Pay Scale For Freshers in India - <AUTHOR> http://cdprashanth.blogspot.com/2007/12/pay-scale-for-freshers-in-india.html <comment><USER2> complete blog jack. I'd mod you down if I could.</comment>


Ask HN: Can a new LinkedIn competitor survive? If yes, what strategies can help? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> A LN competitor should do more to encourage meaningful discussion in the forums and find a way to keep recruiters from using the site to troll for qualified applicants.Really, the glut of recruiters on LN makes it near- impossible to effectively network on the site anymore. Instead of charging real professionals, they should charge the recruiters through the nose and segregate them like the bottom feeders they are.

<comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't agree more. Thanks a lot for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A new LinkedIn competitor can survive and it can even thrive.

Off the top of my head, some of LinkedIn's competitors include the likes of:

BranchOut

Viadeo

Xing

Bizily

partnerup

company.com

Zerply

If you're looking for what strategies can help to survive, then you should look at how those guys have grown (not only the likes of Viadeo/Xing but how BranchOut have done leveraging the Facebook Platform).

Likewise, you should look at how you can make it "better" in a way that will entice users to join - Zerply mainly tries to do this via better looking profiles. This feature may involve something related to _recruiters_ \- maybe even giving them a seperate profile - where they can still find people to recruit for their clients but also so people can use the service for what its for _networking_.

Infact, you shouldn't limit yourself to looking at how LinkedIn and its competitors have grown - you should also look at other Social Networks and how they've grown as well e.g. Instagram, Badoo, Tagged etc

Similarly, if you're planning on "going viral" and a "great product" then it _isn't_ enough! You _need_ to have a great distribution strategy above anything else.

And if you want to create a _"LinkedIn Killer"_ then it has to be significantly different like how Facebook _was_ to Myspace and for LinkedIn to not notice it (you have to appear different enough from LinkedIn so they simply don't copy the features), in order for you to stay under-the-radar for long enough where you hit a tipping point where, everyone joins your service and you completely take over the market

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of good advice there; many thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not going to read any of the other comments before responding because I don't want to bias myself.

Create a LI competitor that can get me a new job and I'll use it. In fact, I'll be willing to pay you thousands and the company that ends up hiring me will pay you thousands.

The value proposition is pretty undeniable. The problem is that I doubt that there is really a technological fix to the problem of inefficient labor markets. It would take more social hacking than machine hacking to facilitate transactions.

Some hints at what will work: 1) Don't focus on employees or employers looking to fill traditional roles. Someone with the "expected" resume will have no problem finding a job and the potential employer will have no trouble finding someone like that. 2) Create a platform so that people can interact face to face in real life. The problem with a lot of tech people is that they're too trusting. Most business types want to interact face to face because "that's the way it's done." Why is it done that way? Because you can't record what people say in face to face contact. 3) Don't work with HR or recruiters. They usually don't possess the domain knowledge to think creatively about new endeavors.

Message me if you want to discuss further. I won't invest (at least probably not), but I will be your first customer.

<comment><USER5> Great thoughts! I had a couple similar thoughts but think it's more complicated to execute. To continue this discussion offline, what's the best way to contact you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A really strong feature in my mind would be one that highly encourages mentoring between site members. Provide a short list of mentor recommendations to both the mentor and mentees, and reward both with profile badges to encourage others to do the same.

</comment><comment><USER7> A common strategy is to sign up users with LinkedIn auth and develop extra functionality around LinkedIn data.

I'm only aware of one American company intended to be a LinkedIn killer, Zerply. Its distinguishing feature is better-looking profiles. It also used LinkedIn auth to import data.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are already some LinkedIn competitor out there that do more than survive. In France Viadeo (<http://viadeo.com>) is pretty popular/used.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rightly mentioned. So, do you see any common gap they all have where a new competitor can capitalize on?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What revenue generating side projects do full-time employees here have? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> New account because I don't want my employers knowing.

My sideproject on iOS and Android generates 1.1M a year. About 90-100k a month.

I'm still employed because the app runs on its own, very low maintenance, so might as well get a salary doing something else and learn new things

<comment><USER3> My question is how do you still have employers when you're making 1.1M a year. Jeez.

<comment><USER4> Certainly is amazing!

I want to know the secrets to being such a good company and/or manager that you can keep someone earning 1.1m on your staff!

<comment><USER2> Lots and lots of work! Go home at 6pm, work till midnight. Eventually it paid off for me but a lot of times I thought it was just digging a hole to nowhere.

<comment><USER5> I think the GP was asking about how your company/manager is able to keep you working there.

<comment><USER6> I'd guess it's not the company keeping GP there; it's GP choosing not to leave.

<comment><USER2> You got it! Nothing that special about the company but it's in a good enough space that I choose to hang around and learn as much as I can about the space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I run this website: [http://step2scheduling.com](http://step2scheduling.com) It is solving the problem of scheduling step 2 CS exam for medical students. It uses selenium to refresh and check for schedule openings and automatically book tests for students. I coded it up for my G/F some time ago when she needed to schedule a test and couldn't find an opening. Now I'm making $500/month for doing next to nothing.

<comment><USER8> Very interesting! I founded ReSchedule Med ([https://reschedulemed.com](https://reschedulemed.com)) to solve scheduling problems that residency programs have. Our solution is quite different but it's so cool that you've worked on a medical scheduling app- quite the niche space.

I'd love to chat! Email is in my profile if you're interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A buddy and I started [https://goatattack.com](https://goatattack.com) last year. It doesn't generate a ton of revenue but we enjoy it and people seem to like it. It runs itself at this point.

<comment><USER10> Any plan to support international numbers? That would be nice.

<comment><USER9> As soon as Twilio supports it. Right now it looks like they've added Canada so I need to add that to the website. [https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-i- send-or-receive-mm...](https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-i-send-or- receive-mms-messages)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I built a drop-ship site, it started as a way to play with some ideas I had at work. As a platform, I think it can scale pretty well... it has a super flexible EDI system allowing me to automate suppliers, inventory system, custom website, order management system, advertising feeds etc. It's built to handle thousands of suppliers, products, and orders, and has all the bells and whistles.

But I only really make enough to afford enough beer to wash away my regrets of spending so much time building this thing.

<comment><USER12> I attempted a drop shipping site as well, didn't go anywhere. Thankfully I used wordpress to set it up so not too much of a time waste, but only after building it did I realize its all about marketing your product. Not only that, the drop shipping suppliers are supplying to anyone that wants to do it, so there is plenty of competition.

<comment><USER11> I think drop shipping can be a very profitable business model, but it doesn't work for things with brand names. If you can google the product easily you're going to end up competing on price, and then the big guys with better pricing deals will win every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generating about 16k/mo after about 6 months building an Amazon FBA business selling private label goods from Alibaba. Spend about 1 hour per week managing inventory, the rest (shipping, returns, support) is automated through Amazon and other various services.

<comment><USER14> I'm interested in something like this. May I pm you?

<comment><USER13> Yea sure, there is definitely a learning curve but simple once you know what to look out for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wrote an e-book novel. So far, I have made about $24. I probably spent more than that on the electricity to run Notepad++ and 7-Zip, but OP asked for "revenue-generating", not "profitable".

It's not bad writing; I'm just terrible at sales/promotion. I don't really do it for the money, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER16> I built [http://www.whatsmyua.com/](http://www.whatsmyua.com/) for myself back in college, it reports and breaks down browser's User Agent strings. It now brings in $20-30/month via adsense.

I also built [https://github.com/nfriedly/node- unblocker](https://github.com/nfriedly/node-unblocker) around the same time, it's a web proxy for evading government/corporate/school/etc. filters. When I had a copy of it online, it got a lot of traffic from around the world, and used to earn anywhere from $10 to $100/month from adsense, depending on the month. However, it wasn't worth the effort of keeping it online due to abuse + clueless sysadmins.

Unblocker also earned me a consulting fee a couple of times from folks who wanted help integrating it into their project, and I ended up converting it from a standalone site to an Express middleware to make that easier.

<comment><USER17> I couldn't see any ads on your "whatsmyua" site. Is there anything you control on when and when not to show ads? Also, I would like to know whether that 20-30$ is consistent over months.

Nice site by the way

<comment><USER16> There's a single adsense banner between the big user agent string and the JSON details, and just the standard adsense code, nothing to disable it. Google might just not have had any inventory when you checked (or you have an adblocker?)

And, looking at my history, "$20-30" is accurate for the past few months, but it was lower further back. This is the past 12 months, starting at July 2015: $12.41, 4.40, 21.29, 16.12, 13.38, 12.96, 15.56, 11.52, 23.93, 26.04, 23.84, 30.56.

It's been online since 2011 and more or less trending upwards, but last month was the first time ever to break $30.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Standard trolling-but-not-entirely answer, I'll probably get $8-10k worth of dividends this year from investing and holding in a bunch of low-cost index funds.

<comment><USER12> I actually appreciated your answer, because its easy to lose sight of truly passive options to make money. If you don't mind, how much do you have to invest to get that $8-$10k worth of dividends?

<comment><USER19> Unless my math is horribly wrong, $8,000/year of dividends in an ETF like SDY would cost you about $400,000 right now.

<comment><USER20> that sounds roughly correct

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been running [http://serializer.io](http://serializer.io) for over a year. I get $3 a month as a recurring donation.

</comment><comment><USER22> Me and the wife started [https://arnestorp.se](https://arnestorp.se) (Swedish) selling babynests about a year ago, along side two regular jobs.

It's been steadily increasing in sales volume to the point where my wife has cut some hours from her regular job to be able to keep up.

As she does all the real work (sewing) I've been able to focus on fun stuff like automating all the payment handling, bookkeeping, shipping etc.

<comment><USER23> Babynests seem to be a Nordic thing, I guess? Personally, I had never heard of them until I read your comment. For what it's worth, the US market seems to be quite unexplored, something you might want to consider. They look really cool, although there might be some safety concerns. I think that US pediatricians are currently unanimously recommending flat empty cribs / bassinets (no side padding or loose blankets) for newborns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I DJ and coach powerlifting on the side, that earns me about $500/mo - not all side hustles are tech-related :)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm running a website called Narrow ([http://narrow.io](http://narrow.io)) on the side. It's a Twitter marketing automation company that was started not for the love of Twitter but the desire to get the benefits of Twitter without having to do a lot of work. Lazy, I know, but I'm a programmer after all. Let the computer do the work.

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://hackerlists.com/](https://hackerlists.com/) \- The goal is to create awesome lists of hacking & programming related resources for people to reference. I've had a couple of lists do really well on social media so far [1][2], but I'm quickly learning that my knowledge limitations are preventing me from creating the quality of lists that I want the site to be known for. Therefore, I'm starting to put my energy into finding a freelance writer with a technical background that can write at the quality level I want for the site. But so far I've broken even in the first month.

[1] [https://hackerlists.com/hacking-sites/](https://hackerlists.com/hacking- sites/)

[2] [https://hackerlists.com/free-machine-learning- books/](https://hackerlists.com/free-machine-learning-books/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I created a mobile game in 2014 that gets about 300 new users a day and generates about $1000 in pre-tax revenue a month

<comment><USER27> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.jrenner.su...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.jrenner.superior&hl=en) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I run [https://ubersuggest.io](https://ubersuggest.io) a simple keyword suggestion tool. On average I have 80k monthly unique users.

<comment><USER26> I'm quite surprised that you only average 80k uniques/month. With how much I see this tool being recommended throughout the SEO community, I thought it would've been a lot more.

Have other similar tools cut into your traffic?

<comment><USER28> I think this is due to the fact that in web marketing many people love to talk about tools they actually don't use (that much). By the way my traffic slightly increased over the last few months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When I am not doing software development, I like spending time hiking and backpacking in the outdoors. In 2014 my family and I successfully thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. To fund the project we produced a video series about the hike, which we sold on a subscription basis. We launched a Kickstarter project to pre-sell a bunch of subscriptions ([https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dtougas/beyond-our- boun...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dtougas/beyond-our-boundaries-a- family-backpacking-video-s?ref=user_menu)). We now have the video series for sale on Vimeo ([https://vimeo.com/ondemand/boundaries](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/boundaries)) which sells a little bit of something every month (not a lot).

My next side project has been to create a social/micro-blogging platform for outdoor enthusiasts ([https://outsideways.com/](https://outsideways.com/)). It currently isn't generating any revenue (it just launched in May), but I have big plans for it if/when it gets a core group of users contributing regularly.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't have a project but I have always been wondering if there is some open- source style software (with a license that allows this of course) that would let me customize the software and sell it to other businesses and get small recurring income as a SaaS product (like $70 a month). Think small restaurant inventory management, pricing, CRM, software for real estate brokers to manage clients, dentist online appointment tracker etc. etc.

Thoughts ?

<comment><USER31> You don't need to for most open-source software. You are free to take any GPLv2 software, modify it and host it on your own servers and charge a usage fee, all without publicly releasing your changes - it's an unforeseen catch in certain open-source licenses that only requires source release if the customer can get their hands on the binaries - if it's accessed through a browser or over the network then they lose that privilege.

<comment><USER32> This is what AGPL fixes, BTW. That's why many web based tools are under AGPL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've been running Flextory ([http://flextory.com](http://flextory.com)) for years now. However, the revenue it makes is pretty small now and customers have dropped off as more niche solutions come into existence.

I've thought about selling it or even just open sourcing it though. Maybe one day. It's been a really fun project though.

</comment><comment><USER34> [http://dummyimage.com](http://dummyimage.com) does fairly well considering I haven't touched it since it appeared on Hacker News in 2010 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077013)

<comment><USER26> How well does Carbon Ads perform?

Have you compared it against something like Google Adsense?

<comment><USER34> $10 - $40 a month depending on traffic. Seems to be higher earning than Adsense.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the info. I might give it a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm running a test prep class for the new FAA Remote Pilot License, which will be required this fall for all non-hobby drone operators: [http://twincitiesdroneschool.com](http://twincitiesdroneschool.com)

</comment><comment><USER36> [https://rebrickable.com](https://rebrickable.com) \- A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs.

</comment><comment><USER37> I built my first SaaS app [http://sharpplm.com](http://sharpplm.com), Quote Management for manufacturing companies. It has been pretty much autopilot and is still making $2k per year.

I am currently working on [http://gemssports.com](http://gemssports.com). It is activity, payments, member management for sports companies. Think sports trainers, tournaments, softball teams, etc. We are just getting rolling but having some good success.

</comment><comment><USER31> About six years ago I pretty-much single handedly wrote the entire backend for [http://www.ComedyCalls.com](http://www.ComedyCalls.com) and other sites like [http://www.WakeUpDialer.com](http://www.WakeUpDialer.com), [http://www.CallMyLostPhone.com](http://www.CallMyLostPhone.com), [http://www.BirthdayDialer.com](http://www.BirthdayDialer.com), and others - see the links in the footer. The PSTN system is all in-house (and we pay a LOT less per-call than what Twilio, for example, charges).

I have a 25% stake in the company - but I don't get much money myself, less than $1000/mo on average. This is because of our thin margins, and because my other business partners own the other 75% (50% is owned by the founder who created the sites back in 2008 using cheap outsourced labour that I was brought in to rewrite) and the other 25% is owned by another person for historical reasons. Furthermore because none of us spend much time on it anymore - or get much money from it - we're all very hesitant to spend money on marketing or advertising (we got marketing quotes starting at $5000/mo - and my co-owners are unconvinced that advertising would help at all), hence the impasse.

We do plan to create some new additional sites and services that have higher margins, including launching a "Twilio-lite"-like API which would offer much less functionality (as our backend is not as sophisticated as theirs) but would also cost less per-call. But that, too, would require marketing to get the word out.

If anyone here is a VC or is otherwise interested in investing for marketing, or is a marketing expert yourself, or interested in using our system - we'd be happy to talk a deal.

We did sell one of our older sites to a web publishing company a few years ago that went for almost a six-figure value - but unfortunately for me, that was after I wrote the entire stack, but before I was granted part-ownership (so I was just paid for my time: 3 hours to set a clone of the system up on the buyer's infrastructure).

One of my "rivals" \- the creator of WakeUp.io posted his site to last month's "Show HN" thread, now it's my turn :)

</comment><comment><USER38> [https://www.versionsql.com](https://www.versionsql.com) \- Version control add-in for SQL Server Management Studio. Built it for myself after lamenting a lack of affordable source control options for SQL Server -- turns out there's other people in the same situation :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> I run a small platform for a couple of web designing friends. They can deploy webshops at the touch of a button while having full control over the design. It saves them the effort of having to ask more techy folks for assistance, and it lets me focus on more interesting things.

Started off at 3k EUR revenue a year, currently at about 2k. It doesn't cost me any effort.

<comment><USER40> Would be interested in this. Are you looking for a new customer?

<comment><USER39> I would be interested, but the way it's set up is kind of tailored to the way my friends work. It would take some time to make it more generally useful. I think there other platforms out there that do the same thing in a more generic fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A new website for sports timing data for Alphamantis [http://alphamantis.com/](http://alphamantis.com/)

Written in F# using the Suave.IO functional web libraries. It will be a site coaches/athletes can use to view/analyze data from their workouts, races etc. Lots of tables, graphs. Runs on Linux cloud vms.

</comment><comment><USER42> [https://play.freeciv.org](https://play.freeciv.org) generates revenue with ads.

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://moviemagnet.net](https://moviemagnet.net) I don't make more than a few quid extra over hosting costs each month.

</comment><comment><USER44> Apart from venusflytrap90, it seems that not many devs have profitable side incomes -- or maybe are not willing to speak about them.

<comment><USER45> I would guess some people who had a profitable side project turned it into their primary source of income. Someone making $1000 a month from a side project can't afford to quit their day job. Someone making $10k a month from a side project can probably afford to quit their job and make the side project their primary focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> None anymore, my new contract explicitly disallows side ventures. But about a year ago a friend and I built a screenshot-sharing service when CloudApp raised their prices. It's basically a dock app that watches for new screenshots and auto-uploads to the cloud, the same thing Dropbox and tons of others do. We never made money off of it, but learning stuff like how to incorporate and some new tech was worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER47> Job hunting ;)

In all honesty, I find that when people working full-time jobs look for side projects, either their not happy with the job they have or their job underpays them. (That's not to say that working on fun side projects that happen to lead to revenue is a bad thing, but seeking side project revenue is not a great indicator).

Things that I've heard from friends: \- Shopify sites \- Consulting \- Tutoring / teaching \- Affiliate sales

<comment><USER48> > In all honesty, I find that when people working full-time jobs look for side > projects, either their not happy with the job they have or their job > underpays them.

Or they just don't get fulfilled spending all day making someone else rich?

<comment><USER49> To add to this, I also don't get to program as part of my day job so it let's me scratch my creative/building and making itch that I do not get as a business analyst.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Uses of hidden space behind the iPhone X notch? - <AUTHOR> Hello.
I know the iPhone X is not out just yet, but it's in the hands of some media people and a few developers. I'm looking forward to getting it or getting my hands on it.
Here is my question. Do you see any uses for the hidden space behind the notch?
I saw that apps can render behind the notch, but it's not visible while the app is fullscreen, but if you go to the app switcher, the whole app is visible. Here is a little funny proof of concept. https://youtu.be/doEwhLtsACU
I thought about achievement-type games or puzzle games could use this, but its a once-off trick.
Do you see any other use for that? Probably people here are more creative than me :) <comment><USER2> It makes sense that the pixels are there, as rotating the phone by 180 degrees shows those pixels, too.

I expect the notch disappears in screen shots, too.</comment>


U.S. Subprime Auto Loan Losses Reach Highest Level Since the Financial Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-10/u-s-subprime-auto-loan-losses-reach-highest-level-since-crisis <comment><USER2> Selfish plug here but this industry is our bread and butter (our company hosts the data rooms and powers the marketing for the vast majority of subprime auto backed securitizations in the US). Below is a link to issuance volume going back to 2008. You'll see that big banks are not the leading originators in this market and at peak (2016) we're talking $26bn in loans (versus hundreds of billions in subprime mortgages). Additionally, unlike mortgages on second and third homes, people are far less likely to default on a car rather than a home because in suburban America, you need your car to keep your job, regardless of where you live.

Finsight Subprime Auto issuance profile: [https://finsight.com/sector/Auto/Subprime%20Loan](https://finsight.com/sector/Auto/Subprime%20Loan)

<comment><USER3> i think the point you are trying to make is that auto loans are safer but you failed to express two massive considerations:

first, and foremost, mortgages are secured against a physical piece of property that will almost always retain a significant portion of the original value. in the recession, homes might have lost 60-80% of their value, but they all bounced back reasonably over time. in contrast, a vehicle loses a huge portion of its value immediately and by the time a car is 20 years old, its not even worth repossessing.

second, homes can't move. you have a much better chance of repossessing a house than you do of repoing a car.

finally, just for fun. your claim that people are less likely to default on a car loan because they need to work is taken out of context at best, or possibly is just plain incorrect considering the prevelance of ride sharing tools and public transit. People only need to keep their cars for work.... if they have jobs.

<comment><USER4> Nobody will finance a 20 year old car (outside of specialty collector markets).

Even 72, 84 months is _insane_. If you need to finance a car for that long to afford the payments, you need to buy a cheaper car.

<comment><USER5> All of the safety and fuel regulations have sent the prices of cars into the stratosphere.

Any kind of large car that you would want for a family is well north of $30. I paid as much more for a 1 year old minivan recently than I paid for a year old BMW 15 years ago.

<comment><USER6> No, safety and fuel regulations did not send prices of cars into the stratosphere. In the 1960's suburbs of Philadelphia, gas was 30 cents a gallon, a nice new car was $3k, the house cost $30k, and Dad made $10k as a VP of engineering at a small firm. Right now, all three are almost exactly 10x what they were then; so cars have not gone up more than regular inflation.

And, to top it off, today's car reliability is way, way higher, as is the quality (in the 60's, we were thrilled if a car lasted 6 years and got 80k miles; nowadays, that's about half of what you'd expect. And the safety is wildly improved (like, for instance, air bags, never mind seat belts!)

<comment><USER7> Don't forget maintenance! Old cars needed far more maintenance far more often. This 6-7k miles every 6 months thing is just absurd.

Cars got oil changes every 1k miles, not 3k or 7k. Just for starters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use to work on a CRM specific to dealerships and I cannot say I am surprised.

There is so much data on cars and what their worth (KBB, truCar, etc) nowadays it is tough to make much of a profit on the car itself.

Most make their money in the finance or service department. It was not uncommon for a loan to be 5-6 years long or for a buy-here pay-here play to charge up to 25-30% APR

<comment><USER9> Indeed. Auto manufacturers don't sell vehicles, they sell debt. I've heard this is a good reason to withhold that you are paying cash at a dealer until the last moment and work the best deal you can as if you are going to use their financing. They are much more interested in making a loan than making a sale.

<comment><USER10> I just bought two new cars, a Chevy Volt and a Mazda CX-9. The dealers couldn't care less how I was going to pay, nor whether I purchased or leased. They barely even tried to sell me extended warranties.

In fact, Mazda gave me a $500 incentive to borrow at 0% for 5 years. My GM loan was also 0% (but no incentive). So obviously they aren't making anything loaning me money.

Further, I find it hard to believe there's no or slim profits in the sales. I think I did a pretty good job negotiating. I don't even mind disclosing the numbers.

The Volt had an MSRP of $40,325. I managed a $38,258.25 sales price + $1147.75 tax + $94 tag less $1000 rebate for $38,500 out the door. The invoice on this car is supposedly $38,651.

The CX-9 was a similar situation, with an out the door price below invoice.

Both dealers I purchased from were in fact a bit out of town and had to secure the vehicles from other area dealerships. They knew I wasn't likely to use their service departments (each is almost an hour away), so I doubt they cared about any more than making the sale. The sale alone has to have been profit motivated.

Now, maybe individually they didn't make a lot of money on these sales. But it has to be the case that they are making money on their total sales volume. Maybe they'll take a loss on a sale or two if it puts them above a quota which gets them a huge bonus.

These dealers are obviously costly to operate. They have a lot of real estate and the show rooms are beautiful. They hold a ton of inventory for months at a time. I just can't believe they could exist on the slim margins they claim they make on each sale. I would be shocked if they aren't easily clearing 20% or more on average on sales alone, even on deals like mine.

<comment><USER11> What'd you use to buy the vehicles? Did you use an internet purchase tool or a blast fax [1]?

[1] [http://credit.typepad.com/credit/2006/04/buying_a_car_wi.htm...](http://credit.typepad.com/credit/2006/04/buying_a_car_wi.html)

<comment><USER10> I started with Edmunds and True Car. This turned out to be a waste of time as in the deals I got through those sites were just okay.

I also did some research on gm-volt.com and mazdas247.com to see what other folks claimed to be getting in terms of pricing.

Eventually I contacted a bunch of dealers that I knew had the car I wanted (Mazda and GM's web sites will show you all the inventory in an area) via email and asked them what their best price was. The dealers near me which had the cars on their lot didn't offer me the best prices though.

In the end, I got the best prices (and the most pleasant sales experience) from two dealers each about an hour from home. They were happy to negotiate via email. Even though they didn't have the specific car I wanted, both claimed they could secure it from other dealers, which they did. Both of those dealers had the most aggressive price up front and I was able to get them each to come down a bit from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do we allow the securitization of these loans? Securitization is just a way to move risk oversight and responsibility from the lender to the customer of the security.

<comment><USER13> Why wouldn't we? It's the customer of any financial product's job to do sufficient due diligence. That's like saying "selling stock is just a way to move risk oversight and responsibility from the company to the shareholder", every time the market dips.

The only problem with the subprime _housing_ crisis was that its sheer scale caused the government to have to step in, and almost caused the collapse of the banking sector. However, correct me if i'm wrong, but there's no such risk here. And as such, this is just some investors making a bad bet - which is perfectly fine and to be expected in the course of capitalism.

<comment><USER14> Wasn't there a problem with the ratings agencies failing to do their job properly?

<comment><USER13> Yes, there was. But that's a problem that can arise in any market. It's ultimately the buyer's job to do their DD. These car loan securities aren't being sold to retail investors - they're being bought and sold by pension firms and hedge funds. Sophisticated people that can and should do their own DD. Whether or not they do it is on them. There's no need for the government to step in here, because the only consequences are to the investors themselves, not the general public.

The global financial crisis was a unique case, due to how widespread and enormous the size of the problem was. If these mortgage backed securities hadn't been so huge, it would have been a non-story about how some investors lost money by making a bad bet (i.e. what happens every single day on wall street).

<comment><USER15> Part of being able to do DD is expecting integrity from auditors, and ratings agencies. One of the big problems of 2008 was that the rating agencies were, essentially, conducting fraud on a massive scale.

Perhaps it is a bit naive of me to expect either from a financial firm... But it really is in their best interests to maintain some semblance of law and order in their dealings.

After all, if things get bad enough, there will not be a shortage of hemp and lampposts.

<comment><USER13> In the financial crisis, maybe. But there is no indication that is going on here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish they would put numbers in context. They say the losses of 9.1% are "the worst since January 2010" but they don't say what the worst losses were then. If it's 9.1% now and it was 10% then, then yeah we're pretty close to the worst ever. If it was 25% then or something it might be the worst _since then_ but it's still not nearly as bad as the worst.

</comment><comment><USER17> While I'm not a fan of a looming crisis, I don't see enough critical mass to this space to have a lot of concern for macro impact.

It is also worth realizing that while the great recession trained us to be scared of news like this, defaults are a sign of risk taking and not necessarily a bad thing.

Case in point, YC tries to make good bets, but they have a lot of losers in their portfolio. And in that case, we're talking about unsecured debt.

<comment><USER18> It's a macro risk if large banks are so overexposed that they can fail. Otherwise it can be contained.

<comment><USER17> Only bank I know of with really risky auto practice is perhaps Santander. The world will keep turning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm shocked! Shocked I say! I've seen this coming for a decade. Dealers are practically giving the cars away with near 0% financing. Everything in the financial world has been a race to the bottom for a long time. You can say it started with the severing of the link to gold backed currency. The dollar has lost 97% of value since then, the fed pumps up one bubble after another, telecom, housing, auto, student loan, etc. The bubbles barely pop before they are inflated into a much bigger one in another sector. And they keep moving around the globe. The currency is the problem and the central banking. All currencies are circling the drain requiring more and more intervention and bubble inflating to stay alive. I'm quite certain I'll see all paper crash in my lifetime.

<comment><USER20> A broken clock is correct twice a day. I can't debunk your economic conspiracy theories in one comment, but I will make two points. 1) This article is talking about subprime loans. No one gives sub prime borrowers a zero percent interest rate because they are the riskiest borrowers. So by you using that as proof of a subprime auto loan crisis shows that you don't understand what is actually happening here. 2) You can't claim to be seeing a bubble occuring for ten years. I mean, I guess you can and you will be guaranteed to be correct on a long enough time line, but the point is it doesn't mean anything. There is an established business cycle. No one cares about an economic prediction without a timeline.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Overbilling on Microsoft Azure - <AUTHOR> I'm hoping to get two things from this question
I want to find out if anyone else has had this issue, and if so, what did they do about it.
Our story:
In September 2019, a bug (I can only imagine that is what it was) caused Microsoft Azure to bill us double the amount we should be paying. Over $1k extra per month.
I contacted Azure, and they couldn't figure out the issue. It took until January for them to find the reason they were overcharging us. It was completely on their side. It was nothing we could ever see, or change, and nothing we ever did which caused the issue.
During this time, they had continued to overbill us, and never refunded the amount of overbilling.
Once the issue got all sorted out, I had assumed they would refund us the amount which we were overcharged.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. They actually want to overbill us one more time, because, as they say, they've already created that invoice, and they don't want to refund us at all, they want to apply the overcharges to our invoices going forward.
We need to make payroll, and have other bills to pay and having Microsoft hold thousands of dollars of ours for no reason is unacceptable.
Anybody else had similar experience? Any suggestions on what to do?
Most of our services are run on AWS, but there are a few things we need to keep on Azure for a little bit. <comment><USER2> Re-open your support request once again with Azure Support and ask to have it escalated to a manager for review and assistance.

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been going on for 8 months, I've escalated multiple times.</comment></comment>


Shop3 – Hierarchical Task Planner in Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shop-planner/shop3 <comment><USER2> This is amazing.

I'm literally in the middle of writing a scheduling system for production at work and the nomenclature and descriptions are pointing me at all sorts of interesting stuff I didn't know about in this domain.

There are times when I lament the lack of a hard comp-sci background and this has been one of them, scheduling is hard.

<comment><USER3> [https://eclipseclp.org](https://eclipseclp.org) might also be some good for thought.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Automatic Broken Link Building with Python - <AUTHOR> http://acostanza.com/2018/03/15/broken-link-building-automation-python-marketers/ <comment><USER2> Would be really cool if you considered booking your script to something like algosaur.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I haven't heard of algosaur before, I'll take a look!</comment></comment>


Show HN: ComicsInventory.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.comicsinventory.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my first mini startup. Lets you upload cover images and track values and inventory your comics. Its built using asp.net mvc and Amazon services. Over 1,100 users so far and just got my first 3 paying customers!</comment>


What if the VW Beetle had never existed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171025-what-if-the-vw-beetle-had-never-existed <comment><USER2> This is a bit of an understatement:

"The Nazi leader's interest in the vehicle was such that he even contributed his own sketch of what he felt the vehicle should look like, although it only has a passing resemblance to the final designs."

I think they should go back to Hitler's original sketch and look again. In my opinion, Hitler came up with the fundamental look of the Beetle. This goes beyond "only a passing resemblance" to what we know as the Beetle today.

Reference: [http://www.brandpowder.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/small-...](http://www.brandpowder.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/small-volkswagen00.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Hitler was influenced by Tatra, a Czech automobile company. If you look at that sketch, it is solidly Tatra. Porsche himself was deeply influenced by that company. Many of the basic ideas of the Beetle had been done before by Tatra, including the rear engine layout.

The bones of the first Porsches have as much Czech in them as Austrian.

None of this is speculation, but history.

<comment><USER4> What happened to Tatra, and in general the Czech industry, since 1938, is a real tragedy.

<comment><USER5> Tatra was fine during the war. It's decline started with the ascent of communism and it's planned economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is barely touched in the article but while it killed some competitors, were it not for the Beetle we may not have gotten the iconic Porsche 356, and thus none of the subsequent 911 lineage.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, this is a much-better comparison than the rather ham-fisted one with Apple squeezed in at the end of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm rather appalled to note that an article published by the BBC contains two instances of the greengrocer's apostrophe. All that licence money, and none to spare to hire a sub-editor?

<comment><USER9> > This website is produced by BBC Global News Ltd, a commercial company owned > by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to > create this website. The money we make from it is re-invested to help fund > the BBC's international journalism.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it wise to use affiliate marketers to promote a startup? - <AUTHOR>

We've been developing some educational video products with a reputable author which we are planning to promote through Adwords.
We've been approached by a friend of a friend who claims to be able to use his contacts in the "affiliate" and "super affiliate" world to drive sales of our product. They were saying the product would be sold through Clickbank.
They've made wild claims, such as the possibilities of making tens of thousands of dollars in pure profit in just the first few weeks. This will apparently happen when the affiliates they have "relationships" with send out the offer to members of their mailing lists.
It sounds like we'll have no control over what the affiliates will do to drive traffic, which is extremely worrying.
They also warned that we might want to sell it under a second brand name, because some affiliates will create websites with titles such as "Is [product/author] a scam?" in order to get people to click their search result link. This page will apparently actually commend the product and then earn affiliate commission if anyone clicks to buy.
We'd hope they have legitimately aquired opt-in mailing lists to promote our offer to, but we simply won't know. I've seen lots of big brands such as 1-800-flowers use affiliates heavily to drive their promotions. Perhaps those big brands are only making affiliate deals in an extremely quality controlled manner, rather than opening it up to any affiliate that is interested?
They are willing to arrange this for us for free and share 50/50 in the upside with us, so at least that tells us they have some genuine intention of getting us real sales.
Is our caution misplaced? Could anyone share their experiences with using affiliates please? <comment><USER2> Hi.

Yes, you can make loads of money through this method. I once launched a product and did $300K in the first week of sales and created a 10K list, all driven by affiliates, all from scratch, offering 50% commissions to affiliates. I got most of the affiliates myself through networking at marketing conferences and also had an affiliate manager, who helped get more.

Normally an affiliate manager works on a 10% commission, though that is just recruiting and managing affiliates - I don't know what else they are planning to do for you. I question 50%, but if your product needs to be positioned better, sales site done, etc, perhaps it makes sense. If all they are doing is putting you on ClickBank, then you are being hosed. A really good affiliate manager is in high demand.

The "scam marketing" thing is accurate, though 95% of your sales will probably come from the top 20 affiliates, so you can simple work directly with people who are likely to be the op 20 and set your rules and exclude everyone else. You can also make it very clear that if certain rules are broken, commissions will be forfeit.

It's preferable to use your brand name as your affiliates will build it up for you. Good affiliates will provide honest reviews and add value. Bad affiliates will hurt your brand.

Slightly unrelated, udemy.com might be something worth looking into.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their pitch to us was that if we just placed our site on ClickBank, then it would be ignored due to lack of track record. However, they said their relationships could get us noticed by large affiliates from day one.

Does this sound like they can offer us something far beyond what an 'affiliate manager' would do for a 10% share? They will not be helping us much at all with copywriting/positioning etc. They say most of their value is simply in their relationships.

Is it true we will be mostly ignored if we try and put ourselves on Clickbank without their help?

Do you have any tips on finding an affiliate manager?

Thanks, much appreciated!

<comment><USER2> I just asked a contact who works at ClickBank. He said it depends on if it is a fairly competitive niche or something less mainstream, and if it is is fairly competitive, it will get lost among all the other products in a big niche, as people only look at the first couple of pages of results when looking for products. The main takeaway is that there is "basically a zero chance it will just get found and picked up by affiliates without an affiliate recruitment strategy."

He also agrees that "someone asking for 50% is WAY too high" (his caps) and agrees that 10% is more like it, though many affiliate managers also look for a flat fee in case the product doesn't take off, so there is that risk to keep in mind - though it still doesn't seem right.

Here's some things to consider:

1) How long do they get 50% of sales? Forever? Do they keep recruiting forever too? Put a time-limit on this, or an income cap so you can build your business later.

2) Make sure that it's a percentage of sales AFTER commissions, not before. So, like 50% of the sale goes to affiliates, 10% to the affiliate manager, 40% to you, out of which you pay processing costs, etc. Perhaps negotiate it to be after costs as well.

Finding an affiliate manager is hard as they are in demand if they are any good. And what you described is the bare minimum job an affiliate manager does for 10%, though if you can't find anyone else, and they make the difference between success and failure, 50% of something is much better than 0% of nothing.

The short answer is you'll need some way of driving traffic and affiliate marketing is an incredible way to do get quality, warm leads delivered to your site in a hurry. However, good affiliates often/should want to know how well your site converts before sending traffic, so they don't waste an opportunity to sell something else to their list or otherwise don't waste their time, which means finding a way to test it first - like as you planned with adwords.

I could go on about the right way to go about things for hours, but hopefully this is somewhat helpful. If you want to find another affiliate manager, network at Internet marketing conferences.

<comment><USER2> Terminology correction:

This person is a JV Broker, not an Affiliate Manager. An affiliate manager recruits new affiliates, communicates and motivates your current ones, etc. A broker connects you with their network.

Another question to ask, is if they have any success stories that would merit a 50% cut. If they are cutting their teeth on you, you shouldn't be paying premium rates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for taking the time to educate us on this.

We're going to take your advice and find ourselves a JV broker that can do some quality control and help us safely build our brand.

We're not sure where to find one, and no-one is advertising on google for the term "joint venture broker", but we're hoping if we talk to a few big digital marketing agencies that we can get a connection somehow. We'll also try networking at conferences as you've suggested.

<comment><USER2> You're welcome. Drop some contact info here and I'll get in touch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Please do contact me via srgseg at yahoo.com (temporary address so it doesn't matter if it gets spammed by crawlers)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In marginal decisions, favour action over inaction - <AUTHOR> https://www.sivv.io/article/5ecededf46cc9f76d4639b24/In-marginal-decisions,-favour-action-over-inaction <comment><USER3> Counter point...

There's a famous study about what happens when medical professions (eg cardiologists) have major conferences. The juniors and non specialists are left running the wards for a week or so. And survival rates go up not down.

The leading theory is that more junior doctors are more likely to wait to and see while seniors intervene and trust in the skills. But their skills aren't as good as they think for the marginal patient...

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530032-100-death- ra...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530032-100-death-rate-drops- when-top-heart-surgeons-are-away/)

<comment><USER4> The other leading theory is that major (non emergent) operations and management changes (like starting chemotherapy) will often be postponed until the senior physicians get back.

<comment><USER5> That sounds easily testable in the data.

<comment><USER6> It's only testable in the data if these decisions are being made based on factors that are adequately represented in your statistics (no unobserved confounding). Maybe there's patient A, a smoker who says they're a non-smoker but seems like a liar to the doctor, and an otherwise identical patient B who is actually a non-smoker. Patient A is probably higher risk, so there's a difference between doing A during conference week then B later, versus B during conference week than A later. Even supposing that the doctor wrote that they think A might be lying and actually maybe a smoker, it's going to be hard to control for those notes in a t-test. It's a shitty example, but hopefully demonstrates the idea. It's always super hard to make the argument that there's no unobserved confounding.

<comment><USER7> Conference dates are independent of patient heath, so you can just look at the numbers directly across many healthcare systems and several decades. Vastly more data generally trumps better analysis.

<comment><USER6> > Vastly more data generally trumps better analysis.

If you mean more data in the sense of more covariates, sure. If you mean more data in terms of just more observations, no way. Not when it comes to causal inference.

<comment><USER8> Could you elaborate on this point "no way", for more observations?

<comment><USER6> Think about getting a helicopter to the hospital. It's probably pretty serious, right? You're more likely to die if you get a helicopter evac than if you don't. If all you have recorded is whether they got to the hospital via helicopter or not, and whether they died or not, then you're going to see that helicopters are associated with death. If you could control for what's wrong with the person, you might see that helicopters save lives. If you don't have that data, then just having more observations of (helicopter y/n, died y/n) will just look like helivac is murder. No matter what you do with that data, you just can't control for what you'd need to, because what you need was an unobserved confounder. When you're trying to establish causation, you have to rule out unobserved confounders, which is tricky. There's always something where someone might say "well what if it was X?" and the data doesn't contain that answer.

In this particular case, that commenter said that conference dates are independent enough from patient health to say that aside from the important things, everything else is equal. As in, the only difference between the treatments is who is doing the treatment. I disagree with that assertion, but that's the kind of argument you need for causation: Once we've dealt with/controlled for XYZ, the only difference left is the one we're interested in.

It's very difficult to demonstrate that the only difference left is what you care about when you can't even see certain variables. Someone says "what if people in group A are more likely to be left handed and it's patient handedness instead of doctor quality that's causing death here" but you didn't measure left handedness. More and more observations of group A without measuring handedness can't rule out that maybe they were lefties. So you either measure handedness, or argue that your setup will even it out (via randomization for example), or argue that handedness just doesn't matter here. And not just for handedness, but for everything imaginable.

<comment><USER7> While intuitively that reasoning seems valid, having more data makes signals more clear. If your sample sizes is say 99.8% of all doctors that's going to be representative in ways a carefully crafted representative sample of 1,000 doctors simply isn't.

Sampling always loses out to having the entire population.

But you say missing data makes the interpretation incorrect. That's always possible but only in ways that also fit the original data. Thus, you can then preform a study that improves upon the understanding of the correlation, but it's not going to disprove the original correlation.

PS: And even here it's easy to test with more data, just compare total deaths for the month around conferences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not based on any sources, but I believe that these results say more about our subjective experience of decisions (specifically in situations of action vs. inaction) rather than the actual likelihood of outcomes. In other words, I'm not convinced that statistically in a situation of action / inaction an action is always more likely to lead to a more favourable outcome, but it _is_ more likely to be later considered in a more positive light. Some of the reasons for that would be:

* Empowered sense of agency

* Taking action requires resources which would be "wasted" if the action is later considered the wrong choice, which potentially creates rationalization to avoid that (the sunk cost fallacy)

* When you take an action to change a status quo you've probably prepared for the expected negative aspects of the change, diminishing their effect

* When you stay inactive the potential to act is always there nagging

In purely personal decisions the subjective experience might actually be more important than the real outcome (barring extreme circumstances), so taking an action might indeed be the right choice regardless. However, I do believe that these effects are also present in decisions that affect others (organizations, families etc.), in which the outcome is more important, and also affected others don't share the decision-maker's perspective and may subjectively experience the decision completely differently as a result.

<comment><USER10> Excellent point. There's research showing that people that make irrevocable decisions are happier than people who make the same decision but are told they can change their mind later.

Sticking with the status who is like making a revocable decision not to make a change, where as deciding to do something else is a less-irrevocable decision.

[https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755850405/you-2-0-decide- alre...](https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755850405/you-2-0-decide-already)

<comment><USER9> Very interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The book "Transformative Experiences" by LA Paul argues that it's impossible to rationally decide what to do when faced with a life-altering (aka epistemically transformative) decision, because you have no way of knowing the person you'll be after the choice, and what their preferences will be ("what it's like to be them")

<comment><USER12> The great leap of faith -- you have to trust in the transformation and that you won't remember who you used to be anyway

Try getting a tattoo for an example of this

Edit; it's very right you can't decide rationally and that's why we're emotional beings but on the other hand given you have already done it once you emerge on the other side chances are you'll be pleased

If you don't want to get a tattoo try wearing professional clothing to work for a month

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it -- Roald Dahl

<comment><USER13> Some interesting statistics on tattoo regret: [https://www.advdermatology.com/blog/statistics- surrounding-t...](https://www.advdermatology.com/blog/statistics-surrounding- tattoo-regret)

Personally, I would have regretted each of the tattoos I would have gotten during each era of my past life.

I am looking forward to visiting Japan and being allowed in to a bath house (onsen) because I am tattoo free: [https://www.kashiwaya.org/e/magazine/onsen/tattoos.html](https://www.kashiwaya.org/e/magazine/onsen/tattoos.html)

<comment><USER14> I have tattoos and went to some very nice public Onsen in Japan. It's more work to find them, for sure.

<comment><USER12> Tattoo regret? I regret not getting more. I got a sweet piece in San Francisco it was a good trade-off for leaving my heart there.

<comment><USER15> Did you leave it with one of the cardiologists mentioned above?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This [0] is another take on the same research that sums it up better: "If you're genuinely unsure whether to quit your job or break up, then you probably should." I was quite influenced by this post when deciding to switch jobs - in the end I figured that if I couldn't make up my mind then I should go for the change. So far it's worked out, but of course you can't ever go back and know whether you would have been happier staying put. Life isn't a series of randomised trials. I think the fact that you're considering a new job (or a new partner) tells you that at least some part of you wants to make a change though.

[0] [https://80000hours.org/2018/08/randomised-experiment-if- your...](https://80000hours.org/2018/08/randomised-experiment-if-youre-really- unsure-whether-to-quit-your-job-or-break-up-you-really-probably-should/)

<comment><USER17> I have lived by quote "change is better" and for jobs it has almost always worked out because fortunately there are plenty of equal or better jobs in IT. But I am not sure this would work out for an aeronautical engineer at Boeing in same way, for example, given there are so few well paying jobs in that field. Similarly I am not sure this would work out great if you were thinking about divorce and had kids. In those situations, much more rationalization than simple "always make change" directive is necessary.

<comment><USER18> I'd say if you have kids and are wondering strongly about divorce, then you definitely should make a change - it just might not be to actually get divorced. Could be counseling, couples therapy, 3 day retreat for self analysis. Small changes before the biggest change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Am i right in thinking that the study shows that those who took action were happier, but not that they were actually better off? Does it attempt to account for a bias towards rationalising your actions?

In reality, the alternative to taking action is usually not simply taking no action, it is collecting more information and then deciding whether to take action. Does the study get at this at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does address the potential role of a number of biases, including self- deception / rationalising. As a result it compares responses against third party assessments (finding little evidence of self-deception being a major factor).

I agree that decisions aren't typically binary but I suppose even if you are actively researching after 6 months, for the purposes of this comparison you have remained with the status quo.

</comment></comment><comment> code-faster This only holds in convex payoff distributions where risk has a positive expected value.

In concave payoff distributions, where risk has a negative expected value, inaction is favored.

<comment><USER17> Why this should depend on convexity at all? The study's premise is marginal benefit, i.e., estimated risk difference is either minimal or perhaps too poorly known to call it out as marginal. If it was known to be positive or negative, action should be obvious. I am not defending this study because authors seem to rely heavily on survey where participants satisfaction measured only after 6 months. Typically, people tend to comfort themselves in short term for making big decisions such as divorce or job change even though in longer run they may higher accumulated regret. Economists need to develop good models instead of just keep doing surveys.

<comment><USER15> > Typically, people tend to comfort themselves in short term for making big > decisions such as divorce or job change

What about "buyer's remorse" and "honeymoon period"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe this has some applicability for personal, individual decisions. But to translate this to larger, more important things, affecting way more people?

Take great caution.

If you find yourself to be a leader, CEO, president, or whatever, facing really hard, ambiguous decisions, sometimes the right thing is _not to act_ , yet this is very hard to do and resist the temptation to act. We end up disincentivizing leaders from hesitating to act, when that might be the appropriate thing, because it might be seen as weakness or indecision.

All too often the bias towards action (for anything but personal decisions) is a quick way to get in a lot of trouble.

</comment><comment><USER21> The study itself looks like it's well done, result is statistically highly significant, but it was still just an internet study where people were self reporting. All you end with is suggestive evidence not be taken too seriously.

<comment><USER22> > it was still just an internet study where people were self reporting

And I wonder whether it would largely have been people contemplating a decision because they were dissatisfied/ unhappy with the status quo?

My immediate thought it to Nassim Taleb's _via negativa_ \- not necessarily any more well researched, but the view that in uncertainty do nothing or indeed do less to create a better outcome. That inaction is to be preferred where change and action has no clear benefit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point. I haven't read that but maybe the appropriate approach depends on the situation / level of uncertainty. For example, in situations where we have little clarity on the options or what the outcomes will look like, it perhaps makes sense to resist any urge to take action because we can't make any sensible comparison between the change and the status quo (and 'action bias' may be more of a factor). In other situations, like leaving one job to go to another, we have a better (though definitely imperfect) idea of what the options / outcomes look like and so may be better placed to make a comparison (in which case loss aversion may be more important). This is just a theory though - I may be totally wrong!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This can really go both ways, which makes it complicated. I feel like contemporary human beings have a massive bias toward action, often to their own detriment. "Do nothing and wait" is often a good piece of advice, but I can't see any political leader, entrepreneur, or 'thought leader' advocating for that. Patience seems to have lost out to instant gratification and the desire to do something, _anything_.

 _..those who had opted for the choice that involved making a change (as opposed to sticking with the status quo) were more satisfied with their decision and generally happier._

If you study history, specifically military history, you'll see the "be patient" strategy employed successfully (and ignored, unsuccessfully) quite often. Fabius defeated Hannibal by essentially out-waiting him. [1] One of the Thirty-Six Stratagems from ancient Chinese warfare is _Wait at leisure while the enemy labors._ [2] So I would amend the advice to be, _In marginal decisions, don 't be rash, but don't over-analyze. Wait for the right moment, then act._

The example cited in the article could also just be retroactive rationalization. I.e. people want to rationalize their decisions as being the right one.

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

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty- Six_Stratagems#Wait_at_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty- Six_Stratagems#Wait_at_leisure_while_the_enemy_labors)

<comment><USER24> Timing a specific action is different than not taking an action. Unless you lie to yourself that you're waiting for the right time in order to not take action. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The findings may be explained by 'loss aversion', a cognitive bias that > causes potential losses to be weighed more heavily than potential gains (the > ratio is somewhere around 2:1, meaning that most people will feel > comfortable with a decision only when the likely gains are double the likely > losses). As a result, in situations where the benefits and drawbacks of > making a change appear to be evenly matched, it may be sensible to take > action.

This loss aversion ratio of 2:1 is an average or other. How do you find your own ratio? It's the only one that matters. I'm always switching tracks and on to the next new (or old and new to me) thing.

A better reason is most people toward the ends of their lives regret the things they didn't do, rarely any of the things they've done. Do more things. Change is good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Happiness or wellbeing are such difficult concepts to measure and compare that I don't think you can ever arrive at a specific, generally-applicable ratio. But that doesn't mean that being aware of loss aversion (and the way it may be shaping your assessment of a decision) isn't helpful in reaching better outcomes.

I agree re regretting inaction. There are lots of nuances in how this seems to work as well - <USER2> [https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000326](https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000326).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's the Monty Hall problem effect. When you take an action, you choose from a small set of options. When you stay with the status quo, you are following a Markov chain than has not been narrowed by your choices (which is worse on average).

<comment><USER27> This sounds wrong to me, what would be the analogue of the door being revealed?

<comment><USER26> The door being revealed is time passing and understanding your own needs and what the world provides. The status quo is sticking to a historical choice made with less information. When you consider action today, you use fresh information, but to actually realise that advantage, you need to pick one of the new choices, even though it's outcome is stocastic

<comment><USER27> That makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Counterpoint: the way people assess decisions after the fact is no more rational than the way people assess them beforehand.

Some parents with _n_ children wrestle with the decision of whether to have _n+1_. You seldom hear regret from people who choose to go ahead with having an additional kid - yet science shows that, in aggregate, people with multiple kids tend to be unhappier than people with just one. In this example, each individual claimed to be happier with choosing 'action' over 'inaction', but in aggregate the action made people unhappier.

</comment><comment><USER29> > ... whenever you cannot decide what you should do, choose the action that > represents a change, rather than continuing the status quo.

As a heuristic, this is kind of rough: what does it mean to say you "cannot decide what you should do"?

How hard have you tried?

If this research was mutated into a piece of folk wisdom, I bet it would be interpreted as advising that "change is preferable, so don't overthink it."

But, that would be the wrong conclusion to draw. It's better to make important decisions after getting as much information as possible, and using rational decision-making strategies. So, it's likely always more effective, though more work, to try to push back the boundary of when the word "cannot" becomes applicable than it is to just say "fuck it, let's do this".

</comment><comment><USER30> Overall, and depending on context, I think this is a moot point. Inaction is as important as action and can be considered a different action in itself. What some call inaction is not necessary a state of being inactive, but simply observing and analyzing the outcome longer, while focusing efforts elsewhere.

Maybe "being on the fence" or staying in a frame of doubt and uncertainty for too long, without developing future steps for a given plan could really be considered disruptive inaction.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's not in the title but the goal here is to feel better afterward. It has nohing to do with the statistics of making the better call.

</comment><comment><USER32> Of course they are not satisfied. That's why they were considering a life- changing decision, because they were not happy with the status-quo. Duh!

—"Levitt found that those who had opted for the choice that involved making a change (as opposed to sticking with the status quo) were more satisfied with their decision and generally happier."

</comment><comment><USER33> This would seem to line up with some old wisdom I heard years ago, where some researcher interviewed elders and found that his subjects regretted chances they had not taken far more than chances they had taken, even if it didn't work out.

That idea was a big focus of mine as I tried to get over fear in dating.

</comment><comment><USER34> Agency has to be remembered tho, your decisions impact others, and change that is received is generally less well tolerated than change that has been initiated. It's real in teams where the management decides on change and underlings can only agree or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point - this study relates to the personal impacts but perhaps not to decisions that impact many people and run counter to what they would individually have decided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> siver's alternative: "Hell Yeah! or No".

[https://sivers.org/hellyeah](https://sivers.org/hellyeah)

<comment><USER15> That's assuming you don't want to stop what you are currently doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What is a marginal decision? Is quitting a job or ending a relationship a marginal decision?

<comment><USER37> It's whenever you have that feeling of "I just can't decide between these two options", and don't have a strong feeling either way.

Quitting a job or ending a relationship _can_ be a marginal decision, if you're not sure you want to do it. Sometimes you're just fed up with your current employer, or there's an obviously good opportunity available - that's not a marginal decision, that's an easy decision. But sometimes there's an opportunity, but you're not sure you want to take it, but it seems intriguing, but it'd be a big risk, but you wonder if you'll regret not taking it, etc. That's a marginal decision, and the type that the article suggests you should take.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Funny how the iChing says exactly the opposite, no matter how many times I flip the e-coins

</comment><comment><USER39> Won't this create a new margin—-slightly shifted in favor of action?

</comment><comment><USER40> in aggregate, this data makes sense

For people with chronic ADD who struggle to finish projects, you may easily fall on the other side of this line ..</comment>


Ask HN: I am in lockdown. Asking help to find remote work - <AUTHOR> I am asking for some help here to see if somebody has any opportunity or suggestion to procure some remote work that I might be able to do in my condition. I am from Italy and in lockdown. Presumably will not be able to move for the next 4-6 weeks. Cannot leave my family since my spouse is a doc and I have to watch after the kids because grandparents on both sides cannot come close to the kids.
I tried popular platforms (up-Work etc.) but the process to be admitted and start getting gigs is long/complex and a bit foreign to me.
I just recently finished teaching two bootcamps in Germany in Full-Stack Web Dev. I am also a Certified Engineer (Italy), but unsure what I could do remotely in this regard.
Here are some things I think I can contribute to:
1) Front-end specifically React, but would not disdain Vue. Good to advanced skills here.
2) Apps Script / Google Suite coding and automation. Good to advanced skills here
3) Back-end, specifically Node/Express/Mongo. Good to advanced skills here, but can do basic SQL methods.
4) Some Python/Panda but very basic.
5) Remote team management / project management. Good to advanced skills here.
Also, if others are in my situation and affected by the travel ban, please come forward. It's always good to band together.
Marco <comment><USER2> Ehy, fellow italian here.

Check out mobileJazz, they seem cool and were looking for a software engineer proficient in Nodejs etc, so it might fit you.

I was looking to submit it myself, but I have a stable job right now and I think I won't lose it so it could be of more help to someone else. Hope it helps you.

Buona fortuna, e se vuoi scrivermi la mia email è gamalarcossi at google

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you know of any local developer communities? A slack channel for devs in your area, perhaps. Usually they have job channels but also the best people to know about jobs in the industry are developers themselves. Check out /r/forhire and make a post. Then maybe comb through the HN monthly freelance threads and send some emails. That'll get you started. Good luck and stay safe.

<comment><AUTHOR> Reddit seems a good suggestion, did not think about it. I will hit all social channels to find a community. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check out [https://remoteok.io/](https://remoteok.io/)

It is made by the very HN Popular Pieter Levels.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been largely unsuccessful because of the vetting system that filters me out. I was hoping for direct connections to teams that may need extra hands and who read HN, or someone in a staffing/temp agency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out Toptal

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks verdverm. I got filtered out for lack of seniority on Toptal. I guess they like to keep there namesake true... I am going for small roles/jobs here. Was hoping for banding up with a small team/community that reads HN.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Successful cases of boostrapping a b2c startup in recent years? - <AUTHOR> For one to be ramen profitable it is important to bootstrap as much as possible in early stages (which often resorts to doing things that don't scale, etc).
And appearantly that is one of the advantages of b2b, where it is possible to achieve ramen profitablity in very early times through sales-driven product mangement, etc.
But what are about b2c? What are some successful cases of boostrapping a b2c start-up in recent years? Is it even possible to achieve that in this day and age? Under what circumstances will such bootstrapping be possible?
I've been working on a b2c start-up for half a year now. We have very limited capital and unless through loans it will only make sense to start hiring after the seed round. We pitched to some investors but didn't really get anythere. It has occured to us that perhaps we have to pivot our entire product to b2b (or we are not going to survive, esp at times like this), and that is certainly a very different game v.s. b2c both in terms of product mangement and the go-to-market strategy.
So before putting the nail in the coffin, we're curious to go through a list of successful cases of boostrapping a b2c start-up and see if we can learn something from them or is this really an end for us (b2c-wise).
Thanks! <comment><USER2> The story of veed.io is quite interesting. They have a nice series of updates on Indiehackers and their blog:

* [https://www.indiehackers.com/product/veed](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/veed) * [https://www.veed.io/blog](https://www.veed.io/blog)

You can also use the search functionality of Indiehackers to discover certain products. This search might be something you look for: [https://www.indiehackers.com/products?minRevenue=5&targetCus...](https://www.indiehackers.com/products?minRevenue=5&targetCustomers=b2c)

<comment><AUTHOR> that is super interesting mate. Thanks for the pointer!</comment></comment>


Password Must Be Over 18770 Characters and Not Any of Previous 30689 Passwords - <AUTHOR> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276304

<comment><USER2> We are all ABOUT safety up in here</comment>


Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact-checkers to combat 'fake news' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-will-fact-check-label-fake-news-in-news-feed-2016-12?r=UK&IR=T <comment><USER2> This doesn't give me any confidence that this will be used to actually combat fake news and not as a tool to suppress opposing political views.

During the election, I saw so many 'fact checkers' used by the mainstream media that were laughably biased or outright wrong.</comment>


Ask HN: Teach history of computers to high schoolers - <AUTHOR> What fun things can I show them from history of computers ? Can you give me some anecdotes from early computing era, or some useful resources on computing history ? <comment><USER2> Computing is one of the sciences that was mostly developed after women were given civil rights in the US, so women were far better-represented in early computing R&D than in many other fields. There were companies led by women, and there are still seminal research papers that I've seen cited that were written by women.

Planet Money did an interesting rundown on what this looked like, but they focus a bit more on why the balance drastically shifted in 1984.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when- women-stopped-coding)</comment>


I made a simple wunderlist alternative – Zask - <AUTHOR> Have been using wunderlist for year. Sad to see it go. Zask is free, hope yall like it!<p>https://www.zask.app/ <comment><USER2> The switch to Microsoft no good?

</comment><comment><USER3> any plans for a web or android version?

</comment><comment><USER4> Good luck!</comment>