wild-economy-of-tabletop-board-game-funding <comment><USER2> Board games are an interesting thing because it's one of those global trends that did not originate in the US. Instead it game from Germany but with quite a bit of delay.

The German version of settlers came out around 1995 IIRC and sparked a big revival of board games (and strategic board games in particular in Germany. Then some time around 2008 or so I had friends in NZ and OZ who used to not play board games tell me about this cool game the wanted to play. I was quite surprised that it was settlers which I had not played since moving overseas in 2004.

So yeah the whole revival originated in Germany, but took about 10 years to suddenly go global.

<comment><USER3> Got popular in 2005 - 2006 in California

<comment><USER4> That sounds exactly right based on my recollection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With the exception of board games that are related to existing games I already like, I treat Kickstarter as a negative signal for the first year.

Similar to a video game licensed movie, or a movie licensed video game; even if the title has elements I enjoy, I've been burned enough. Playing it is the only way I'll know I love it.

I can't even trust data collection on BGG, because typically the first wave of Kickstarter ratings are by people who have boarded the hype train. Followed by a re-alignment when people who are playing friends' copies step in.

Component quality bias, as well as cost bias are related (and typically compounded by Kickstarter) phenomena.

<comment><USER6> I stopped kickstarting games too because I've had like a 10% hit rate.

One clear signal to me now is if they offer additional game mechanics as a stretch goal. It's hard enough balancing the base game and making it compelling. If a designer thinks they can do this not once but twice, and in a modular way no less, I question their design sensibilities in the first place.

It's possible that this is a flaw of kickstarting board games in general. The platform incentivizes stretch goals and they don't map well onto most board games.

<comment><USER7> As someone who isn't a huge board game nerd, would additional cosmetics or characters be reasonable stretch goals? Characters might be harder to balance but if you have extra money, you might be able to invest more into it.

This is an approach similar to what a video game might do.

<comment><USER8> I don't kickstart board games but I do play a fair few of them (these days on [https://boardgamearena.com/](https://boardgamearena.com/) but under other circumstances as physical tabletop games)

What you describe is a fairly common "promo" incentive, once upon a time you might get it in the version bought at a big event or that sort of thing, these days it'd be for Kickstarter backers.

Yes, you can make small customisations that don't significantly change gameplay, for example Viticulture is a game about owning a small vineyard and to add variation you get a "Momma" and "Papa" for your vineyard which tweak how much money or starting equipment you get plus they have names and little illustrations to give them personality. Maybe Papa Phil gives you slightly less money than Papa Eric but a piece of equipment that's worth the difference if you need it - having Papa Phil saves you taking an action buying the equipment with money, but if you don't use that equipment at first you're still short of the cost whereas someone playing Eric can spend it how they wish. Clearly having one or two extra Mamas or Papas as a promo isn't game breaking (so long as the designer doesn't add Papa Scrooge who has twice as much money as everybody else put together or suchlike). In fact Viticulture went with event cards for Promos, which is a bit trickier to balance, but seems to have worked OK in practice.

But often the correct way to design games is to simplify until it's good, not add more and more until playtesters would rather say it's great than risk being asked to waste another six hours on one more test session. Promo features fight that. Would Viticulture work fine with no Mamas and Papas? Yes it would. Would Can't Stop be better with fancy cosmetic player pieces instead of the typical generic ones? Er, no, not really. So such promotional features aren't very good for the hobby as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Board games are uniquely well-adapted to the crowdfunding format because the game design can be 100% complete and playtested before any art or manufacturing has even started. (Of course, you need _some_ art to sell the Kickstarter.) The upfront capital for developing a board game is about $40 at the art store.

In the extreme case, some campaigns link to a print-and-play version of the game so you can "try before you buy". Try to do that with a video game!

<comment><USER10> There actually are similar things for video games: Steam Greenlight / Early Access for example.

Also: Even a long time ago, both Quake and Quake 3 Arena had free versions out in the open before their relase.

<comment><USER11> The thing is that Early Access has a very(rightfully so) bad reputation - because board game design needs to be finished prior to campaign, whereas you can drop empty game in early access, promise quite a lot.. and then abandon the project.

<comment><USER12> And you somehow can't run a crowdfunding campaign for a game that isn't actually worked out and playtested?

It's the same thing: look at what's already there, pay if you think that's good.

<comment><USER13> I've backed a lot of board games. I would never back one that has not been throughly play tested, has the rule book basically finished (at least the text if not the images and graphic design), has a play through video, and ideally has some reviews of prototype versions from trusted reviewers.

<comment><USER12> And it's a good idea to apply similar ideas to early access computer games, which was my point. People will try sell you something that doesn't meet that bar, but you don't have to let them.

<comment><USER14> The point is that the business is very different - an almost-ready board game has spent just 5-10% of its total budget because all the big money is needed for manufacturing the production run; so an almost-ready board game can need crowdfunding to make it.

However, an almost ready computer game has almost all of the effort (and money) already invested. If it's 90% ready, then it needs some 10% extra money and some beta testing, so it can go on an "early access" sale but does not _need_ crowdfunding to get released.

And if it is at a stage where it still needs 90% of the total budget and wants to gather it from crowdfunding, then you _can 't_ apply the same ideas as from a boardgame, because a computer game can't be ready for play until much (or most) of the work and money is already spent, like you can with boardgames.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Its strange to me that the article says that board games are booming during the pandemic.

I haven't been able to have a regular board game night in months :-( I tried online but didn't love it (I suppose I should try it some more); I wish I could see how to do it in person and maintain physical distance, but it looks doubtful.

<comment><USER16> Hijack. Has ANYONE found a way to play multiplayer Catan online? All the sites dont work it seems.

<comment><USER17> Tabletop Simulator is usually the go-to for basically any online board game.

<comment><USER8> TTS is a real last resort. It's the "Let's try hitting it with a hammer and see if that fixes it" of ways to play board games.

I have an ongoing Gloomhaven campaign inside TTS. 50% of every session is people wailing and yelling as stupid things are simulated that we don't care about. Oh you dropped that piece on the edge of a piece of cardboard so it fell over. Oh you put this token at the wrong angle so it doesn't count. Ugh.

When the same group of people play anything else we play it either in dedicated software or in [https://boardgamearena.com/](https://boardgamearena.com/)

Unfortunately BGA doesn't have Catan though its management have said they would cheerfully _pay_ to offer Catan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So I went through a phase of backing a lot of board game Kickstarters, which probably started with Scythe, a game I missed out on (and bought off the BGG marketplace, at a premium). But I think Scythe is an outlier here.

I've gotten a number of mediocre games but some good ones (eg 7th Continent, Gloomhaven). In some cases what I bought ended up being cheaper at retail. I have gotten some reprints though, which are of course more of a known quantity.

I will say though that one nice thing to come out of all of this is "premium pieces". That's why I bought the Scythe Collector's edition. The game remains the same for those unwilling or unable to pay the premium but for people like myself with the ability and inclination to do so, it makes the gaming experience just a little nicer.

But I rarely back Kickstarters now. I'm glad it exists as a means of bootstrapping games.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd really like to get into more board games, but so many of them have an occult flavor to them.

Suggestions? I have Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne.

<comment><USER20> > I'd really like to get into more board games, but so many of them have an > occult flavor to them.

How did you come to this conclusion? It's... completely disconnected from reality.

If I go to boardgamegeek.com and look at the "the hotness" sidebar, there are 15 games (of which two, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, would appear to be closely related).

In descending order of "occult flavor":

1\. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

2\. Spirit Island (in which you play as pagan deities trying to repel the forces of civilization)

3\. Gloomhaven (perfectly ordinary dungeon crawler, as far as I see)

4\. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

5\. Lost Ruins of Arnak (makes some reference to "fearsome guardians" associated with the remnants of a lost civilization)

At this point, there is zero "occult flavor" associated with any of the 10 remaining games. So, in the order listed on the site:

6\. Pendulum - "Players command their workers, execute stratagems, and expand the provinces in their domain in real time to gain resources and move up the four victory tracks: power, prestige, popularity, and legendary achievement."

7\. Dead Reckoning - "is a game of exploration, piracy, and influence based in a Caribbean-esque setting. Each player commands a ship and crew and seeks to amass the greatest fortune."

8\. Imperial Struggle - "is a two-player game depicting the 18th-century rivalry between France and Britain. It begins in 1697, as the two realms wait warily for the King of Spain to name an heir, and ends in 1789, when a new order brought down the Bastille."

9\. Terraforming Mars - "Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things."

10\. Godzilla: Tokyo Clash - "you play as the Earth's most fearsome Kaiju — Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Megalon — battling for dominance as the most terrifying monster in Japan."

11\. Wingspan - "You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves."

12\. Maracaibo - "is set in the Caribbean during the 17th century. The players try to increase their influence in three nations in four rounds with a play time of 40 minutes per player."

13\. Brass: Birmingham - "tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870. As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands."

14\. Everdell - "the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities established. You will be the leader of a group of critters [forest wildlife] intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host—you have a busy year ahead of yourself. Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?"

15\. Root - "The nefarious Marquise de Cat has seized the great woodland, intent on harvesting its riches. Under her rule, the many creatures of the forest have banded together. This Alliance will seek to strengthen its resources and subvert the rule of Cats."

<comment><USER21> I was inclined to disagree with the OP, but if a third of the top board games could reasonably be described as having an occult flavor, they seem connected with reality. That's high enough that it seems okay to ask for help choosing a game.

Gloomhaven is full of demons and Lovecraftian monsters to fight, by the way, and the player characters use summons and dark magic. Great game; we're on roughly our 40th play session tomorrow!

<comment><USER20> > if a third of the top board games

I don't think it makes sense to consider _Gloomhaven_ and _Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion_ independently. There are other issues with this count -- for example, Lost Ruins of Arnak doesn't appear to, technically, exist yet -- but that would be the main one.

If, instead of the "the hotness" sidebar, I look at the top 20 games by rating, then those with more than zero potential occult flavor are:

1\. Gloomhaven

13\. Spirit Island

19\. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

(with potential honorable mentions going to Star Wars: Rebellion and War of the Ring: Second Edition, depending on your opinion of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.) This is 15%, not 33%.

You have to know what it is you're trying to count. A Feast for Odin (#23) might be objectionable on the grounds that you are thematically honoring a pagan god. But it involves no supernatural phenomena whatsoever. Mage Knight (#24) is a war game in which you use magic.

I would mentally classify Mage Knight in the same genre as superheroes rather than occultism, but somebody else might differ. But my larger point is, it's a mistake to look at those two games, acknowledge that they both meet (very different) definitions of occultism, and then conclude that occultism is extremely prevalent. First define what occultism is, and then you'll notice that the number of games actually meeting that definition is much smaller than the number of games potentially meeting _any_ definition.

<comment><USER21> I'm fine with your revised criteria but still think it shows the OP was somewhat reasonable to ask for help. You insulted them pretty badly. They've gotten good recommendations from other users, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>