Ask HN: General Web agency question - <AUTHOR> I have a few questions to ask about web agencies. So if you own/work/hired one before feel free to answer:
First, i used to work as a freelancer in a freelancing platform but had some troubles with it, and realized that its paying 1/10 of the market's price. So i decided to go out on my own. And was wandering if i should present myself as a freelancer or as an agency when i start.
Second, how much is the usual hour price that an agency charges
Third, How do i go about convincing clients to sign a retainer agreement
Fourth, i'm based in North Africa, but will present myself as an international agency since i don't really do work locally, and most of my clients are from the UK and US. And would my position cause me problems in getting contracts or payments
Fifth, what is the usual size of an agency's team. I'd think that 4 should be enough?
Sixth, can i run it on my own and alone? Taking on only as much contracts as i could finish, i already am a fullstack developer and designer, plus i learned a bit about marketing and SEO in the last few years
Seventh, how to go about bringing new clients?
Eighth, how easy is it to establish yourself in the market and start getting clients. Plus how long it would take if your quality of work is good. Since i did a little bit of searching and there are A LOT of agencies out there.
Thank you for reading so far! And i hope that you could give me some valuable advice <comment><USER2> > And was wandering if i should present myself as a freelancer or as an agency > when i start.

Present yourself as an agency. If you answer to people searching for a freelancer, you can easily say, that you are building your own agency, too.

> Second, how much is the usual hour price that an agency charges

Varies.

> Third, How do i go about convincing clients to sign a retainer agreement

Offer hosting and be responsive. If you do your work well, you usually do not need a retainer agreement.

> Fourth, i'm based in North Africa, but will present myself as an > international agency since i don't really do work locally, and most of my > clients are from the UK and US. And would my position cause me problems in > getting contracts or payments

I am based in Germany and had one customer from Africa. He did not pay me. So definitely yes. This business (as most other businesses) is 20% about your actual skills and 80% about communication and all the other stuff. I would definitely tackle this disadvantage. You could for example attend a conference, take some pictures and post them on a blog to show, that you are actually reachable.

> Fifth, what is the usual size of an agency's team. I'd think that 4 should > be enough?

I do not think that this matters at all. It is nice if you can show some teammembers, but customer references are more important.

> Sixth, can i run it on my own and alone? Taking on only as much contracts as > i could finish, i already am a fullstack developer and designer, plus i > learned a bit about marketing and SEO in the last few years

Of course you can. Your customers do not really care. Tell them you have a network of experts.

> Seventh, how to go about bringing new clients?

Educate an audience, whose businesses you can improve and that is able to pay you.

> Eighth, how easy is it to establish yourself in the market and start getting > clients. Plus how long it would take if your quality of work is good. Since > i did a little bit of searching and there are A LOT of agencies out there.

Use every client to get the next bigger one.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Varies.

Could i get a range? Since i'm oblivious to how agencies work

>Educate an audience, whose businesses you can improve and that is able to pay you.

Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER2> > Could i get a range? Since i'm oblivious to how agencies work

An agency charges as much as it can.

>>Educate an audience, whose businesses you can improve and that is able to pay you.

>Can you elaborate?

Blog, speak, present yourself as the go-to expert. Can be used both as inbound or outbound marketing. Doing outbound is much easier, when you provide some value, even without them hiring you.</comment></comment></comment>


The Best CV ever and an amazing story - <AUTHOR> http://zuras.net/

<comment><USER2> That's not a long CV, that's a short autobiography.

Lots of fun anecdotes, though. I like the idea of Gerry Sussman doing horoscopes for dinosaurs.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good blogs/books on positioning yourself as a developer? - <AUTHOR> One of my favorite blog posts is by Patio11 where he talks about how you should position yourself as a programmer (i.e help the business make more money)
The blog post can be found here http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ which goes into various details of why you should not call yourself a programmer.
Does anyone have any more books on the topic? <comment><USER2> This is the best book I've read on positioning. The anecdotes might be a little dated now, but the concepts are solid.

[https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al- Ries/dp/00...](https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al- Ries/dp/0071373586)</comment>


Most software speaks to its users in the voice of a passive aggressive asshole. - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2012/03/21/software-is-a-conversation/

<comment><USER2> Most DMV clerks, bank clerks, post office clerks, etc, come off as passive aggressive assholes.

It's not because these people are assholes in their home life. It's because that's a function of the job. The easiest, fastest way for mankind to get things done is for some people to be flat, monotonous, and uninspired from 9-5. That doesn't mean that they're not normal human beings any other time.]

I would rather have a form tell me what's wrong as accurately and briefly as possible than try to be nice or helpful. I can't remember it was Joel Spolsky or PG that said something along the lines of "Give me what I need, and then get out of my way."

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't disagree with the notion of being efficient and getting out of the way. But I do think remembering that you're talking to a human being is important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I see 'Please enter your first name.' instead of 'First Name' on form I get angry that my time was just wasted. Please don't say 'Please' and 'Thank You', thank you.</comment>


The 10 Best Cities for Engineering Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.sparefoot.com/self-storage/blog/13053-the-10-best-cities-for-engineering-jobs/ <comment><USER2> I'm surprised to see San Diego made this list.

Times are going to get tough for engineers in San Diego. Qualcomm is going to lay off several thousand employees in November. It's going to be bad for 1-2 years as engineers laid off in San Diego move to other cities in order to eat and keep a roof over their heads.

I've been unemployed since November 2014. I have the financial resources to sit this out if need be. I'd rather be working, but that doesn't seem to be an option at the moment.

Average salaries offered by what few jobs are advertised have dropped like a rock in the past 2-3 months, and the number of job openings has fallen precipitously. What job openings remain are of poor quality, and are swamped with applicants.

San Diego is a great place to live, but housing costs are sky high and with Qualcomm and others not hiring, it's going to be tough going for any unemployed engineers.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is a US only list; would be great to get a list for Europe, too.

I think it is great to be a software engineer in Switzerland, partly because it is the only place where net-salaries are comparable to the Bay Area or NYC... I live in Zurich, read my story here: "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland (to work in IT)": [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons- why-i-moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved- to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's nice to see Texas taking 30% of the positions on that list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ditto. I suspect it is in part that they're looking at engineering entire and not just software engineering, because of both the prevalence of chemical engineering jobs in the Gulf area and job title restrictions on "software engineer" in TX.</comment></comment>


Soviet Venus Images - <AUTHOR> http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm <comment><USER2> The details on how they built cameras (in 1980 no less) to capture and transmit data in an environment of 100atm and 400+ degrees Celsius are really interesting! <http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm>

<comment><USER3> > 100atm and 400+ degrees

Incredible. Looking here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera> noticed that probes lasted at most 2 hours on the surface.

Also interesting how Mars landers go for years and on Venus we lasted at most 2 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These landings have one of my favourite ever engineering failures, regarding Venera 14. Venera 13 and 14 were twin landers which landed at the same time on Venus. Both contained a similar science package - including an arm to measure the compressibility of the soil on the surface of Venus.

Venera 13's arm functioned properly. Venera 14's returned strange data, which was soon traced to a very simple fault - both Venera landers had a lens cap protecting their sensitive camera equipment on descent. These popped off on landing, and then the spring-loaded instrument arm extended to perform its testing.

Venera 13's arm extended into the soil correctly. Venera 14's arm extended directly into its discarded lens cap. Poor Venera 14 travelled millions of kilometers to test the compressibility of a lens cap on the surface of venus.

<http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Venera_Perspective.jpg> (Venera 14 on right)

Venera 14 did also function for almost twice its design lifetime (~57 minutes) so it was a good little probe, but I love to use this little example when talking about reliability engineering.

<comment><USER5> The more important soil-drill/analysis experiment was fine, that is often confused with the soil punch experiment. The paper claims that the Venera-14 punch was OK, the arm went over the lens cap, but the punch still penetrated the soil.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the clarification. I think it's still a great cautionary tale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Worth noting that the Venera probes only survived between 23 minutes and 2 hours on the surface of Venus, due to the harsh conditions there: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera>

<comment><USER7> It's astonishing to me that they lasted that long and transmitted data back, considering the operating temperatures and pressures.

<comment><USER8> There are data center engineers nowadays who would relish that challenge. 400C and 100bar? Pschaw, I have a cabinet in Fremont standing up to almost that.. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This blew my mind. I had no idea we ever landed anything on Venus, let alone something that was able to send us pictures from the surface. Fantastic images!

<comment><USER10> This was in the 80s, during the Cold War. As such, it's not really surprising that most people (especially Americans) have not heard about it. It is a Soviet accomplishment after all.

<comment><USER11> Oh, please.

This was covered extensively in the New York Times, not to mention lots of science magazines.

Find the dozens of NYT articles here:

<http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/venus+probe>

It was so well known that the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man" had a multi-episode plot arc on the topic.

<http://bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Probe>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4st0a0gWp0>

Being born in the very early 1970s isn't good for much, but reminiscing about 300 baud acoustically coupled modems, and talking about the Soviet space program are two exceptions. ;-)

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but how much was the coverage compared to, say, the Lunar Landing? How many movies were made about it, books written about it, conspiracy theories created about it, etc.

<comment><USER12> One involved getting _people on the Moon_. That is a significant difference.

You can bet your skippy that if ever someone steps foot on Mars, there will be books, conspiracies, movies, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> lots of images and text explaining the process of stitching and processing. Here is the money shot that made me go :O <http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_Venera_Perspective.jpg>

Also this shot of Halley's comet fly-by from another Soviet craft (Vega-1) that only served to deposit a lander on Venus but then went on to fly close to the famous comet as well: <http://www.mentallandscape.com/CS_Vega02.jpg>

<comment><USER14> Here's the color version of that surface image:

[http://mo-www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galil...](http://mo- www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galileo/ThenNow/Venus/mObsVenusWeb_files/image007.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Don Mitchell has some cool stuff on his site, I'm always tempted to use his "Palette of Planets"[1] in a project...

[1] [http://donpmitchell.blogspot.com/2006/02/palette-of- planets....](http://donpmitchell.blogspot.com/2006/02/palette-of-planets.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I always loved the look of one of the Venera landers:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venera_11_lander.jpg>

<comment><USER17> I like it, looks like Robby the Robots great great grandfather in some ways I suspect.

Also looks like something not totaly out of the reach of home ameteurs thesedays, prohibited parts and materials aside though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a new mission Venera-D, they plan to launch it in 2016-2017. More info here: [http://venera-d.cosmos.ru/index.php?id=658&L=2](http://venera-d.cosmos.ru/index.php?id=658&L=2)

</comment><comment><USER11> Now HERE is what I consider really cool: in the US we were seriously thinking about taking some Apollo components, building what amounts to a Skylab with thrusters, and doing a MANNED Venus flyby in 1973.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby>

<comment><USER19> It's a cool idea, but it probably would have killed the crew due to radiation exposure.

Edit: Some additional info. The Apollo crews had very little radiation protection, basically just the hulls of their spacecraft. This was thick enough to give them protection against the van allen belts as they zipped through them (not coincidentally where the ships were going near their highest speeds) but it wasn't enough to protect against an errant solar flare. Fortunately, the missions were short duration and we just plain got lucky. Venturing into the inner Solar System near Venus would have exposed crews to higher levels of radiation (due to proximity to the Sun) and combined with the longer duration trip would have virtually guaranteed being exposed to high doses from a CME or solar flare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for the comments. I'm working on a book now. Also was invited to write a paper refuting the claim of living creatures in the Venera photos. Those features are explained by unusual pulse-position modulation system.

</comment><comment><USER20> Every few years these photos cross my path and every time I'm just as captivated as when I saw them as a kid. The further we get from that era, the more remarkable the accomplishment feels.

</comment><comment><USER21> I learned about it some time ago in another HN thread, but the BBC series The Planets gives great, concise looks at much of the interplanetary research efforts by the US and the USSR. There are some bits of information that are no longer understood as true, and the series lacks some recent information since it was produced in the late 90s, but it really is worth watching.

It's an eight-part series (each episode being about 45 minutes), and the first three episodes were especially remarkable for the descriptions of what scientists have accomplished, the interviews with some key people, and the film/images shown. I can watch those over and over, and each time I'm struck by how amazing it is that people have accomplished things like this. To me, there's a wonder in it all, from the fact that there have been these achievements and that I've lived at a time to bear witness.

I know it's listed on Amazon and through Netflix for anyone who is interested. My thanks go to whomever it was around here who informed me that this series exists.

<comment><USER22> Any links?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A Russian scientist revisited these recently and became convinced that there could be life on Venus. A fun read: [http://io9.com/5878554/russian-scientist- claims-to-have-disc...](http://io9.com/5878554/russian-scientist-claims-to- have-discovered-life-on-venus)

</comment><comment><USER24> And now we need a "space" filter for instagram

</comment><comment><USER25> It's a shame the other terrestrial planets are so uninhabitable.

<comment><USER26> On the surface at least. If there are indeed frozen over oceans on the moons of the outer planets this could be one of the best places for habitation eventually. It won't be very familiar to us but we know how to build things that can survive under water at intense pressures. A thick layer of ice helps with the radiation and in the case of a liquid water oceans we know it will be a fairly comfortable place to live. With the right technology we could probably live underground on many moons and planets. The tricky part would be making them self-sustainable which isn't even a deal breaker if you can direct an icy asteroid to the right spot on the surface and do something useful with it afterwards. As a species we're even preparing ourselves for living under the surface. Many of us sit inside buildings the vast majority of our lives. Psychologically I think it wouldn't be a huge leap. The biggest problem we can't even speculate much about solving is gravity. Even if it's not too extreme the effects are pretty rough on the body.

<comment><USER25> I've thought about this, your example and also moon or mars bases. While theoretically possible, the thought of trying to do major underground construction (with limited resources) in a space suit seems wildly impractical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone know where one can find free (as in public domain or permissible for commercial usage) hi-def photos of outer space? (eg Hubble, other telescopic photos)

<comment><USER28> NASA has the "Astronomy picture of the day" archive at <http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html>

Here is a look at the polar vortex on Venus -- it's like looking into hell!

<http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100928.html></comment></comment>


Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription - <AUTHOR> http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio-announcement <comment><USER2> I'm from Canada and I won't be subscribing.

I use last.fm and while it has some cool features and I've discovered a lot of new bands, it just doesn't play very good songs on the actual radio.

I've tried making stations around all kinds of different bands, genres, or set ups, and it still seems to consistently pick mediocre tracks. My girlfriend found the same thing. I remember Pandora being a lot better in that regard.

<comment><USER3> I'm from Canada, too, and I've been listening for a while now. They don't always play the best music, but the variety is nice.

Having said that, I think this is a load of horse manure. I don't think that charging some, but not others is very fair. Also, isn't there and Internet adage that says once you release something for free, you can't turn around and charge for it? Or have I been reading too much SvN?

In any case, $6/month (CAD) for myself and the same amount for my wife is not worth it.

edit: Also, this makes a good case for proxy software. If I'm able to set up a proxy that makes it appear to Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc. that my IP is from the country they accept, I will still get free music.

Am I wrong in that conclusion?

<comment><USER4> > If I'm able to set up a proxy that makes it appear to Last.fm, Pandora, > Spotify, etc. that my IP is from the country they accept, I will still get > free music.

I've considered creating EC2 instances and using ssh tunneling to get hulu and some other US-only sites from Canada. I'm not sure if the TOS allows it (of Amazon; I'm pretty sure the TOS of hulu doesn't allow it). I'll try it out when I get back to Canada.

And not to get too off-topic, but since you and the above poster are Canadian also, I feel I have to mention CBC's music podcasts which are pretty good if you find one that fits your musical taste: <http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/>

<comment><USER5> That cost way more then 3 pounds a month...

<comment><USER4> I was suggesting this more for sites like hulu, but when I try the numbers it's actually not unrealistic.

3 pounds is roughly $4.40 USD. The cheapest EC2 instance is $0.10/hour, which would give you 44 hours for that price.

I don't know what bitrate last.fm streams at, but assuming it's 128 kbps, 44 hours would be about 2.5 GB transfer, or $0.25. edit: actually, $0.50 because the data goes in and out of the servers. I'm going off the top of my head here, but I think the rate is $0.10/GB

I figure I've listened to about 65 hours of music in the last month, so if I replaced half of that with last.fm (For example, I can't use last.fm from the gym), I'd come out ahead.

Of course, it wouldn't be worth the hassle for last.fm (killing and starting instances every time you want to play music? not for me). I may try it with hulu though, just for fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Besides €3 probobly being enough set up a tunnel too Germany, USA or UK and then get the free service (aswell as having a way around that problem on other occations). I can't help but feel sorry for the poor nations where €3 is an unreasonable amount of money. I get that it was a buisness decission but them exempting certain countries just alienates those of us who aren't on that list, or at least that's how I feel.

<comment><USER7> It pisses me off when I am being treated differently on the internet based on where I am in the real word. It is one of the reasons Hulu won't get my patronage even if they extend to other countries outside the us.

In this case it didn't matter much, I won't sign up (or pay) just to _hear_ music that I can't even choose my self.

<comment><USER8> It pisses you off that your use of the service isn't being subsidized by other parts of the world anymore? I mean, that's what seems to be the reason for instituting the fee. They are able to use ad sales to generate revenue for the 3 countries mentioned, so the service is paid for that way. They aren't able to generate enough ad revenue in the other countries, hence the fee.

I do find the general reactions a bit perplexing. Most range along the lines of "Everyone should pay or no one should pay.", "Companies should charge the people who can afford it more.", "I expect music to always be free to listen to." and "I refuse to pay for music, so I will now go back to pirating more."

<comment><USER9> Or: "3 euros a month is too much". 10c per day -- too much!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> andrewl-hn Personally I haven't used Last.fm. But until recently I was a big fan of LaunchCast. Unfortunately Yahoo decided to shutdown it's own music infrastructure and teamed up with CBS: [http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2009/02/21/the-new-launchcast- rad...](http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2009/02/21/the-new-launchcast-radio-is- here/)

The new service is nowhere near as good as it used to be. I could rate the artist, the album, and the track separately and I could listen to My station based on my ratings. I used it for more than a year and really liked it. With a new service I can rate tracks only, my old ratings are not supported by a recommendation engine, and MyStation feature is gone.

Initially I thought it was a part of Yahoo! strategy change (they outsourced paid music subscriptions to Rhapsody last year). But now it seems to me that it might be a policy shift withing CBS itself. The Yahoo! partnership was announced just a month ago, the change was abrupt and totally unexpected.

I only wonder why not just replace LaunchCast with co-branded Y!-Last.fm altogether.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know the reason behind this change? Is it a measure because of cost of operation in certain countries or is it a legal issue?

<comment><USER11> It's the former, sort of... See the comment on the post titled "Joost, HodgeStar, et al": (I can't find a permalink)

" _These are the countries in which we have the most resources to support an ad sales organization, which is how we earn money to pay artists and labels for their music._ "

Edit: Found the permalink: [http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio- announcement#c00...](http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio- announcement#c007521)

<comment><USER12> It's funny how people who use Last.fm's content and bandwidth for free think Last.fm will be hurt in any way by them leaving.

<comment><USER3> Call me naive, but were a large percentage of users to leave, they will be hurt. Not just from the traffic and revenue perspective, but also from a reputation one.

Take a gander at the comments. There are not just normal users, but also independent artists and even a record executive from Brazil. This is a serious move and potentially, a very damaging one.

<comment><USER13> How about from a profitability perspective? I think we should suck it up, and realize large companies aren't going to subsidize what we want to do on the internet, forever.

If Last.fm isn't €3/month, don't pay it.

<comment><USER3> I realize that, but at the same time, I realize that they've offered this service for free for a long, long time. Also, I wouldn't mind it so much, if they were to charge everyone.

However, charging everyone but the English, Americans and Germans is patently unfair. Also, the people from those countries already get services and features no one else does. So now we're talking about the rest of the world subsidizing what users from only three countries consume from Last.fm.

You cannot tell me that that's fair or that it even makes sense.

<comment><USER13> The UK, USA and Germany are large enough markets for them to sell ads in. If anything, over the last few years, ad sales in those countries has been subsidizing everyone else.

Hulu, Kindle, GrandCentral, etc. It's not like this is a new experience for Canadians. It sucks, but I don't blame the companies for being forced to realize market realities.

<comment><USER3> If what you say is true, that was not indicated in their announcement.

As for market realities, it's a reality that they've offered this service worldwide. Hulu, Kindle, etc. have not. It's unrealistic to not expect a huge backlash against a service that's restricting itself to only those markets where they think they might make money. As some commenters have rightly indicated, losing the scrobbling ability of the whole wide world will inevitably degrade the service of the "special" ones. And trust me, I've already stopped feeding them information. Also, come end of March and I will take my business elsewhere.

I don't mind paying for a service. I do mind discrimination and senseless discrimination I mind even more.

<comment><USER13> "It's unrealistic to not expect a huge backlash against a service that's restricting itself to only those markets where they think they might make money."

Which, in one sentence, explains the insanity of the mindset of web startups at the moment. Fortunately, it looks like that's starting to change.

"And trust me, I've already stopped feeding them information. Also, come end of March and I will take my business elsewhere."

Great. Especially if you think Last.fm is wrong about the value of your market, why not start a competitor?

"I don't mind paying for a service. I do mind discrimination and senseless discrimination I mind even more."

There shouldn't be a taboo against saying you don't think last.fm (or any web startup) isn't worth paying for, but I hope you still don't think this is the result of CBSs xenophobia.

<comment><USER3> I don't follow the last sentence.

I do think last.fm is worth it, had they 1) made these rules from the get-go; 2) applied them equally and with no discrimination (I think this is where CBS's xenophobia fits in?)

Am I on the right track? If not, please feel free to correct me. :)

<comment><USER14> If they are able to offer the service for free to some, why is this a bad thing again? I'm Canadian, so am a little bit sad that I won't be enjoying last.fm for free (or, in my case, at all) anymore. However, I'm not mad that others will be able to.

And why is it a bad thing if you offer your service for free at first?

<comment><USER3> It's bad because the expectation you set with your users is that that service is free.

With last.fm, it was free, but you could upgrade if you wanted to. Until this point in time, it wasn't "free, but only if you're from the right country". Had that been stated in the beginning, they wouldn't have been as successful and probably wouldn't have been acquired by the CBS.

They basically did the worst thing possible. They've collected user data, which they needed for their recommendation engine. They got users to fill out information about the bands whose music was on the site. Now, they're cashing in.

As DHH and 37signals and various other people have said: Don't be afraid to charge for your product.

They screwed up and now they will face the wrath of the community.

<comment><USER13> Wait, so you would've been willing to pay for the product originally (which, as you mentioned, would've collected less data and therefore be less useful than todays Last.fm), but you wouldn't be willing to pay for the more useful version available today?

For all that information, you got personal statistics (which will still be free) and free radio for seven years.

They're a business, it is there _responsibility_ to cash in. I'd much rather have it available for a price, than not available because people ran it into the ground.

<comment><USER3> What I'm saying is that the expectation that you, as a user, will have to pay for the service at some point in the future, but only if you don't happen to live in their preferred countries, was not set at launch of the service. If that expectation had been set, of course it would have amounted to a less useful service.

This is tantamount to a bait-and-switch, only you as a user provided the bait. All I'm arguing here for is transparency. None of this was needed had they been transparent. It would have also helped if they asked the community for feedback.

Now, the admins basically come off as assholes who have used the community and their volunteer contributions to make a coin. Making money isn't the problem. How they've gone about doing it is.

By the way, take a look at the comments again. No one from last.fm has responded to the users in the last 5 hours and the last comment was no better than a canned reply.

It's terrible customer service. Even if I weren't affected, I'd consider removing my data and getting off the service. Who's to say they won't do it to US, UK and German users next?

<comment><USER14> I think it is presumptuous to assume that they new they would have to adopt this business model 7 years ago.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it is. Putting aside the fact that this is a major change in the business model, the admins still have not responded to the furor.

They gave a 5 day notice, they haven't put it on Last.fm's home page and they haven't assuaged users' fears. That is still a terrible way to treat the community who has basically provided the information the service needed in order to be as good as it is.

I don't think that that is presumptuous to expect of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I never really got into last.fm because Pandora is so good. I just recently started using Pandora again after a long break and it's even better than when I first started using it - I used to have thumbs down individual songs all the time to teach it what songs or artists to include in a channel, I can't even remember the last time that I've had to do that.

<comment><USER16> Notice that if you are not from the US, trying to access pandora.com will lead you to <http://www.pandora.com/restricted>

Yeah. Pandora pretty much sucks too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh no Last.fm sounds like music industry is playing Dr. Kevorkian, yet again!

I hope Last.fm can survive this stupidity!</comment>


What if you could profit from your posts in Social Media? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all!
Me and my team are working on a web player that allows people to tag their products in photos and videos they post on social media. We're introducing a brand for the action sports market, featuring sponsored athletes that already generate thousands of views on their posts, resulting in tons of traffic for their brands' websites.
The idea is simple: the athlete (or a regular user) adds the products featuring in the shared content through our technology and they become available for purchase next to the photo or video within the player (it looks just like a facebook post). If you start getting lots of views on your posts, probably you'll be contacted by one or more brands featuring with good news.
This is the overall picture. Now a question: as an end user, would you upload your stuff and add product tags for share on a PPC model plus a chance of getting sponsored by one of those brands, or would you need a stronger incentive?
Tips and Feedback are highly welcomed! :)
FYI: http://www.radlegacy.com <comment><USER2> I think it needs to be very clear for the athlete what brands are on the platform and who they're sponsoring.

Also, while I think it's cool that your platform solves a pain point (getting sponsored) for the athlete, please don't let it look like just a bunch of infomercials. Badly done product placement sucks for the fan.

Good luck, guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Pedro, thanks so much for the feedback.

Indeed! We take it under consideration very seriously. For us, the ultimate added value for the fan is to be able to follow their idols' products through the content they share and know exactly which product they used in that moment. Having said that, the purchase seems almost like a perk.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you be doing if you didn't have to work for a living? - <AUTHOR> Assuming you're a programmer, researcher, or an entrepreneur (which I assume is a good chunk of HN readers), what would you be doing if you had enough money that you didn't have to work for a living?
Would you still be doing what you are currently doing (programming, research, entrepreneurship, other) or would you retreat to some other hobby, such as traveling, painting, etc?
One of the reasons I'm asking is I'm wondering if, in a world where everybody has a guaranteed income, would more technological or scientific progress be made (since people are now free to pursue this without worrying about their mortgage/rent/food) or would less progress be made (since there is no strong profit motive to motivate people to do all the hard work)? <comment><USER2> I'd teach kids how to program or build things. Basically I'd spend my time transferring my knowledge to others or building things people need. Im already doing that whenever I have a chance. In fact right now I'm going to teach languages for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I had guaranteed enough income to survive, I'd still be working and I suspect that most people would. Probably a bit fewer hours so that I could focus on hobby research a bit more, but that all depends on the resulting labor market.</comment>


AWS Nitro System - <AUTHOR> https://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2019/02/aws-nitro-system/ <comment><USER2> Not exactly related to the article.. But, James's blog is a gold mine for anyone who hasn't been there before. He is one of the guys who is making AWS possible behind the scenes. There are also some cool youtube videos if you search around [1, 2], where he goes into the technical details of the inner working of AWS, and his deep technical knowledge and passion shine.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj7Ting6Ckk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj7Ting6Ckk)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS- FI4eTods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS-FI4eTods)

<comment><USER3> Imo, James Hamilton is the single most important person in AWS engineering. That's saying a lot since AWS isn't short of some amazing talent right now, esp at the top rungs of various engineering orgs.

I think he's responsible for the very fundamental underpinnings of what AWS does at the infrastructure-level, without which the service owners at AWS would be utterly lost, I feel.

Jame's infectious passion, his religious dedication to his craft... plus there's just so much wisdom in one person that it's ridiculous.

<comment><USER4> Which eng orgs in AWS are the most impressive in your opinion?

<comment><USER5> Utility computing

<comment><USER6> I remember reading about the concept of utility computing in the late 90's, and thinking it was such an amazing concept but seems like one of those that was "always 5 years away". But then it grew up around us slowly enough I barely noticed it as something revolutionary, yet fast enough that today's landscape of infrastructure build outs looks vastly different than just a few years ago.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Generate a changelog based on merged pull requests or commit messages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lalitkapoor/github-changes

<comment><AUTHOR> I Would love any constructive feedback. Thanks!! :)</comment>


Tell HN: Google are going to finally sunset classic maps - <AUTHOR>

The time has finally come. Google are announcing the death of classic maps. We are all about to be forced to use the resource sucking, poor UX of 'new maps' whether we like it or not.
I just received this in my inbox:

  Hi,
  We want to let you know that in the coming months, we're upgrading
  the content you created in My Maps. All of the maps that you've
  created will automatically move to the new Google My Maps (previously
  called Google Maps Engine). Classic My Maps on maps.google.com will
  no longer be available. You don't have to take any action to ensure
  all your content will be upgraded.

  If you don't want to wait to start using the new Google My Maps, you
  can begin migrating your maps today.

   1.  Open the new My Maps.
   2.  Click Upgrade now to get started.

  The new My Maps is a more powerful maps creation tool that makes it
  easier to edit and share maps you've made. Just like with classic My
  Maps, you can work on a map with others, save driving directions, add
  photos and videos, and more. With the new Google My Maps, you can also
  do things like:

    •   Share your map similar to how it works for a Google Doc.
    •   Use different colors to make parts of your map stand out.
    •   Label your features directly on the map.
    •   Import locations from a spreadsheet.
    •   Organize your places with layers.

  For more information, please see our FAQ.

  Thanks for using Google My Maps.
  Happy mapping,
  The Google Maps Team
 <comment><USER2> There will come a time when companies will realize that change for change's sake is not good. The 'new maps' is a terrible experience so far. It doesn't work in many ways that worked ok in the older version. For instance, the dutch real estate site 'funda' uses google maps as part of their interface. When you're looking at the available houses as a google maps datalayer it forces visibility of all the musea and other major landmarks on the map, and then overrides your clicks on _HOUSES_ (the thing you came for) to display musea and other non-relevant items based on the statistical likelihood that you wanted to click that thing that everybody clicks on.

Google is consistently 'dumbing down' its products and whenever they do the functionality for power users gets worse. Especially in the case of products with an API such dumbing down has side effects for all the companies that used that API to enhance their products.

For the most parts their users will not understand that the sub-optimal experience they are having is a google issue, rather than an issue with the website they are currently visiting.

Very annoying trend.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I just find the new maps unintuitive. It is also slow and often just hangs for a few seconds (and I have a fast enough machine).

The moving of 'My Maps' data is a good thing though. Whenever I have used the new maps, the fact that I couldn't use my maps without switching back and fore between old and new was very annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The thing I hate about new maps is the lack of streetview images in the directions. Why the hell would they get rid of that? It was the most useful thing possible. It showed the exact turning points and exits you had to take via streetview.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is almost like google getting rid of discussion search

atleast with maps you have alternatives but with discussion search, there are no other options...

the voice of the people are forever banished in favor of SEO'd content

</comment><comment><USER5> open street map time :)</comment>