What Dog Shootings Reveal About American Policing - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/what-dog-shootings-reveal-about-american-policing/533319/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> There is no reason the officer should have drawn his firearm when pepperspray or a baton would have been sufficient in this situation. The tendency to automatically resort to their proverbial nuclear option is ridiculous. We should be training police to effectively use and be comfortable with their _entire_ tool set, rather than just having them default to their firearm.

As a side note, in the confusion of an arrest, it's easy for a suspect to not realize how much the situation has escalated, and for a police officer to repeatedly give conflicting orders to a suspect, both of which result in a needless death.

Here's an idea: Police should have a loud speaker and strobe light on their uniform that trigger when they unholster their firearm. The speaker should repeat over and over until they re-holster their weapon:

" _SIREN BLARE_ A POLICE OFFICER HAS DRAWN THEIR WEAPON. REMAIN STILL UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS OR YOU WILL BE SHOT."

The strobe light should trigger constantly to let the deaf know an officer has drawn their weapon.

There's two reasons for this:

1\. It should make it clear to a suspect that they are dangerously close to being shot, and should very quickly change their behavior

2\. An officer should not be allowed to give orders to a surrendering and motionless suspect as long as they have their weapon unholstered.

If they wish to give commands to the suspect, they should re-holster their firearm and possibly switch to a less lethal device if the situation calls for it.

<comment><USER3> Pardon my rant, but... People say "baton" and I always think of the lightweight tube runners carry around a track. In this context, a baton is a nightstick. Have you ever examined one? A friend showed me his grandfather's. It was about 2 feet long, made of cherry, and filled with lead. It would break down a door or ruin a car. It would certainly break bones. With the lead weight and small diameter, it would be more effective (lethal) than a baseball bat.

"Baton" is just a euphemism that papers over extreme violence.

<comment><USER4> When is the last time you saw something like that carried around that wasn't a rerun of "Cops" recorded in '89? Today you see telescoping steel tubes that certainly couldn't break down a door and could only break bones intentionally and with effort. You rarely see them deployed, which is unfortunate in my opinion, because it is an escalation of force step designed to counter physical but non-life-threatening aggression. So essentially you're abandoning a spectrum of force and adopting a model of only two modes - subjugated or dead.

<comment><USER3> I don't see police much. But I agree that the police batons I see advertised for sale seem to be metal collapsible things, though I never find a weight mentioned in the adverts. How much lead has been added to the tip?

An alternative I've seen used on campus is a big Maglight. I'll agree that it represents a step that's usually less violent that reach for a gun, but when I read of police striking a woman "21 times with a baton", I have a hard time.

<comment><USER4> I've never seen a leaded telescoping baton, but you might want to reconsider the fixation on weight - because strike damage depends a lot more on the angle and targeted zone. If the cops are getting anything like the military in training on these things - they spend a lot of time learning where and how you can hit somebody without risking permanent damage. I'm pretty much the last person to stick up for cops, but beating somebody with a baton is hard work - so I'd be more inclined to think the cop dealing out the blows is trying harder than his fellow officers to not shoot a person to death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was just about to say I can't understand why police officers in the US just kill things at the first sign of inconvenience, but then I realized I understand exactly why:

When killing something solves every problem you may have and doesn't really have any downsides for you, why wouldn't you?

<comment><USER6> You'd think the downside would be living with the knowledge you killed someone's beloved pet. Cops are people too.

<comment> xkcd-sucks >Cops are people too

The motivation to go home unharmed every night and retire with a pension probably trumps abstract moral considerations

<comment><USER6> I was thinking of a video where the SWAT guys got the wrong apartment. It's from a team-member's lapel cam.

Near the end of it, they have the whole family (mom, dad, and two little kids) in the living room while they're searching the place.

The dad is zip-tied, face down on the floor and starts crying out loud when he finds out they shot the family dog.

You'd have to be pretty hard core not to have some regret.

<comment><USER7> I don't know the specific video you're talking about, but these kinds of raids point to an overarching problem with the police in the US, and that's the need for aggressive raids of homes, usually of the "no-knock" variety. The reason why police have the need to "no-knock" raid homes is that the crime is drug possession, and the drugs could be flushed or disposed of if there were a lengthy negotiation process to safely get everyone out of the house. Every dog killed in these raids is collateral damage from our idiotic war on drugs.

<comment><USER8> Courts have generally held that no-knock warrants are legal _only_ in cases where critical evidence is at risk of _immediate destruction_ if police announce normally (e.g. drugs down a toilet, bookies writing on flashpaper).

<comment><USER7> Exactly my point. (And it's overwhelmingly drugs, not bookies.)

It's a bad trade off as a society for us to make police work more dangerous for the public and the officers in order to criminalize possession of certain plants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This bothers me. One of my dogs (Australian Cattle Dog) is very protective of her home. Although she behaves very well at others' homes, in public and in cars, once at home she will attempt to "heel" strangers away from the house. She can appear very intimidating.

I could easily see a police officer shooting her. The thing is, I like that my dog is protective of her home. It's really comforting to know that if, by chance, I forget to lock my door she will absolutely not allow a stranger to enter.

<comment><USER10> _I could easily see a police officer shooting her. The thing is, I like that my dog is protective of her home._

If you choose to encourage your dog to use violence to protect your home, IMO any consequences are on you. Would it be any different, if you shot an intruder without following the rules of engagement?

<comment><USER9> I think you don't understand what "heeling" is. It's not "violent".

Furthermore, dogs (at least mine) do indeed have rules of engagement. They attempt to identify who is entering their home, assess their body language and "vibes" and then make a decision as to what needs to be done.

I trust my dogs. Having them around greatly reduces the likeliness of me ever having to resort to real violence (you know, where death is involved).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've already warned my family to not, under any circumstances, allow the police to enter our home or yard (without a warrant) while the dogs are there, because there's a good chance that our dogs will end up dead.

Even if the officer is there to discuss a robbery, do not allow him in unless the dogs are secured outside the house.

<comment><USER12> It is really an extension of the "Don't talk to cops" rule[1].

I wish I lived in a world where I trusted the police.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik)

<comment><USER13> You live in a world where you can trust police, however you're not in the right country. In most western european countries, the police is actually very reasonable. There are bad apples, for sure, but it's the exception, not the rule.

<comment><USER14> >There are bad apples

People say this about the police frequently, but seemingly just as frequently forget the tail end of the saying!

This confuses me because it is used in defense of the police. With the full expression in mind, the saying perfectly describes the situation we are in (in America) today. We should be very concerned about the "bad apples", due to the strength of police unions, friendships with DA's, the "Thin Blue Line" etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Internal affairs will take an officer's word over that of a bystander in a homicide. Why would they do anything different when a dog dies?

</comment><comment><USER16> Policing in the US operates under a ridiculous warrior ethos. It should be seriously reformed.

</comment><comment><USER17> These guys really seem to operate like an occupying force, not police.

<comment><USER18> People with guns who demand your money and property and want people not in their clique to have property or guns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19>
      The Nation has noted a Department of Justice estimate of
      10,000 dogs per year killed by police.

What in the fuck.

<comment><USER20> From the article:

"Last year, Reason dug up records showing that two Detroit police officers had killed 100 dogs between them over the course of their careers."

If you were to consider your pets as just property, that's going to amount to quite a lot of property damage alone.

<comment><USER21> Detroit has thousands of dogs roaming the city, in packs.

[http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/10/detroits...](http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/10/detroits_stray_dog_population.html)

They kill other dogs, attack people, they are a huge nuisance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> See also: [https://puppycidedb.com/](https://puppycidedb.com/)

Or if you just want tales of stupidity, _Reason_ has a nice collection [http://reason.com/tags/puppycide](http://reason.com/tags/puppycide) (if you don't mind the typical Reason editorial positions, and the tone of its coverage). Sample: "Cops Open Gate, Letting Dog Loose, Kill Dog, Cite Owner for Having Dog Loose, Lawsuit Alleges"

</comment><comment><USER23> No explanation of why the police went over the fence into the yard 20 minutes after the security company had already turned off the alarm and it was known the child activated it accidentally.

</comment><comment><USER24> This makes me really sad because those dogs probably have have no idea what happened. They saw a person new to them, heard a loud noise and suddenly their face is in excruciating pain and they don't understand why.

</comment><comment><USER25> Another way tech could help would be putting biometric scanners on cops. If they freak out during medium-level exercises ( lets say a mock-dog attack ), maybe they are not beat cops! Officers should be expected to keep calm, in a sense, their job is delivering calm to situations: de-escalating.

</comment><comment><USER26> How about not giving cops guns in the first place? It works in plenty of other countries. Of course, you still have armed police and SWAT teams available for more serious situations. I think short of this, nothing will solve any of the police shooting problems here in the states.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks The best part is, attacking a police dog is treated as the equivalent of attacking a human police officer.

<comment><USER27> This actually isn't true. It is a federal offense to attack a police dog but it doesn't come with nearly the same level of penalty as attacking a human.</comment></comment>


Man-made 'breathing' leaf is an oxygen factory for space travel - <AUTHOR> http://www.masrgate.com/technews/1673-man-made-breathing-leaf-is-an-oxygen-factory-for-space-travel.html

<comment><USER2> Youtube video of the same: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK49_3cB3ZU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK49_3cB3ZU)

Six months on, there doesn't seem to be any interest or data. Perhaps it is too inefficient to be of any use?</comment>


Launch HN: Lofty AI (YC S19) – Real estate investment with alternative data - <AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News Community,
My name is Jerry, and I'm one co-founders for Lofty AI (https://www.lofty.ai/). We use machine learning to help identify homes where values are likely to appreciate, and we help home buyers buy them. People can partner up with us to buy a recommended property. If they do, we are willing to cover any potential losses on the property. In exchange, the buyer agrees to share some of the future profit on the home with us. The agreement lasts 3 years.
Before starting this company, my co-founder and I had tried to invest in homes. However, we quickly got tired of realtors telling us to make offers based on very little data. We wanted to figure out a way to buy affordable homes that had the highest growth potential via a data driven approach. We realized there was a wealth of new alternative data out there, which could be used to predict both neighborhood growth and individual property growth. This alternative data we envisioned ranged from the growth in the number of postings on social media about a specific dog breed, to the number of restaurants in an area serving a specific type of trendy food, to the average wait time for ride sharing apps, and the average maximum temperature an area can experience.
Our tech involves running clustering to identify trends and keywords from text based data (e.g.: social media photo tags, business reviews) that are associated with different categories of neighborhoods (for example: rich/suburban/static, middle-class/urban/growing). We then take these insights and feed them into a larger model with historical home prices, house level features, and an array of other numeric features (e.g. ride sharing wait times, new businesses) that predicts future home price on both an individual property and neighborhood level. With this trained model we can then predict future home prices based on these alternative data sources (as well a few traditional data sources). As we ingest more data going forward we are constantly retraining and reoptimizing our models. Along with successful backtesting we have been tracking our predictions to validate our models in production and have found that properties we had identified 12 months ago have beaten the market in appreciation by an average of 14 points (yay!).
Most young working professionals want to live in or near large metropolitan cities for the lifestyle and better jobs market. This has contributed to extremely high home prices for places like the bay area and many young professionals end up paying rent that is on par with a mortgage payment. However, instead of building equity in their own future through an investment, they are simply making their landlords richer.
We want to change this by giving people another option. They can now invest in a home and their capital can be protected should the investment flop. The trade off is that these homes tend to be located in areas not "currently" deemed to be a desirable neighborhood. In essence, we want to help inexperienced home buyers make smarter decisions, and we are willing to risk our own capital for that. In the event of a downturn in the market we are hedging our exposure by buying deep out of the money options that track the real estate market. These hedges are also attached to each individual contract so even if we were to go out of business before the maturation of the agreement or before a downturn in the market your downside protection would still be alive and well! As a result, anything that's above a 20% decline across the portfolio will be covered by the hedging instruments, so we only need to be able to guarantee the range between 0 to -20% using our own capital. To make sure we can abide by the guarantee, we know exactly how many contracts we can enter into, and we will not go above that threshold until we obtain more funding.
Sign up with us to receive a list of recommended properties that our models think will appreciate over the next 3 years. Make an offer on the property you like the most using any method you'd like. If you don't have an agent you work with, we can recommend you one along with helping you get a mortgage. After you make an offer on a home, you enter into a contract with us. We agree to cover losses over the next 3 years and in exchange, you share some of the future upside with us.
Let us know if you have any questions or insights, and I'll be happy to respond! Feel free to directly reach out to me at firstname.lastname@example.com as well. We'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions! <comment><USER3> I'll start by saying that I assume you know much more about the market than me, given that you've started this company and made it into YC.

If I read your post right -- the way your insurance works is:

I'm a home buyer. I think the housing market is frothy right now, but I want to buy a home anyway. So I can use your insurance to protect myself in the event the value of my house decreases in the future.

Your company is directly responsible for the first 20% decline. After that, other companies are responsible for the rest. And even if you go out of business, I'm still covered by those other companies.

Firstly, is that correct?

Secondly, if so -- what happens if you go out of business and my house goes down exactly 20%? I assume that means I have no coverage.

Thirdly, who's insuring the houses after a 20% decline? And why should I have any reason to believe they'd still be in business if the market collapses 20%+? The last time that happened, almost every insurance company and investment bank went out of business.

Finally, how much does this cost as a percentage of the house's current value yearly? Roughly...

It's an interesting idea. Despite the fact that most home buyers anticipate house price appreciation to underperform historical averages (and a lot of buyers actually think prices will go down) -- a lot of houses are being bought. I think a lot of those people would want an option like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your question!

I believe my main post or the responses might have been unclear. If so, my apologies.

But your understanding isn't correct. Other companies are not insuring your downside. We are the only counter party you have.

The problem is if a recession happens, then a lot of our properties actually decline in value. As a result, we might not be able to pay you back. So to make sure we can pay you back we buy financial instruments on the open market, kind of like buying a stock of apple for example. These instruments work in a very interesting way. Their prices go up, if the real estate market goes down. Their prices go down, if the real estate market goes up.

So, with these instruments. We can ensure that in the event of a recession, we can still afford to pay you back, because we can sell the instruments for higher prices than we originally paid for. We then use that profit to cover the losses our customers experience.

The way this works out is that events that would cause large declines in the property values are covered by these instruments. Which means, as a company, we just need to pay specific attention to the potential losses between 0-20% range. Here, we deposit the 20% value of the original purchase price into the 3rd party account.

In the event that our company stops operation. These hedging instruments don't expire or disappear. They are bought at the beginning of our agreement with our customer. As a result, these instruments will be passed off to our lawyers along with the 3rd party account for them to maintain. This way, your loss coverage will still be guaranteed even if we go out of business.

Is this more clear? If not, I can always elaborate :)

<comment><USER4> He was talking about a recession. Which might happen. (since people feel like it is getting closer)

If you know a stock which actually goes up in a recession, please let me know!

<comment><USER5> Buy put or sell calls on an asset that's highly correlated with the overall economy. This is honestly the least controversial claim the OP is making.

<comment><USER3> Correlations change. You never know if gold might tank along with assets in the next recession. Or if yields will tank along with assets in the next recession. What if there's just hyper inflation?

No one knows what's going to happen...

You can go with Dalio's claim that as long as you have 10 hedges that are sufficiently un-correlated, your risk is incredibly low. But even that might not hold up under future unknown conditions.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right about the correlation changes. However, gold's correlation to the general market was developed organically by human behavior over time. That does often change during crisis.

However, options contracts are a form of derivatives, meaning they are contracts financially engineered to hold a specific correlation. So, you can build perfect hedges using options contracts, which is what they were originally invented for. People just started betting on the markets with them, which created all kinds of risks in the market.

<comment><USER6> There is no such thing as a perfect hedge. Delta hedging is not perfect and cannot be done continually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you have any type of financial insurance to backup of your claim that you will cover losses if the property sells for less? I'm not talking about having the money available to cover the losses, but actually being around at all to honor that claim.

What happens if I buy today and your company goes to hell in two years? How can I trust this transaction with a horizon of 3 years without fully knowing how are you going to perform as a company.

Of course, if you disappear and I don't have to honor the 20% it's a win for me, but if I buy based on your data and after 3 years the property value is way down and you're not around to honor your loss-covering promise then I'm fucked. I bought a house because you told me it was going to appreciate, but it didn't. Now what? Do you have a way to pay me back even if your company is not around anymore?

There's something about the model that doesn't make sense to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question! So, we actually maintain a 3rd party account that is only allowed to invest in short-term US treasury notes.

We track all the properties in our portfolio daily. Any on paper depreciation will result in us depositing funds into the 3rd party account. Whenever a property price moves above the original purchase price on paper, we will withdraw any previously deposited fund. This on-going process along with the hedging instruments are what allows us to guarantee the downside protection.

As a final layer of protection, we know exactly what our on going exposure is, so we know the maximum amount of contracts we can underwrite. We are very strict on this number and will never move above it. So, even if our company ceases operations, all of the downside protection will still be available to our customers.

Keep in mind, we also know exactly what our on going

<comment><USER8> > So, even if our company ceases operations, all of the downside protection > will still be available to our customers.

Can you expound on this a bit? If you go under, who would I have to go to get paid? What legal guarantees would I have in place assuring me the payout? How do I know that your underwriting scheme is sufficient for covering your exposure?

<comment><AUTHOR> Per the operational parts of your question, it will be our lawyers who would be maintaining the 3rd party account and making sure the money gets sent to people who are owed the loss coverage.

In terms of our our underwriting process works. We do have clauses in our contract that removes our liability for act of god events, civil strife, or war. Barring these scenarios, the only other events that can move a property's depreciation to more than 20% is a recession scenario, which the hedging instruments would cover.

So, in reality, our exposure for every home is between 0 to -20%. So for every home we underwrite, we just need to mark funds equal to 20% of the property value.

Is this clear? If not, I'm happy to expand on it further?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For years the simplest heuristic I can find for finding up-and-coming places has been "Where is Starbucks opening new stores?" I assume Lofty's is much more complicated than that, but I'd be curious to see what the overlap is between the Starbucks Strategy (TM) and Lofty AI's.

I do have a few more questions though:

\- Also, are you focusing on primary residences, homes as investments (i.e., rentals)? Do you consider apartments, duplexes, or commercial real state?

\- Do you have an idea of how long one would have to own these homes for the appreciation to appreciate in a significant enough way for it to be profitable?

\- You mention "some of the future profit". How much is that? 1%, 5%, 10%, 50%?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question! The Starbucks Strategy is actually well known in the industry. Believe or not, large real estate developers and investors will often follow the same signals. They also look for things like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods opening.

Our algorithm is very similar in concept to this strategy. However, by the time Starbucks or Trader Joe's opens in an area, it's often towards the middle or late stages of a neighborhood's growth. We can find amenities that are even earlier indicators than Starbucks. Think your one-off local coffee shop named "Bob's coffee" or something similar.

We are focused on the appreciation potential of residential real estate, which has single family houses, condos, and town homes. However, we have noticed that in areas where home prices are growing, rents typically are growing as well. So our customers are welcome to rent out the properties for cash-flow.

We do not have data on a lot of commercial properties, but we can still underwrite the agreement on duplexes and smaller multifamily units.

It typically takes 3-5 years on average for neighborhoods to see the exponential portion of their growth curve, so our agreement is for 3 years by default.

Our share of the profit is 20% of the gross profit. So, if you had bought something for 100,000 and you sold it for 200,000 in 3 years. Then, we would get 20% of the gross profit ($100,000), which would be $20,000.

edit: made numbers in example more clear.

<comment><USER10> Is this share of the profit based on actual profit after sale or the valuation after 3 years?

From my limited research, property flipping every few years isn't a great idea because of how much is lost in the actual buying and selling process e.g. realtor fees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our customers have 2 options. They can choose to sell, at which point, the 20% is based on gross profit realized.

Or they can choose to buy us out. At which point the 20% is based on the "on paper appreciation" calculated by using the rate of change for the median home price in their neighborhood.

If they use the latter option, they of course, will not have to pay the fees associated with a sale.

We are also looking into whether we can partner with listing agents, who will share some of the commission with us, which we will then refund back to our customer to offset their fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why did you decide on this business model (essentially downside insurance paid for by equity if I'm understanding it right) over something simpler like, say, subscription access to a newsletter?

What's to stop someone from signing up for the list and just buying a property on their own? (i.e. What perks are you offering that make it worth doing the deal through you? Negotiations? Acting as a buyer's agent?)

As a data point, I used to have a ruby script that would take a bunch of MLS IDs and go pull a ton of facts from Zillow and a few other sources. I would have my realtor set up a high-level search (i.e. SFH in these areas under $500k) and then take their daily emails and run them through my script to identify potentially "undervalued" properties. I still had to hand-check them after, but it was a pretty useful second filter (the MLS search being the first).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your question! We decided to do this model, because we originally sold our predictions and analytics to larger investment funds, but we noticed that when our predictions came true, we left so much money on the table. The funds were making millions of dollars on one deal and they were never going to give us any percentage of that.

It was also really hard to convince a lot of these people who were operating on "gut feelings". In January of this year, we made the prediction that Compton, LA was going to see an increase in growth. We told these bigger funds and they literally laughed at us during the meeting. Fast forward to today, and some of the properties in the micro-neighborhood we forecasted showed an 18% growth in price in just 7 months.

So we decided that consumers might find what we are building to be more valuable, and they would be more open to sharing the profit with us if our predictions came true.

Our added benefit is really finding neighborhoods that people overlook, but have high growth potential. Realistically, without our platform, I would have never known about the growth or be interested in Compton, LA either.

Right now, there is a paywall to view the listings. It's $100/month, but you may cancel at any point. Additionally, if you end up signing a contract with us, we refund you all the money you've paid up to that point. If people do not do the contract with us, then they would also not be offered the downside protection.

I love hearing about people's own unique technical method for finding properties! Were you able to invest in any properties using your method?

<comment><USER11> I did. We were out-of-towners at the time, so I would use that to build a strike list of 10-20 properties. We would fly in and do as many visits as we could schedule in a weekend.

Currently at 8 doors (that SFH, a tri, a quad), but now that we live in the area I typically just run one or two at a time in a spreadsheet instead of cranking through 100 in one go.

I find the list much more interesting than the insurance (I'm a big boy who can do my own risk evaluation). I only invest in one market, though (Atlanta), so not sure I would pay $100 for a nationwide list.

How do your internal valuations compare to the Zestimates? Zillow's data is better than nothing, but I know a lot of folks track their net worth through things like Mint/Personal Capital who might be interested in a more accurate daily/weekly/monthly valuation tool. I feel like that's how Zillow got their initial users ("You can look up the price of any house!") and if you could figure out a way to expose that data you might be able to get good leads out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally understandable that $100/month may be steep for a nationwide list when you would only want Atlanta. We do plan to add a cheaper tier where you can select just one or a few cities.

As far as having a Zestimate like tool - most of our models have focused on predicting future appreciation. That being said, our instantaneous pricing tool often gives similar estimates to Zestimate but differs from Zestimates a decent amount of the time. I know Zestimate reports having quite a high accuracy but anecdotally it can be way off, especially when comparing the Zestimate for a property to what it ends up being listed and sold for. Part of that is i think is, as you mentioned, there data is better than nothing. We have recently begun tracking our internal instantaneous pricing estimate VS zestimates for properties before they go on the market and comparing who was closer to the sale price so that will be interesting to see.

Appreciate the feedback though as we are looking for the best balance between sharing insights and data and protecting it so as to generate the strongest leads with the highest conversion rate.

<comment><USER12> You should track your internal estimates against Redfin instead/also. They tend to be more accurate, at least in the Bay Area.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting, we'll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the first time I have ever seen an early stage company include Saint Louis in anything, so, thanks for that ;-).

That said, you say your market is:

"Lofty AI is best for people who are: 1. Thinking of buying their first home, but are nervous about losing money. 2. Looking for higher returns than normal by buying properties in an appreciating neighborhood early."

1\. I wonder if people who know they have to sell in the next three years, but don't want to sell today (e.g. a work move) are also a target market. If I know my job is going to move me in 2 years, I might like to use your service to retain 80% of the upside, but insure against downside when I sell.

2\. I once read a book about real-estate investing, which said that the real way you make money is to buy rental properties with poor cash flow, 'fixup' the tenants to improve the cash flow, and then sell, repeatedly. I wonder if your appreciation-potential-evaluation/downside-insurance model applied to rental properties for sale, combined with coaching/tools for aspiring landlords, might be attractive.

It seems like right now, you are primarily using the purchaser as a source of capital, and other comments are saying "why don't you just raise the money yourself?", but if you were also using the purchaser as more like a franchisee, someone who is actively working to improve the cashflow of the property by upgrading the tenants with your (automated) advice, that might create a more interesting relationship where you have more room to add value (its more complex to analyze multi-tenant rentals, its more complex to choose high-potential landlord partners, etc).

Random thoughts. It's a very interesting idea, very original.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, you bring up some really interesting points.

1\. I think what you're saying (and please correct me if i'm wrong) is that we could go after people who aren't about to buy a home but who already own a home and may want to sell it in 2-3 years. That is actually something we already have done and are open to doing more! We could certainly make it more explicit on our website that this is an option.

2\. This is a really cool concept. As you have noted we aren't so much in the business of encouraging people to optimize the cash flow on a home and partnering with them on that, but this is a common way to make money of real estate and is certainly something we could branch out into.

This would complement our goal of not having to just become a fund and help solve real pain points people have in purchasing homes really well.

Again, really appreciate this feedback - the phrasing sparked some really cool insight and will definitely think about this more going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do you have any customer testimonials? It would be good to link to them.

This is definitely something I would never consider doing unless I've heard other people doing it, I would never want to be the guinea pig here.

And honestly, if I am financially clever enough to understand your value proposition then I'm probably financially clever enough enough to buy some downside protection on general real estate assets.

The most interesting value proposition here is the ability to predict future home prices, but if you could really do that you would be working for one of the massive real estate funds, for the same reason that someone who is really good at picking stocks will work for a hedge fund (and eventually create their own), that person isn't going to decide to give investment advice to a gazillion pipsqueak investors or manage the accounts of a bunch of little investors, even if they can easily automate it.

In other words, the ability to predict asset prices is something that it makes sense to keep as private as possible, not something to share with the masses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Customer testimonials is a great idea! Will add those to our site when we get a minute to do so.

As you said, they would probably go along way towards providing some additional comfort to any one who has some interest but is cautious about moving forward.

The questions you raise regarding our business model are good ones. As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, a fund is something that would be interesting but that we just don't have the capital for at the moment. Furthermore, our initial motivation for creating Lofty was to address the pain point of people wanting to buy a home but being cautious about the risk. As such a pivot to a fund, while similar in nature (and perhaps simpler in some ways), would be a pivot from addressing a real pain point we see in the market to just becoming another real estate fund and is in part why we are hesitant to do so, on top of the higher capital requirements.

Appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Since your model consistently beats the market and you can hedge at city level, Wouldn't you be better off just raising money for an hedge fund that goes long and short with some leverage?

It's a cool idea anyway, good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly something we have considered.

One issue is the capital raise. On top of that we really wanted to address the specific pain point of people wanting to buy a home but who cannot afford making a bad purchase. As such a pivot to a fund model would be a pivot from our initial motivation in starting Lofty. Nonetheless, it's an interesting idea.

Appreciate the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You mention that you hedge your exposure to market downturns through deep OOTM options -- would it be safe to interpret this as your company taking out OOTM puts on various REITs/ETFs? If so, I'm wondering about a couple things:

1\. Do you hedge on REITs/ETFs with a local presence in the areas your properties are located in? If so, is there any liquidation risk of the REIT/ETF in the event of a major downturn that could force an early exit from your hedge position and leave you exposed to further decline? Also, how would you handle rebalancing/constructing new hedges when you add investment properties in a new area?

2\. If you hedge on broader diversified REITs/ETFs, is it a plausible concern that your investment properties can be hit by a localized recession that leaves other parts of the broader real estate market unaffected, thus leaving your hedge unable to recoup the losses?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, your interpretation is correct!

1\. we hedge on both broader market REITs/ETFs as well as localized ones, depending on how many contracts we have in the local market.

2\. Because we hedge on both, the probability of this is very low. Since a more granular hedge is an imperfect hedge due to the nature of these REITs/ETFs, it might not cover 100% of the localized recession. However, it should cover a large portion of it. So, our company will be on the hook for that remainder percentage.

We can cover it in 2 ways. Number 1, just use our own capital. Number 2, the profitable contracts in other areas not hit by recessions should be able to offset the ones hit by the localized recession.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Against my better judgment, I'm gonna comment that I hate this.

This is certainly a good business/investment opportunity. If your algorithms are any good you'll make a lot of money, and you'll help your customers make money.

My problem with Lofty is that it is bad for society.

Fundamentally, this is gentrification-as-a-service. You're driving additional demand to neighborhoods at inflection points, and if it works well it's definitely going to accelerate displacement. It is true that Blackrock et al already do this and likely have similar in-house algorithms, but this will widen the market and make things worse. I'm not completely against gentrification, especially when there's development that increases market supply- and when done right that can actually decrease displacement. (an example you're probably familiar with is the USC Village. Despite the criticism it gets, it removed thousands of student renters from the South Central LA market which likely resulted in downward pressure on prices) But housing speculation like this drives up prices and only hurts poor and minority communities.

To Jerry and Max: did you consider the ethical implications when deciding to start this? I completely see the angle that you're democratizing access to an investment asset that currently mainly benefits wealthy institutional investors. I imagine, though, that a lot of people are going to see your team of young almost-all-white males and paint you as everything that's wrong with tech, and you should consider to what degree that assumption represents the truth.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right about this, and it is something we have and are considering everyday. I will be honest and say, at the moment, we do not have a perfect solution yet.

One of the things we looked into before starting the company was a paper that mentioned the Portland project, which showed that gentrification and displacement are not always synonymous. There, the neighborhood was completely gentrified, but the locals benefited greatly, because many of their home prices increased in value, and many owned local businesses that benefited from the influx with affluent people.

One of our goals is to see how we can use our data and business to make gentrification more like the Portland project. One idea has been to provide our data and analytics to city governments for free, so they can act faster in regards to setting up affordable housing.

In the meantime, our customers will be buying the homes, so someone has to act as the seller. If a local resident was the owner of the property, then hopefully, they benefit from the sale (we recommend our customers offer the "listing price" and not negotiate at all). If they are the renter, then current California laws should provide them a lot of protection.

It's not perfect of course, but we are looking for better alternatives.

<comment><USER17> > There, the neighborhood was completely gentrified, but the locals benefited > greatly, because many of their home prices increased in value

But they lose mobility as their family needs change. New kids and need a larger home? You can sell yours, but the differential between a 2br and 4br is now outside your price range due to gentrified prices.

Also, it depends heavily on tax laws. Long time California home owners are protected from tax increases under Proposition 13, but many localities lack these protections, so ultimately higher taxes price you out.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a very valid point here. Our hope is that we can help them find new homes as well. Most of the homes selected by our algorithm tend to be very affordable, so a larger segment of the market can take advantage of appreciating home price. The goal is to make sure that not only existing wealthy people can benefit from rising home values.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a super interesting idea, and I have been wondering if there was a service like this. Is there something similar to this that recommends the house based on your stage of life? For instance, if you have a kid and your income is X amount, this is probably your best area or even if I wanted to retire with a set standard of living and maybe environment. This paired with home value appreciation that you provide would be awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Love this suggestion! We have been toying with the best way to personalize the properties shown to each individual user. Right now it's just by city, max price and property type.

We also have added things like "near nightlife", "near trendy coffee spots", "near schools" in an attempt to capture what you have suggested here - <USER2> in a less efficient manner.

A "stage of life" questionnaire would be a great way to encapsulate all those above and more in an easy to interface with UI for the user. Thank you!!

<comment><USER18> Do you have a way to subscribe to updates? Would love to try out your service when you implement this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Are you hedging with REIT options? Or home builders?

Are you able to hedge specific city risk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we actually hedge with both depending on the area the property is located in. I hope you don't mind me not mentioning the specific products, since we don't want people in the market to bid up our hedging instruments and make them more expensive for us to buy.

We can look into the portfolio for a lot of the REITs as well as the exposure certain builders have. Based on that, we can hedge specific states and cities very well. It's not a perfect hedge, but it will definitely reflect the local real estate market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty cool concept! You're basically letting people buy into your real estate hedge fund. :)

Something I didn't see addressed in the FAQ: Do I get to include closing costs and agent fees in my cost basis before determining your 20% cut?

If not I can see a case where appreciation was minimal and I actually lose money one you get your cut because those fees eat up all the appreciation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment, but at the moment we do not cover closing costs or agent fees.

In the event that there is appreciation, but is minimal. We recommend that our client buys us out instead of selling the property. This way, they won't have to deal with the transactional costs, and with the low appreciation, the 20% cut will be very low, so it shouldn't be hard to come out of pocket for that.

As I've mentioned in some of the other replies, we'd love to keep innovating in this space and help reduce these fees, so our clients no longer have to deal with them.

Open Door is one of the companies doing a lot of cool stuff in this space, but we think there can be a lot of room for improvement. Statistically, a home is roughly 64% of the average American's total lifetime net worth, and we don't think people should have to pay so much fees on top of handling their life's most valuable physical asset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's an odd business model. I think if you had any faith in your predictive ability you would just raise and run the fund yourself so as not to leave money on the table. This sounds like all the "crypto trading as a service" scams that have come up over the past few years. YC should avoid getting involved in trading businesses they don't understand. Just my 2c.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is totally understandable reaction to the business model. We do put our money where out mouth is but nonetheless it does beg the question of why we don't just do the investments ourselves.

One major issue is capital. But beyond that we also see a saw a market need for a product like this when trying to make home purchase decisions in personal life prior to creating Lofty. And that was the market and problem we wanted to address with this company - not just to be a big fund that buys real estate en masse and profits from it - but to help people who can't afford to make a bad home investment do so more comfortably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have you considered measuring RF activity in areas to approximate the number of people? I'd also imagine that a higher ratio of telecom bands as compared to wifi bands would indicate more bias visitors and therefore potentially more future growth.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea! We do not currently do this, but we do take into consideration the availability of gigabit internet as well as overall connection speeds for different neighborhoods.

This has actually proven to be statistically significant for a large number of locations across the united states.

<comment><USER21> Huh interesting, that does make sense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very cool. I just forwarded to a friend looking to buy. As a real estate investor, I can see why this would benefit a lot of people. I personally buy from a handful of turnkey operators (Midsouth Homebuyers has a 3 month vacancy guarantee), but may consider this in the future.

</comment><comment><USER23> > Before starting this company, my co-founder and I had tried to invest in > homes.

Were you guys successful?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha not at all, since we never ended up investing. We were inexperienced and didn't really know what to look for. Homes that required extensive rehab seemed too daunting and a turnkey property in a nice neighborhood was too expensive.

(This will sound like we are very lazy...) We essentially wanted to buy an affordable home that would just grow in price over the next few years without us doing anything. At the time, there were no tools to help us find homes like this, which ultimately led us to starting this company.

<comment><USER24> This makes total sense. I've had 2 rental properties, and it sounds like you guys were looking for the same thing I was. Very interesting, I'm glad to see somebody tackling this! Why is the deal for 3 years? I would anticipate that your time horizon for a good return is much longer, given that the markets you are looking at are more up and coming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your interest! The ideal timeline is actually 5 years if we want to see the majority of the growth. However, since we won't be making any revenue from the agreement until at the end of the term, 5 years is too long for a startup to go without seeing revenue. So, it's mostly a way where we can see returns sooner, which is more attractive for investors.

On the plus side, our customers can choose to buy us out after 3 years, and see 2 more years of growth after, and they wouldn't have to share that profit with anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do you use all public data like census, BLS etc. or do you have paid data as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> We do not use census data, because they are extremely outdated. It's part of the reason we can make accurate predictions before other companies can, since they do look at census data.

We use alternative data, which has recently become popular in the finance industry. For example, if you ask executives at a big company what their profit outlook is, they will always be optimistic, otherwise, their stock might decline and they may panic the market.

If you waited until the quarterly announcement, then you would be finding out at the same time as everyone else, and it's delayed information.

However, some people have found that you can more accurately predict a company's outlook on their quarterly performance by monitoring job boards and see how many open positions the company is hiring for. This allows people to gain insight and act before the rest of the market catches on.

We use the same approach but for real estate. For example, if you monitor the number of french bull dogs in a neighborhood, you can accurate predict median income values for that neighborhood before any official statistics. This is because those dogs are very expensive, so someone willing and able to spend a few thousand dollars on a pet tend to have a higher economic background.

We do use some paid sources such as satellite imagery and some data sources require you to pay for their api like our weather data vendor.

<comment><USER25> Thx for the response. We are trying to use data to help understand price movements in my own properties and I was trying to use ACS5 data, but when you get into obtaining access to tax record data it can get expensive quickly. Are you guys using any tax record data to obtain housing prices or ACS5 to get median income?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah data is always a big headache haha, so I feel your pain.

We use MLS data to obtain housing prices historically. We don't use government data for median income, instead, we estimate it directly by tracking social media posts from the neighborhood that are public.

We then run image analysis on them to detect features like the types of dogs people have, types of cars, and other stuff. It's not 100% accurate for sure, but it's given us a pretty good understanding of the median income for neighborhoods, and the data refreshes in real time too :)

<comment><USER25> Very cool thanks for the insights! To run you model you must have some baseline data to be able to train against median income. How do you do that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there any case studies you'd like to share, either here or on your site, or any other validation of your methodology? At the moment, it looks a bit like a "hot stock picks" newsletter.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do have case studies, but they are bad in the case of presentation. We are a small team so when we decided to keep our analytics internal facing, we didn't spend anytime producing marketing materials or prospectuses.

So, most of the case studies are loss values printed onto our engineer's console or .png graphs showing our walk forward predictions outputted from our engineer's notebook.

If you'd like I can dig through our slack channel to find some stuff for you. I'll check back in later to see If I can find something more presentable as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hey, this seems pretty cool. What are your thoughts on landscaping/ outdoor water use?

If that seems interesting to you and your team, you should hit me up.

</comment><comment><USER27> What is role of Real estate agent in your business model? Why would a buyer be willing to shell another 3% for a Buyers Agent?

<comment><AUTHOR> This might not be the case everywhere in the country, but typically, the seller is responsible for the agent fees. This means that if we recommend an agent for our customer, who is the buyer, that agent is actually paid for by the seller.

We have the relationship, because we do have customers who are very inexperienced and this would be their first purchase. So, a lot of them still want to have to ability to talk to an agent and ask questions about the home buying process.

<comment><USER28> Is it possible to recommend a real estate agent to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! We are always happy to add to our list of preferred agents that we recommend to customers who are unsure of which agent to go with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free GPT-3 based content filter AI - <AUTHOR> https://philosopherai.com/ <comment><USER2> I like this very neat. How did you build it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I just came across the site. The creator's Twitter is [https://twitter.com/mayfer](https://twitter.com/mayfer)</comment></comment>


Tutorial: How to use Git in a team development environment - <AUTHOR> http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/?

<comment><USER2> The author also developed git-flow, a set of extensions to help manage this workflow: <http://github.com/nvie/gitflow>

Related discussions:

\- Why aren't you using git-flow? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1617425>

\- Ask HN: What's your dev teams git multi-environment setup workflow like? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1738934>

\- Our Git Workflow: Private Development, Public Releases (at Braintree): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1611667>

\- My Git Workflow (Michael Ivey): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441670>

\- My Common Git Workflow (Yehuda Katz): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1343753>

\- Git Workflow for Agile Teams: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=624319>

</comment><comment><USER3> An old favorite:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1730788>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1460895>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1222755>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1199117>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1063198> <\- This one has comments

</comment><comment><USER4> I use and highly recommend Gerrit. <http://code.google.com/p/gerrit/> Having a code review-based workflow has shifted my team from never talking with each other and writing silos of bad code to talking with each other every day and actively working to improve things. It's probably the best thing we've ever done.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a graphical tool (along the lines of TortoiseSVN) that you can use to do all this?

The added hassle of memorizing shell commands (and opening a command prompt every time you want to commit) are just not worth any incremental benefit that Git might provide. I'm happy using SVN because it's got good tools. Surely there's an equivalent for Git?

<comment><USER6> This kind of thing is key to selling git to other members of my team.

I haven't used it, but there is a tortoisegit project: <http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/>

Anyone know the status of EGit? I can't download source or binaries; it looks like the server has been down for a couple weeks. <http://www.eclipse.org/egit/>

<comment><USER5> Nice. Assuming they've kept it nice and tortoisy, it should be an easy sell to move across. I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really handy - many thanks!

Assuming that a release-1.2.1 branch existed and a hotfix was needed, what would the the hotfix be versioned as? 1.2a? 1.2.1a? 1.2.1 and then bump the release to 1.2.2?

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure you can tag the new release with whatever you want, and these kinds of decisions are left to the developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The tip about using "--no-ff" for feature branch merges is really useful. Why ISN'T that the default.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I understand --no-ff very well, but if with it you lose the feature branch sub-commits this is why it is not the default I guess.

<comment><USER11> \--no-ff doesn't get rid of the individual commits, it just guarantees that a merge commit gets created as well, so it's easy to see what branch was merged in. If you don't use it and the commits you're merging in can be applied via fast forward, it skips creating the merge commit.

<comment><USER10> oh I see, thank you. But then the graphics on the article is misleading I guess...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tangential, but any suggestions for educating a dev team used to another VCS? (In my case, Perforce, but I'm sure e.g. svn->git advice will be useful for someone.)

I've used both git & p4 for a while and know their ins & outs, but would love to know if anybody has any suggestions for the crossover. My X-importing-to-Y experience has been limited to svn-to-git, svn-to-hg, and hg-to-git.

<comment><USER13> I made some success by showing off git-svn in the environments/places where they were still using svn. I would show off by using many local branches, by doing things like fixing bugs in another branch right away, test other developers' commits in other branches to see if they really work, or basically things that are hard to do with svn. They still get to use their svn repos as the "origin" but they meet the flexibility of git.

<comment><USER12> I'm asking about explaining git to people used to p4, importing tools, etc. They're already convinced, they're just _really_ used to the way p4 does things, p4v, etc. (TortoiseGit will help.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As someone who is learning Rails and is looking to collaborate with a partner, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER15> January 05, 2010

<comment> brown9-2 Has working with Git on a team changed much in nine months?

<comment><USER15> Significantly? Probably not. Ten months is a long time in technology and best practice/process will have changed. The age is yet another factor to consider while reading the article.

<comment><USER16> Best practices change a lot more slowly than the emergence of new technologies. For the good reason that to determine something is a best practice takes time and finding something even better takes even more time. When considering core/base technologies it's usually safe to give it a lot more than ten months before dismissing it and even in that case only in the presence of something known that could improve on it.

Replacing your best practices/processes every couple months to keep up with the latest trends is a recipe for disaster in any multi-person development environment and change breeds confusion.

That said this setup won't work for everyone nor does the author claim it should do. It's another possible tool for your belt to consider depending on your work and the team you're working with.

I guess the to short version is don't be so quick to dismiss things based off age(or lack thereof in this case) unless you can dismiss it with a proven replacement.

<comment><USER15> personally how I do things is constantly changing. Usually in small increments but I am always looking for new and better methods. Many will just just be used for a short period.

You should not however be so quick in concluding that I said to dismiss the article. I am nearly bringing attention to the fact that it is nearly a year old and to consider it while making your own evaluation of the article.

<comment><USER16> Some things I've found are best to keep fairly stable for longer periods of time. Branching policy with git is one of these. I'm not sure of your experiences with managing development teams using git but from mine I've found setting a branching policy(this one actually) and making sure people stick to it is the best way to minimize confusion and keep people on track.

Side note: I think the reason your previous comments were down voted wasn't your concern about the age of the article so much as your lack of a better alternative. If you could say "This was from Jan and this has been shown to be better" people would probably be posting stories about your new technique. To just say it is 10 months old though adds nothing to the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well gee, this looks familiar: <http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/images/branches.png></comment>


Show HN: Neural-fortran – A parallel neural net microframework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/modern-fortran/neural-fortran <comment><AUTHOR> Author here: neural-fortran is a parallel microframework for building and training fully-connected neural nets of arbitrary shape and size. This is the companion code to the Chapter 6 of my book with Manning ([https://www.manning.com/books/modern- fortran](https://www.manning.com/books/modern-fortran)) in which I explain Fortran derived types and collective subroutines.

neural-fortran may be interesting to Fortran programmers who want to learn how to implement a neural net (I think I did!), or for machine learning practitioners interested in learning more about Fortran.

This is currently a proof-of-concept, but may have potential for use in production. I don't know how fast it is, but it's about 3 times as fast as Michael Nielsen's numpy implementation which I used as reference during development.

Comments and questions are very welcome!

<comment><USER2> great interesting work. Thanks for sharing!</comment></comment>


Microsoft says antitrust bodies need to review Apple App Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-18/microsoft-says-antitrust-regulators-need-to-review-app-stores <comment><USER2> The huge tech companies that have emerged in the last couple decades have been anti-competitive than Microsoft ever was.

Remembering back to the Microsoft Internet Explorer vs US Gov't anti-trust case is almost comical next to the trillion dollar app monopolies that Google and Apple have setup.

As endless threads talk about the free-speech vs hate-speech angle, the real damage is being done thru these near-monopoly/oligopoly tech companies.

The governments of the world are either going to co-opt them into puppets or force their break-up. ...at least I hope it's one of those two, because the alternative is for them to take over and obviate any democracy we have left.

<comment><USER3> >trillion dollar app monopolies that Google and Apple have setup.

How does Apple have a monopoly? They only own 25% mobile market share globally.[1]

[1] [https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market- share/mobile/worldwide](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market- share/mobile/worldwide)

<comment><USER2> First of all, the jurisdiction of the US justice department means you need to look at the percentage market of _smart_ phones in the US - not globally and not on non-smart phones.

But more importantly - It is no different that when Microsoft tied Internet Explorer to Windows. They didn't have a monopoly either - and you don't need one to run foul of anti-trust laws.

To break the law, you simply need to use your position to put anti-competitive pressure on your competitors, exactly by pressuring and tying products together like Apple has done.

The only reason phone manufacturers have forced users to their app store is exactly to create a little monopoly on their platform.

<comment><USER4> > _But more importantly - It is no different that when Microsoft tied Internet > Explorer to Windows. They didn 't have a monopoly either - and you don't > need one to run foul of anti-trust laws._

They did. Windows had > 98% of the desktop market.

<comment><USER5> What more proof could you need? In what universe would Windows' market penetration NOT be considered a monopoly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Imagine if Microsoft would have shut down every external program on windows and charged every software developer 30% merely for running software on windows. That's the world of app stores and Apple and Google.

I have absolutely no idea why Microsoft is often hated, despite the fact that I can run whatever I want on my windows machine, compile software, download stuff from the internet, doesn't matter, and that's despite almost universal market share for decades.

Windows at the end of the day may be proprietary software and they've pulled their share of nonsense but Windows was pretty much always a genuine platform that lets you do what you want. The state of the smartphone market is unacceptable.

<comment><USER7> It would've been great. No malware on windows. No shady creditcard transfers

<comment><USER8> The fact that there are apps in both stores that turn out to be malware makes this claim demonstrably false.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A simple solution for Antitrust authorities would be to allow users to download apps from outside the app store like on Android phones.

<comment><USER10> Do people do that on Android in the countries where Apple has more than a 1/3 share? I'm not sure of the exact countries, but there's likely only a handful.

Other issues arise based on the app too. Like Hey's app fight. I'd think any area with a culture to side load apps wouldn't be a place that would get too many people [able to be] paying $100/yr service.

<comment><USER11> F-Droid is a thing. Amazon had its own app store for Fire devices. Gamers sideloaded Fortnite onto their Android devices.

It's not super common, but it happens.

<comment><USER8> While we're at it, there should be an officially supported API for app stores so you don't have to root your phone and install privilege extensions just to get the same convenience with F-Droid as with the Play Store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith said it's time for antitrust regulators > in the U.S. and Europe to discuss tactics that app stores use to take > advantage of those who want to distribute their software.

I agree. Microsoft store on Windows 10 should accept browser engine other than Microsoft Edge like Firefox. It's insane on Windows 10S you can't use any other browser other than Microsoft Edge.

<comment><USER13> Has Firefox released a UWP version for the windows store?

<comment><USER14> > No. When you're using Windows 10 in S mode, Microsoft Edge is always the > default web browser, and Bing is the default search engine. But you can > access other browsers and search engines while in S mode. You can download > any browser available in the Microsoft Store in Windows, and you can > navigate to any other search engine website. [0]

Would it matter if it did, considering that it cannot become the default browser? If you cannot modify the default (without permanently switching out of S mode) then in all likelihood, even if you have downloaded a different browser, you'll end up using the default eventually.

[0] [https://support.microsoft.com/en- us/help/4020089/windows-10-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en- us/help/4020089/windows-10-in-s-mode-faq)

<comment><USER13> I think it matters whether a platform disallows an app or just disallows setting that app to default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Microsoft should know. They got burned to the tune of tens of billions of $ trying to fight against Apple/Google duopoly with Windows Phone. I still miss it. It was truly a better designed system than both ios and android.

</comment><comment><USER11> Microsoft, like many companies, wants the law to work one way for themselves and another way for their competitors.

Fun fact: Microsoft filed an amicus brief in favor of Google in _Oracle v. Google_. Yet in the 90s, they themselves asserted copyright over an API when Sun tried to get the Windows API published as an ECMA standard.

<comment><USER16> What you mean? They were punished for a crime and now are asking if someone doing similar things to what they previously did (not anymore) should not face consequences as well.

If I ran a red light 10 years ago, and got ticketed, surely I can demand that you be ticketed as well if you run a red light today.</comment></comment>