Ask HN: Is it just me or has YouTube gone fanatical on ads? - <AUTHOR> I never used to have a problem watching the first 5 seconds of a sponsored commercial on some of the more popular YouTube videos, but I've noticed a startling increase in the amount of ads being served to me. It is at the point where I would say 3 in every 4 videos plays an ad now. It's disgustingly frustrating.
Has anyone else noticed this?
If so, has there been an announcement regarding this that I've missed? Perhaps even something to do with Google+ IDs being used for user accounts? <comment><USER2> I don't know why it did't happen sooner. I started pre-roll seeing ads on mobile as well, which I don't remember until recently.

I don't get why it's disgusting. This is how video creators and Google are supposed to get paid. It's annoying to me that people want free content, and they keep pushing companies to "get traction first, then monetize". This is what has to happen, or else Google has to keep subsidizing progressively larger bandwidth bills - and the people who are creating the content have to keep their day jobs.

<comment><USER3> To me they are annoying because they disallow you to skip them for the first few seconds. Their targeting also doesn't do a very good job.

But let me tell you the real problem with YouTube ads. Recently in my country there has been a public outcry against a mining project, which is dangerous not only because of ecological reasons, but also because it needs special laws that trump our constitutional rights and the whole deal is filled with documented corruption. Movies started popping on Youtube describing the perils of open-pit gold mining with cyanide.

Well guess what, the company behind the project started displaying ads on every one of those clips, showing local poor villagers crying for "jobs", with one of the big fat lies of the project being that it will create plenty of jobs. It won't of course, but that's besides the point.

The point is, say somebody believes in something and posts a video on YouTube. A company or an individual can always display ads right at the start of that clip in disagreement and there's no way in hell that you can stop it. If you report it, what are you going to report it for? Now, I believe in freedom of speech, but that's just immoral, as freedom of speech doesn't imply forcing your opposition to present your case in their argument. And it's not freedom of speech when your opposition is a multi-national with all the money it needs to buy whatever it wants.

So that's why YouTube ads are immoral. Because they are more intrusive than normal ads and can be used for disinformation. And because I don't use AdBlock, I limit my visits to YouTube. I used to use it for listening to music, but there are much better options for that.

What I don't get from such services ... maybe I'm willing to pay a monthly subscription. That's what I do with Google Apps. Why not give me the option to turn those ads off?

<comment><USER4> I don't think you can place ads in any movie--only movies that have the "monetization" feature enabled.

It's the same issue as with Google AdSense, though there you have options to exclude certain ads.

<comment><USER3> I have a hard time believing that the radio select in YouTube's settings works, because I'm talking about dozens of videos, posted by different publishes, all of them with ads from the company I'm talking about. Maybe the publishers in question weren't aware of that setting.

Let me tell you more - I was visiting the US when the protests started and I posted YouTube links on my Facebook account, completely unaware that the videos in question were served with those ads, because those ads targeted only Romanians. The act of publishing a link is also an act of publishing. When I publish a link, I should be completely aware of what I'm publishing, OK?

Also, we go back full circle to monetization needs. I'm not seeing controls in YouTube for banning certain ads from happening. That radio select is a global switch. You either want ads or you don't. Also the question is stupid. Because it's an opt-out and if you are unaware of the setting, you're implicitly opted-in AND most importantly, that doesn't mean you'll receive any money from your views and likes [1]. Like, seriously?

[1] [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2490020?hl=en)

<comment><USER5> It's an account-wide setting to allow the monetize option. From there it's up to the account owner to enable/disable per video they upload [1]. There are other things in place such as the ContentID matching which will disable ads until you prove you're allowed to use the content if it matches anything but generally speaking it's up to whoever owns the channel you're viewing videos on. They would almost definitely know they have ads enabled - there's even a green dollar sign next to the video in the manager if ads are enabled

Advertising-wise you can target pretty much anything/anyone Google knows really - You could very easily (It's one of the easiest options to configure even) target people in a specific country. There's more advanced stuff such as re-targeting people who have already seen the ad/content specifically too. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to target a specific channel or at least whatever common content is in each of the videos (the most notable mine name involved, for example).

[1] [http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png](http://i.imgy.org/5f/49/adoptions.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In short yes there are more ads, but it's actually not anything that new. Let me explain..

Around summer 2007 (when I started using YouTube myself) YouTube started its beta version of the "partner program" where they salaried somewhere a bunch of people for a year and monetized their videos. In about Dec 2007 they let anyone apply for the program doing the rev share on videos we see today. I myself became a partner around March 2008. Anyway until about May 2011 the program ran like this, you applied, waited months normally for a reply, and hopefully got accepted, or if rejected tried again and waited..... In May 2011 they started trailing out a program where accounts in good standing could monetize videos w/o ever applying for partner, launching the start of the "monetization" program. In about March 2012 they basically killed off the apply for partner program and replaced it with this where basically everyone on YouTube was a partner. It's been since then that any video COULD be monetized, its just as time has gone on more and more people actually monetized them.

My dates may be slightly off as its thanksgiving evening and I'm doing this off the top of my head but thats basically how things have gone. It's really nothing new...

FYI I run a website that reports YouTube & Twitch statistics called Social Blade so youtube data is something I've been watching for quite a while now. Hope that helps :)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://adblockplus.org/](https://adblockplus.org/)

[https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl)

<comment><USER8> After having used adblock plus for like the last 2 years, I disabled it the other day and have been amazed at how terrible the Internet is without it.

<comment><USER9> You should read this: [https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the- numbers](https://adblockplus.org/blog/acceptable-ads-by-the-numbers)

after hearing a talk Robert Hansen gave at AppSec USA, I then realize why adblock plus has been doing a poor job :( it can't stop most of the pop ups and ads anymore.

<comment><USER10> I think you misunderstand. AdBlock doesn't force this whitelisting, it merely defaults to using it.

<comment><USER9> Did you just say they default to use the whitelist ad program?

<comment><USER10> Yes, I believe if you just blindly click through the initial install for the extension, the limited whitelisting (for 'unobtrusive ads') will be in effect. That's the whole idea, isn't it - to whitelist for the majority of users who don't read the fine print or tweak things, while still allowing anyone who cares to shut it off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The problem I have is the really shitty targeting. With as much as Google must know about me, their ads usually are about stuff I have absolutely no interest in.

I am from smaller country, so I get that the pool of advertisers must be smaller too.

I bought a new bike this year and religiously researched this topic and consumed a ton of cycling videos. What ads do I see? Cars. I don't have a driver's license.

Facebook isn't any better. Last year I was in South Korea and logged into Facebook once. After my return, FB managed to exclusively display ads in Korean for over a month.

Then there are the occasions where you research a topic, buy a product, and then get to see ads for the product you already bought for a year after (I saw ads for the NI Maschine midi controller for over a year after my purchase).

<comment><USER12> _The problem I have is the really shitty targeting._

I strongly believe, to the point of it being an article of faith, that effective _relevant_ ad targeting will never happen, that it is an AI problem that can't be solved without enormous improvements in AI technology.

I _suspect_ that what will happen is that industry will give up on trying to do relevance and focus on manipulation -- the big brother version of nubile women in commercials for beer. They'll stop trying to show you stuff that you want to buy, but they will have ~10 different ads for some product X and they will pick the specific ad most likely to convince you to buy product X based on the profile they have of you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked on the YouTube ads team (Adsense for interactive media, or AFIM) for a while.

The people on that team saw themselves as helping to create the replacement for TV, and part of that job was to create a model that paid the expense of hosting and distributing video, with all the associated infrastructure, as well as allowed for content-creators to make money--basically to make it a viable business. Ads are the primary means of making that happen, but they've experimented with other methods too.

They care a lot about the user. To contradict another poster, they don't show ads at every opportunity; that's not the Google way, and they have detailed data on exactly how many ads you can show people before they stop watching videos. They also strongly encourage advertisers to use skippable ads--they make users happier and they encourage more interesting ads (it's also not entirely true that advertisers don't have to pay for skipped ads).

The only thing worse than YouTube ads are the non-Google attempts at video ads. Google's UI and targeting are 10x better than the competition I've seen.

(It's been over a year since I've worked on AFIM, so my info could be out of date.)

<comment><USER14> Interesting info.

> they have detailed data on exactly how many ads you can show people before > they stop watching videos

Anecdote: YouTube caused me to install AdBlock. I'm not anti-advertising, but the amount of ads shown on YouTube videos reached a tipping point for me sometime earlier this year. I'm not ad-intolerant, but it seemed to be showing me more ads per minute than on regular TV shows. Of course that's just perception.

<comment><USER15> Also, ads in middle of a video are much better than ads at the start of a video. Some times it becomes ridiculous when the ad length is 1/4th of video length (though most become skippable after 5-10 secs).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The net is soooo ripe for a distributed replacement of Youtube, Facebook, Gmail, etc. Once upon a time those sorts of sites provided real value in hosting files, pictures, video and providing a well-known endpoint like gmail.

But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables for finding files. Someone is going to come along with a distributed system that gains enough traction and just wipe all of these guys off the map.

To paraphrase the founder of RedHat, whatever comes next won't be the size of Youtube, it will make youtube the size of a bittorrent tracker.

<comment><USER16> > But now we have phones with 64GB of flash for canonical storing of files, > p2p protocols for efficient transfer of files and distributed hash tables > for finding files.

And 2 GB data caps. I don't want my phone's hard drive, processing power, and my cell phone bill all being used up for P2P videos.

<comment><USER12> So, let your phone hold the _canonical_ copy and let the swarm handle the _efficient transfer of files_ \-- not everybody will be on cellular data plans, hell _you_ won't be on a cellular data plan when you are within range of a wifi AP like at home or the office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Frustrating yes. Disgusting no. YouTube is provided to you as a free service and advertisers pickup the tab.

Google paid over $1B for YouTube and people upload over 10 new hours of video every minute. Did you honestly expect they'd wear that kind of expense for ever?

<comment><USER18> Is YouTube even profitable yet? A few years later, despite being one of the most visited websites on the internet, it still was at a loss I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's totally obnoxious now and destroys usability. I was on a slow internet for a while and youtube mercilessly shoved ads on it. It was impossible to use. I found Youtube center and it smoothed the experience, allows me to disable ads and download video easily.

I also got it on the faster connection. It really makes life better. I'm willing to pay a few bucks to never see ads. Until that's an option youtube and deserving content creators will lose a few bucks.

Oh well. Just won't tolerate the current volume of ads.

<comment><USER20> > Until that's an option youtube and deserving content creators will lose a > few bucks.

Not necessarily. Allowing the people most willing to spend money to opt out of ads, removes exactly the people someone would want to advertise to.

<comment><USER19> Not sure what profit is from the average youtuber, but if it's $5 or lower that could work. Enough people might pay the fee instead of blocking ads and eating bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've found that YouTube ramps up ad volume as you increase your viewing. I can do a short session of a video or two (5minutes) without any. But if I increase that to long form content or longer session then ads seem to get center stage.

</comment><comment><USER22> Users enable ads on their account I believe. If people are choosing to monetize their videos, thats going to happen more and more.

</comment><comment><USER23> The problem is that most people go to YouTube for quick content. It becomes useless when you have to stop 3 out of 4 times for 5-30 seconds, as OP pointed out. It completely changes the YouTube experience and just doesn't feel "right" or scalable as a business model.

Or, if Google sticks to it then the sort of content that gets consumed might change. I already find myself skipping to see videos under 2 minutes if there's an ad before.

I never felt pushed around by ads on Netflix, South Park or any other premium content though.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can confirm that.

It also used to skip pre-rolls when you reloaded the page, now it will keep displaying the pre-roll until you watch it.

<comment><USER25> I've had it show the pre-roll ad every time I watch a video before, i suspect it's a malfunction but can never be sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Compared to hulu and others they haven't yet but it is more pervasive.

The 'skip' link is still in after you watch one longer ad in a series. At least they have that because watching ads for online videos is not the same as TV.

Back in the day on TV you'd get 10-15 minutes of entertainment before a commercial. Here you are watching :30 spots for another minute long video or maybe a few minutes on most occasions. So ad sites really need to take that into consideration.

Noone wants to watch more ad time than actual video time, keep at least a sane balance. A balance that will keep people watching not turn them away forever.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have definitely noticed this too. It also brought to my attention how much I use YouTube as I noticed how often I felt pissed because of yet another pre- roll.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you freely give Google access to display ads on your computer, they will do so at every opportunity until you can not take it any more.

The obvious method to prevent this is to deny Google free access to your hardware, and thus stop their efforts at displaying ads to you. Alternative, one could stop interacting with Google altogether, but thats a bit more drastic step.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't see any problem with it. Google are providing a free service to everyone (brands, content curators and those who consume it), why shouldn't they monetise that asset? A site like Youtube consumes so much bandwidth and space on a scale most people cannot imagine.

I am surprised the whole ad strategy wasn't rolled out a lot sooner.

</comment><comment><USER30> In Chrome, I use Magic Actions for YouTube. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magic-actions- for-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/magic-actions-for- youtube/abjcfabbhafbcdfjoecdgepllmpfceif).

Not only it blocks ads, it removes annoying annotations as well.

</comment><comment><USER31> Glad I am not the only one. In the last week or so I've noticed increase in ads as well. It's really annoying now, I frequently just skip watching video all together, I have a short attention span for this nonsense. 30 second ad so I can watch 1 minute video, no thank you.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does youtube do anything smart around showing the same ads multiple times?

I watch a fair bit on twitch who don't have a lot of ads targeted at Australia. I think they do the advertiser and the viewer a disservice by repeating the same ad over and over again.

Say for example they are running an xbox one ad, after I have seen it for the 10th time in say a week I think it has really reached the maximum effectiveness that it is ever going to on me, showing it more is likely just blowing Microsoft's money.

We have a platform where everything can be precisely measured but the advertising is being shown like the traditional TV medium where there was no way to track how many times something was view by each viewer.

<comment><USER33> It would be up to the advertiser and if they want to cap impressions per user or not. Some advertisers simply don't care, and they'll pay to show their ad to the same person hundreds of times. Others will cap it at 3 impressions per user. YouTube/Google doesn't care, they'll show the ads for whoever is willing to pay the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's important to remember that the ads you're shown on Youtube videos are controlled by the channel owner, not by Google. Youtube itself doesn't have much control over how many ads you see.

</comment><comment><USER35> Skipping ads is so ingrained in us, YouTube has now taught my 6 year old daughter to skip ads. She was not doing that 2-3 months back. But now she does it and she does not even need help doing it.

</comment><comment><USER36> I noticed this recently as well. I had not seen any ads for a long time as I use AdBlock and AdBlockPlus for Chrome but they have started slipping through in the past few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER37> It is not me. Here it is like 1 in every 10 or more videos, chances are when I continue to watch videos there could be no ads. Actually, some ads I really like that I want to replay.

It is not like in Chinese Youtube-alike online video sites, like Youku, Letv, they have 30 - 60 seconds ads in every beginning of a video, and there was no chance to "skip" the ads, even I use Adblock, it MAY be block the contents but never the ad itself.

</comment><comment><USER38> It would be interesting to try some new ideas that advertising over the internet allows. How about an option for users to consume a few minutes of commercials in a row, and then get X number of videos ad free? Or allowing users to influence the ad selection by manually entering an interest/disinterest list.

Could be alot more flexible than the television model.

</comment><comment><USER39> I feel your pain, bro. Lately I've been using [http://fixyt.com](http://fixyt.com) which is a website that works on top of YouTube but without the annoying ads and without the stalking that Google does on you.

</comment><comment><USER40> Incidentally, I find that having a "skip" button available to me actually makes me more interested in the commercial, because I have to make an active decision about whether to watch it or not.

</comment><comment><USER41> Just today I started noticing this, yes. It's driving me insane.

</comment><comment><USER42> I noticed the same thing the other day. The ads I don't care about so much. I immediately notice a performance hit. The experience itself was degraded.

</comment><comment><USER43> Unless they've changed things recently, you can always subscribe to channels and watch those videos on a smart TV. I don't see ads on that... yet.

<comment><USER44> Eh, the ads are easy enough to circumvent on a PC. I think what OP is complaining about is just the fact that they're being pushed a lot harder recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yep, noticed this annoying feature too, I guess its been there for a while but till now Adblock used to block it. Google has found a way to bypass it.

</comment><comment><USER46> i have had a lot of problems with Ads. Ads used to be ok and not as bad as they are now. They are as bad as those pop ads that used to show up on websites. But no matter what argument is raised as to how good or bad ads are I will always use an Adblocker. And Yes Google+ has gone Fanatical with the Ads ever since they bought out YouTube and I am fed up with it.

</comment><comment><USER47> If youtube will come with paid plan like 99$ for year without ads in videos,user surely go for that.

</comment><comment><USER48> The worst is that they place stickies all over some videos that you now that to click to close.

</comment><comment><USER49> Christmas marketing season?

</comment><comment><USER50> Youtube doesn't show in-video ads from where i live. (Africa)

</comment><comment><USER51> Do paid videos (like GoT and BrBa) have these ads?

<comment><USER52> Since when can you see GoT on YouTube?

<comment><USER51> [http://www.youtube.com/show/game-of- thrones](http://www.youtube.com/show/game-of-thrones)

Don't know since when, or if it is just an ad for a redirect to HBO Go that is cleverly mocked up as a video before you try to pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> AD BLOCK PLUS. You're welcome.

</comment><comment><USER54> Can't you just use AdBlock..?

I haven't seen a YouTube ad in years.

</comment><comment><USER55> Since when did HN become a YouTube support area?!

I personally haven't seen any uptake in ads nor will your anecdotal observations attract any sort of factual comments.

Also I don't think that a supposed 75% of videos showing ads is excessive (to get a perspective on "exessive" I suggest you take a look at Hulu).

Bandwidth isn't cheap and video creators deserve a paycheck, whinning about this sort of stuff strikes me as petty and a mark of false entitlement, also the FUD about G+ is unwarranted.

If you're truly wondering about related updates check their blogs, it's where the announcements usually are.</comment>


It's time for legislators and the DMV to crack down on disabled parking cheats - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-disabled-parking-placards-20170501-story.html <comment><USER3> Why is it "time"? Is there some critical shortage of handicapped parking? Every time I go anywhere with a parking lot, there seems to be _lots_ of available handicapped parking. Obviously it's great fun to feel indignant when you have to park in a less-good spot while someone with a placard pulls in and walks in - clearly a cheat - but if it's not _actually_ significantly affecting people on average, just write it off as cost of doing business.

That said, I even caution against judging other people for their use of a disabled placard without an apparent motion disability. I had a friend who had nothing obviously wrong with him (I was friends with him for about a year before I even knew he had a disabled placard), but one day he gave me a ride and apparently felt the need to explain to me that he has MS, and that walking was quite painful for him even though he moved with an apparently normal pace and gait. Presumably there are many other reasons why an otherwise normal- looking person would have and/or use one of these placards, so I really think you need to come in with more than anecdotes about people who don't _seem_ disabled.

<comment><USER4> > while someone with a placard pulls in and walks in - clearly a cheat

As you've also mentioned, I can't stress this enough - you don't have to look handicapped to have a disability.

Some people with disabilities can walk - but with difficulty. Some people with disabilities can't walk very far. Some people with disabilities can walk most of the time - but sometimes, their legs go out from under them, and why-the- hell-should-we-not-just-give-them-the-handicapped spot?

Both my mother, and my mother-in-law have disabilities. They suffer through them - and if it weren't for my mother-in-law's cane, at first glance, you wouldn't know.

<comment><USER5> And some can even walk normally. I used to know someone like that--serious heart defect but her body was otherwise normal. She wasn't supposed to walk any farther than she had to.

And it's also possible to legitimately park in a handicapped space with no handicapped person in the car. I've done it before--I was picking up the person to whom the placard belonged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a placard holder and I think this article is full of horrible ideas. The fee, the weird limitations on metered parking use for people with particular disabilities or impairments, but most of all the way the article uncritically invites people to scrutinize placard holders and try to tell by looking at them if they are "really disabled" or not. With the existing laws, placards must be renewed every 2 years. If the DMV is issuing renewals to dead people as the article claims, that seems fixable without screwing the rest of us over.

<comment><USER7> Most of the suggestions I found to make sense and be very reasonable.

The issue raised is reminiscent of how the number of people on disability dramatically rose during the financial crisis. And that's the sort of thing that's actually much worse because it's incredibly costly to society. But it's not just that one time period. As this link shows ([http://apps.npr.org/unfit- for-work/](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/)) that correlation of disability with the employment rate is nothing new.

But back to the main point here - for purposes of disability parking, in nearly every case someone should be able to look to see if someone is actually disabled. Again, this is for the purposes of having that placard, nothing else. That's because the reason for having that placard is to make the distance walked shorter for those who really need it. It should be obvious to anyone looking if someone may be having a much tougher time walking than the average person. For those on disability for legitimate reasons but may not have trouble walking - guess what, they don't need the placard and can walk the extra 100 or 200 feet. What we're talking about here is something that should be visibly verifiable in the overwhelming majority of cases.

<comment><USER8> If you look at some of the other comments on this thread you'll see people with direct experience showing that you're wrong about it being "visibly verifiable". I hope you rethink your assumptions about others.

<comment><USER7> The language I used clearly is not all-or-nothing. I said the overwhelming majority of cases. What you are referring to is an edge case - a situation that is more rare than the far more common situations. It should be clear that I acknowledge that not every situation is visibly verifiable from what I wrote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Charging handicapped people fees doesn't make sense. I mean it's literally charging someone for being injured. (On top of that, many of them are on some kind of welfare which means the state would be taking back money they just gave the person.)

Just because someone can walk from the closest parking space into a store doesn't mean they aren't injured and don't need a placard. So opening the article that way really demonstrates a lack of understanding.

<comment><USER7> It's not charging someone for being injured. It's the equivalent of getting a licence renewal. It's not free. Do you still consider that same driver to be getting charged for being disabled when they are renewing their license? Or for that matter, any (voluntary) fee that the government charges when a citizen chooses to do something?

The process to review an application for a disability placard I'm quite sure takes longer to complete than that of a simple license renewal. If there's a fee for one, why would there not be a fee for the other? Also, there is no requirement that they apply for the placard and could always not apply for it if the $25 really made that much of a difference to them - a cost, I remind you, which would cover 2-4 years so we're talking about 50 cents to a dollar a month. And which would also help to make spots more available to them by stopping the scumbags who are using their dead grandmother's tag to park in the best spots every time they go out.

<comment><USER9> I guess I would be in favor of some fraud checking, but I'm afraid that it will quickly degenerate into harassment of people who don't look "handicapped enough". As for why it makes no sense to charge for license renewal - <USER2> person already has to get a note from a doctor saying they're eligible, and going to that doctor costs money. After that the state only has to authenticate the doctor's note and issue the placard. Remember, there's no inherent right to a handicapped parking space. The whole system was just made up to help disabled people. It would be completely inconsistent to add hassle and fees to the system. Anyway flat fees hurt poorer people harder, so it's aggravating inequality to begin with. And disabled people probably make less money than average, so that's even worse.

<comment><USER7> Fraud checking could be really quick and easy. A tag/placard is registered to an individual. If that information were easily available to whoever was going to enforce this (and maybe it already is quickly accessible, I don't know), they would merely need to type in the tag number and see who it is registered to. That person's state ID or driver's license has a photo attached to it and they could easily see if that person is either the driver or a passenger. If the car is parked in a handicap spot and that person isn't present, they can cite for a violation.

So there would not need to be any harassment of people who don't seem disabled. We would continue to assume, as we do today, that the issuance of the tag is valid. We would just be checking that when it is utilized, the person associated with it is actually present.

"After that the state only has to authenticate the doctor's note and issue the placard." \- maybe it is that simple. Let's assume it is. But when I renew my driver's via postal mail there is literally nothing that needs to be checked or verified. It's one piece of paper that requires no verifying documents and just gets processed. And it still costs something like $24 in my state. And for vehicle registration the process is nearly identical and yet it costs $56 where I live. You're argument in this regard doesn't hold merit because it is entirely inconsistent, unless you also believe the fees for those should be waived because they are disabled. And please spare me the "aggravating inequality" nonsense. All of that is a product of the entitlement mentality that has become far too common. Most people who are disabled receive a government benefit in some form or another. So the idea that a very, very small portion of the money that is already taken from others and given to the disabled be used to give them another benefit is not insane, especially when it's a voluntary application. Guess what, things and services cost money. Asking someone to shell out a pro-rated amount of 50 cents to a dollar a month to have that placard benefit from funds the taxpayers give them is entirely reasonable.

Yeah, flat fees do mean more to poorer people. But basic consumer protection laws dictate that you are supposed to charge like buyers the same rate. And if the cost of doing whatever costs X, it doesn't magically cost less than X because someone is poor. It still costs X and that money is coming from somewhere. In the end, all you're really arguing for is an additional flat benefit of $25 to be given to anyone who is deemed legally disabled. Whether it gets paid to them first or is absorbed on the back end doesn't mean much, except for perhaps income tax purposes if they received it first so they would have to pay with after tax money (like the rest of us).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its fascinating to see problems in other states. Locally (thousands of miles from CA) the "new urbanists" have a stealth strategy for discouraging car use which is to write ridiculous handicapped requirements into zoning laws. So new stores have to have 20 to 30 handicapped spots to discourage car use by the 99% unhandicapped customers. So no matter how big your parking lot is, and how packed it is with customers, roughly 20% of spots will always be empty. Its an interesting strategy for banning cars, they're not technically banning cars from parking, its just parking now requires a handicap tag. It has the pleasant side effect that even at major sporting events I've never actually seen a parking lot with all handicapped spots filled, which must be very convenient for handicapped people.

There are other problems. I used to work with a guy in a wheelchair and life for those people is hell, at least once a week when his non-handicapped brother picked him up in the lift van after work, some do-gooder would scream at his brother for being evil enough to park in a handicapped spot, he would even get blocked in until the cops arrive, do-gooders just make life for everyone awful.

<comment><USER11> 1 in 5 people has a disability ([https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellane...](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html)).

Not all of those justify an handicapped parking spot, but way more than 1% of the population deserves one.

If a store has 99% handicapped customers, it's only because it's actually hostile to people with an handicap.

<comment><USER12> If 5% of the population is "disabled" for the purposes of a handicapped parking sticker, do we need 5% of the parking spaces reserved for them? No. All the disabled people can't be in all the disabled spots at the same time. You must consider usage rates. If all 5% of the handicapped population is using only 10% of the handicapped spots at any one time, we would only need .5% of a parking lot to be handicapped spots.

This program has good intentions, but it needs to be more precise about how many parking spots are actually needed, and who actually needs them.

<comment> aaron-santos I'm not convinced that's how the math works. I can just as easily conclude that if all 95% of the non-handicapped population is using only 10% of the non-handicapped spots at any one time, we would only need 9.5% of a parking lot to be non-handicapped spots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, if this isn't a slippery slope...

I can just imagine the process when someone starts having the power to tell people they aren't disabled enough to get a placard.

We like to think these things will follow some common-sense logic, but in reality that's rarely the case.

There's some low-hanging fruit like revoking old placards, but I don't think this should get a whole lot of attention. Perhaps I'm just not part of the club that says we need police to make sure people aren't being assholes.

<comment><USER14> The article says:

> [The auditor recommends to...] Allow parking meter enforcers to access state > placard data so they can nab cheaters on the spot. Now they must go through > sworn law enforcement who are often too busy handling serious crime.

I understand that you feel these efforts should be ignored because there is real "serious crime" to address.

But I disagree: a society with few felonies but a rampaging problem with unenforced misdemeanors is not a nice place. It's reasonable to devote a large effort towards preventing serious crime, but an appropriate effort towards less serious crime is not zero.

Alternatively, you're correct that we don't need police to make sure people aren't being assholes. They have more important things to do. But we do need parking meter enforcement officers, and they should be empowered to make sure that people aren't being assholes.

<comment><USER15> This isn't a misdemeanor nor should it be. It's a civil parking infraction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _A doctor's certification is required to obtain a placard or plate, but 73% > of the applications that were reviewed "did not fully describe the > disability."_

Is it the DMV's responsibility to review medical claims and determine eligibility, or does the doctor determine eligibility and the DMV simply fills the request? If it's the latter I don't see any reason fro DMV paperwork to describe the disability at all.

> _Also, 18% of the doctors' signatures did not match those on file with state > health boards. The auditor questioned whether 260,000 placards issued over a > three-year period were valid._

What's the point of requiring a signature if it's not going to be verified? These should be investigated and if the doctor didn't sign them, that's fraud.

> _A lot of placards that exist were issued to people now dead. They haven't > been canceled. The DMV catches many by checking state death records, but > could identify thousands more by also examining federal data. The auditor > figures at least 35,000._

I can't imagine this is costing the taxpayers any money or that people are using their dead grandmother's handicapped placard.

> _As of June, there were 26,000 people age 100 or older holding placards, > based on DMV data. But there are only an estimated 8,000 centenarians living > in California._

This seems like it overlaps most of the prior point.

> _There is no limit on the number of replacement placards a holder can > receive if one is "lost" or "stolen." Auditors found several people who had > received 16 or more placards over a three-year period._

Imagine that, someone who is elderly and/or disabled misplaced a placard they may only used once a month when they go grocery shopping.

</comment><comment> nommm-nommm Is the author of this piece the disabled police? People's disabilities don't have to be apparent by looking at them to be real. My dad probably doesn't look disabled but he has the lingering effects of the damage caused by a childhood ankle injury which became chronic and the surgery to make it better had the side effect of further limiting his ankle movement making walking much more difficult. He's ok if he walks a little bit but too much and he's out of commission and further aggravates the damage.

Someone with MS probably has limited mobility that isn't apparent as well.

<comment><USER16> The purpose of handicapped spaces is to make it easier to physically disabled persons to get to where they're going. If you can hop out and sprint to the door, that space isn't for you (whether you have a legitimate placard or not), unless you're picking the person who owns the placard.

<comment> nommm-nommm > If you can hop out and sprint to the door, that space isn't for you

1) They author didn't say sprint, they said walk "briskly" or whatever.

2) How do you know? My dad's injury severely limits the distance he can travel on foot. He can move ok at the start of the day but he's only got a limited amount of steps in one day. If he has to walk across the parking lot then that's further limiting his day. He doctor says he's supposed to use it every day but not overuse it. His limitations don't seem to be very apparent (at least to me) because he's good about keeping within his limits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like an incredible waste of time. Actually enforcing this stuff is difficult because it's a personal issue. People have different pain thresholds and challenges.

I'm always puzzled by how they allocate these resources anyway. They took away about 80 spots at the mall where our local Apple store is to make rows of handicapped spots. They are generally empty to begin with, and then you have the issue of context. If you can't walk 300 yards from the parking lot, what do you do when you need to walk a quarter mile in the mall? That probably has a lot to do with the empty spots.

<comment><USER18> >what do you do when you need to walk a quarter mile in the mall?

Frequent breaks at benches or use of an assistive device. Before she stopped driving at all my grandmother could walk on her own, though very slowly. She probably could have walked from the far end of the parking lot but it was simply dangerous for her to do so. If she went to the mall she'd walk as much as she could and sit and rest, then continue on. Eventually she started using a walking before she lost most of her mobility.

<comment><USER17> Good point.

One thing that I've noticed in some places around me is a reduction in those types of conveniences. I used to work in the mall that I mentioned in high school 25 years ago, and then there were benches (and garbage cans) all over the place. IIRC, older KMarts and Wal-Marts used to have at least something in the front of the store, which are missing now unless there is a food place in the store.

Now, they seem to be building these weird little "living room" spaces with couches, but there are fewer benches, indoor foliage plots, old-school water features and similar 80's stuff with boundary walls to sit on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, on the brighter side this issue at least keeps the author and his zeal for poorly thought out solutions to small societal problems from terrorizing some HOA or zoning board.

I had a cousin who had a temporary placard because he had knee surgery and was supposed to walk a very limited amount throughout the recovery. He wasn't "disabled" per say but he wouldn't have recovered properly if he had been walking everywhere during his recovery. I wonder what the author would think of him.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think one reason you see "think pieces" like this is that handicapped parking spaces are a massively under-utilized resource. I have never seen them all used, not even close, but often I've seen a full or nearly full lot with the best possible spots free and unusable because they are marked handicapped. Able bodied people tend to get selfishly frustrated when they are forced to walk all the way from the back of the lot in these circumstances.

One solution to this would be to allow pregnant woman and parents with young children (under the age of 5) to park in handicapped spots. This would lead to a higher utilization, and greater safety. Little kids can be hard to control, and dart everywhere, saving just a few young lives would make it worthwhile. And pregnant women shouldn't be forced to park in the back of the lot, esp. when they'll need to carry groceries or other purchases.

Accommodations like this I would hope would also cool the jets of people like the author. They'd see the handicapped spaces being used more, and hopefully realize there is a wide range of people in our society who need this assistance.

<comment><USER20> To your 'massively underutilized' comment:

I think it was Las Vegas where I saw people orbiting the 30 or so Handicap marked spots Walmart looking for one to open up. The casino spot were also nearly always full. Of course Las Vegas has a large number of retirees and a fairly generous handicap placard handout policy. So between the two, the spots are well utilized.

There was a similar Oakland story about abuse : [http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/DMV-and-Oakland- Pol...](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/DMV-and-Oakland-Police- Crackdown-on-Disabled-Placard-Abuse-205444701.html) which is the kind of thing that gets people angry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For a laugh, I'd sure love to see the half-baked list of disabilities the author thinks solely merit a handicapped placard, which he has doubtless already compiled.

What sucks is that there tends to be a stigma that goes along with having a placard, because, among other reasons, it's sometimes the case that onlookers judge someone who puts up a placard on their mirror as if they are lying about their disability just to park closer. It's one of the reasons why people with legitimate disabilities tend not to use them when they have them, even at meters.

Author contributes to this by seemingly lumping people who have real, non- apparent disabilities with those who pretend to have a disability.

</comment><comment><USER22> Remember not every who is disabled looks it. For instance: Cystic Fibrosis. Many with CF just look thin, but may have less than 30% of expected lung capacity.

That said, I have a family member who is a 16 year old soccer star who has a handicap tag. Her grandfather, who is a disabled vet, bought her car, and apparently due to how the registration works she also got the same tag. (I have no idea if she abuses this however; she seems pretty honest)

<comment> nommm-nommm She may have the tag but she isn't allowed to actually use it unless she's driving grandpa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe if they just get rid of the free meter parking people would stop wanting to cheat.

</comment><comment><USER24> Locally (Arlington, VA), the handicapped cannot park at meters for free. Back in the late 1990s, they started their "All may park. All must pay." campaign -- the point being to "remove the value of the handicapped placard." If you still have to pay to park, it does not help when you park at meters. There are some handicapped spots on the street with meters.

<comment><USER7> This makes total sense to me. As I read the original link I was wondering why CA has that rule in place. There's really no reason I can see that having a disability placard should yield free parking. Glad to see at least one state has some common sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> According to this guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDn6jiq_FjM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDn6jiq_FjM)

All we have to use is use that sign and 100% of this will cease to exist. I highly doubt his 100% number will hold in the aggregate, but even if it's 80% that's impressive for just changing the signage.

</comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of a recent problem at work.

Basically, it was a problem caused by a fix to a problem caused by a fix to a problem caused by a bad design decision. The obvious fix would have altered the behavior of the first fix, which we weren't sure we could do, because someone may have come to rely on the behavior of the first fix.

But overall, we were just very frustrated that we couldn't just address the initial bad design decision, and make the whole mess evaporate into the aether, because none of those problems exist with the standard (and good enough) design.

The disability parking placard is a fix to a fix to a fix to a fix to a fix to a problem caused by a bad design decision. We can't exactly go all the way back to the root problem without a time machine, but we don't have to be stuck messing around at the leaf-level of the problem tree.

The best solution to the blue parking spaces problem is probably not to mess around with plates and placards. It may actually be to reduce the need for _anyone_ \--and the people with mobility impairments in particular--to continually walk across parking lots in order to live their lives.

There shouldn't really be that much of a distinction between medically unable to walk, too lazy to walk, and too busy/important to walk. If _everyone_ only had to walk as much as they wanted to, no one would have to pretend they couldn't. The real problem is that everything in the US is already so far apart you can't economically walk any of it, and therefore you have to drive. So you have to make everything even further apart, to accommodate cars. But now you have to walk and drive and park and walk. Then you have to regulate parking for people who can't walk as much. And then people cheat, because they already have to park so far away from the place they actually want to be. You're just piling patches on top of fixes.

So you design to eliminate the walking in the first place, and have your parks and rec departments install unnecessary superfluous walking trails for the people who still want to walk without a treadmill.

(This is essentially the same problem in Dwarf Fortress for how to get and maintain a large population without killing your framerate. You essentially have to eliminate pathfinding from your fortress, so that your dwarves never have to walk more than a few steps to do anything. It is tremendously difficult to do that without some very detailed planning.)

</comment><comment><USER26> 1.) Just because someone doesn't "look disabled" doesn't mean they aren't actually disabled.

2.) Just like the voter ID thing, show that it's actually a problem before devoting a bunch of resources on a witch hunt.

</comment><comment><USER27> The less that the DMV is responsible for, the better. When they can get the wait time for renewing a driver's license down under multiple hours, maybe I'll consider them competent for additional duties.</comment>


Ask HN: Which tech stacks will be on high demand for remote jobs for 2018/2019? - <AUTHOR> Just wondering since i can't find any reliable kind of statistics/trends about it. <comment><USER2> While not definitive github does an annual "state of" report. Other sites do this as well and they often show trends in languages; although none of the other reports are top of mind for me right now.

[https://octoverse.github.com](https://octoverse.github.com)

<comment><USER3> [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology- fr...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology-frameworks- libraries-and-other-technologies) is another notable one.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, but currently I'm more interested into which are more in demand or used on the remote market, those sites included both on site and remote, but not remote only.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A tiny python app for viewing Twilio SMS Logs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TheSimplePostcard/twilio_chat_history <comment><AUTHOR> This little python script will fetch your Twilio SMS logs with a specific user/phone number and display them like a chat app.

I built it because debugging automated conversations through the Twilio logs was really painful!</comment>


Qualtrics $8B Takeover Promises Great Opportunities for Insights Network - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/qualtrics-8-billion-takeover-promises-great-opportunities-for-insights-networks-recently-2b160e769d70 <comment><USER2> Oh, cool. This is my project. I'm the CTO of the Insights Network and am available to engage in discussion today if there happens to be interest.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best company to buy an SSL certificate from? - <AUTHOR> I am embarking on an upcoming Magento e-commerce project, target demographic is security-aware business customers. The extended validation (green bar) SSL is -- in my view -- required for the website.
There was an Ask HN thread [1] from nearly three years ago that asked the same question, and a variety of answers were provided. On the one hand, there's the "don't spend more than x" on a certificate, and there's the flip side of "get a green bar, it's worth it".
The specifics:
- site is running atop Magento 1.9 on LAMP, payments processed offsite by Braintree (i.e., no credit card details stored on the website) - initially 1x IP address, hosted from a UK data centre - static components may be served from a non-www subdomain (i.e., static.example.com) in future, which may be the same or different IP address
My questions:
1. Who's worth shortlisting in 2014? 2. If you consider yourself a security-aware shopper, would you be dissuaded from purchasing from a site with standard (`non-green`, if you will) SSL?
Thank you in advance.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3556796 <comment><USER2> Th problem with EV (green bar) certs is the Browser usually ends up checking the certificate status via CRL or OCSP (URI is specified in the cert), which can add an additional .5 to 10+ seconds before the page is displayed. More so when the CA servers are down or the connection times out.

So if you do go for an EV cert, go for the one that has the best listed uptime on it's CRL or OCSP servers.

Having said that, I would never spend more than $10 on a cert, and just use the most standard/common "bundled" CA cert. No one will ever know. It will have faster page loads. And those fake stories that EV certs increase conversions are exactly that, fake, and misleading. No one will real world experience has ever claimed to see a positive difference with EV certs.

The only problem with cheaper certs is you have to bundle the intermediary CA certs...

[http://www.devside.net/wamp-server/installing-comodo- positiv...](http://www.devside.net/wamp-server/installing-comodo-positivessl- certificate-bundled-with-root-and-intermediate-ca-certificates-on-apache)

<comment><USER3> Such bad advice given the inquiry. Obviously. Lot of OP's customers are going to want the "best" certs (whatever that means). Or they're going to want "they're name in green".

It's important to answer in the context of the question.

<comment><USER2> "So if you do go for an EV cert, _go for the one that has the best listed uptime on it 's CRL or OCSP servers._"

[http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/performance/OCSP](http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/performance/OCSP)

How is the above bad advice, and not answering the context of the question? What other possible qualification is there for "best" EV certs? They are all "green bar". There is little else to them except price differences.

His customers are going to want a responsive page load time, none of them are going to pull the certificate to make sure he went with a DigiCert EV instead of a GeoTrust EV.

<comment><USER3> I was responding mainly to: "I would never spend more than $10 on a cert" and "No one will ever know" and "can add an additional .5 to 10+ seconds" and "Ev stories are fake" and "no one with real world experience has ever had positive experience".

Having worked with thousands of business in ecommerce I can guarantee you that a large percentage will want their name to appear "like PayPal and Citibank".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pick one that can deliver the full certificate chain without using SHA-1.

The faster the web moves away from SHA-1 the better, and rewarding companies that are already abstaining from SHA-1 contributes to our collective security, in the case of HTTPS.

You should also do it for purely selfish reasons. Chrome is sunsetting SHA-1 for use in certificate signatures, and Chrome will eventually show SHA-1 certificates as insecure. See the link below.

[http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.se/2014/09/gradually- su...](http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.se/2014/09/gradually-sunsetting- sha-1.html)

<comment><USER5> _You should also do it for purely selfish reasons. Chrome is sunsetting SHA-1 for use in certificate signatures, and Chrome will eventually show SHA-1 certificates as insecure._

Referring specifically to this point, and not to your wider point about moving away from SHA-1, "because one browser maker said so" is rarely a good reason to do anything.

Google has an irritating habit of deciding it knows best for the entire world, but often it gets that call wrong and winds up degrading the experience for people who aren't in its chosen group of blessed users. The Firefox team are similarly arrogant at times.

However, in the real world, large organisations also use browsers to access intranet sites, and their requirements -- particularly with regards to security -- may be different to users surfing the public Web. Developers do need to do things with sites that aren't fully configured yet or are in transition from one system to another even if those things might not be a good idea when surfing the public Web. And so on.

So, I urge you to support good practices by making solid technical arguments for them. For example, in this case you could explain or link to information about why the SHA-1 issue matters for those who don't know. Please don't promote browser makers as authoritative sources of best practices instead, because often they aren't.

<comment><USER6> Correction: two browser vendors who between them have more than half of the browser share. And the solid technical argument is that SHA-1 is no longer considered secure.

<comment><USER5> They don't have a majority on any site I run, but even if they did, that wouldn't be the point. Decisions about technical matters -- and _particularly_ about security policies -- should be made on the basis of evidence, not appeals to authority.

For example, instead of saying "it's a good idea to do this because Google will show scary messages", it would be more helpful to link to a site with a test tool and explanatory information about the underlying issue, such as this one:

[https://shaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/](https://shaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/)

<comment><USER7> I fond appeals to authority OK, given that if 50% of market share wouldn't be on board, _nobody_ would consider adopting it.

<comment><USER5> Anyone serious about security would, and they'd be doing it _now_ , not in a few months just because Google decided to show some different pixels on a screen from that date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To the point of EV certs, if you haven't checked in a while the browser vendors have _really_ started to de-emphasize non EV (standard certs).

Here's a visual comparison I put together:

[https://www.expeditedssl.com/pages/visual-security- browser-s...](https://www.expeditedssl.com/pages/visual-security-browser-ssl- icons-and-design.html)

How you feel about this probably centers around whether you view SSL more as a cryptographic means of securing a connection (stopping traffic snooping) or if you view the SSL+Browser iconography as a means of site identification (stopping phishing attacks).

<comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing this. It's really interesting to see exactly how each browser handles both standard and EV certificates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My startup is actually centered around this. If anyone wants to purchase a certificate through me, I'll happily give you the lowest rates I can. ($25 EV or $40 wildcard)

Our homepage is [https://certly.io](https://certly.io), shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER11> I am an early adopter, but the blank home page and blank blog are a little too early for my tastes.

<comment><USER10> We haven't launched yet, and won't be for a while. I'll probably write a post or two about the development soon.

<comment><USER12> Can you at least create a "Coming soon" page with a signup form?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I'm redoing the homepage now but CloudFront takes a while to clear the cache.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1\. DigiCert. They're not the cheapest, but they really have their stuff together. Their support is awesome (speedy, technically competent, and human). They're also proactive about identifying issues with your certs, they handled the heartbleed incident perfectly - reissued for free with no issues.

2\. No

<comment><USER14> Wow, one needs a super premium $595 "Wildcard Plus™" plan to secure an entire domain. Is this normal or a blatant ripoff?

<comment><USER15> It's a rip-off but plenty of people think it is normal so I'm not sure what to answer your question with.

I think the whole certificate business is a rip-off, the only thing that 'green bar/lock icon/whatever' says is that someone at some point in time was able to pay some low dollar amount, but not who, what amount and if they're trustworthy in any way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.startssl.com](https://www.startssl.com)

2 Years wildcard for $59.90

<comment><USER17> They charge for reissuing certs though. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7557764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7557764)

<comment><USER18> That's not a good reason to skip over them. Unless you expect multiple Heartbleed-severity bugs to be exposed in two years you are still way ahead. Just don't lose your private key.

<comment><USER19> You actually only need a single one to make it cheaper to go elsewhere, they charged $25/revocation, which brings the price up to $85 which no longer makes them the most cost effective.

Heck for $99 you can buy a Comodo "EssentialSSL" wildcard, which grants you unlimited re-issue (plus you don't have to deal with StartSSL's terrible UI):

[https://comodosslstore.com/essentialssl- wildcard.aspx](https://comodosslstore.com/essentialssl-wildcard.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I honestly don't think it matter much where you buy your certificates. In the end it the same product, plus or minus some service you may of may not care about.

Should your certificate provider do something stupid you can switch to a new provider in 30 minutes, assuming you don't pick EV.

The EV certificates look good, but that's about it. They do come with at least two disadvantages:

1\. If your company name is different from the domain name it's going to look weird. We dropped having a EV because we're not interested in having the name of our parent/holding company in the address bar.

2\. If you later switch back to a regular SSL certificate is going to look suspicious to your regular customers.

That being said, we use Trustzone ([http://www.trustzone.com](http://www.trustzone.com)). They provide GlobalSign SSL certificates at a reasonable price. I like that they email us, or call if we don't react, a few months before our certificates expire. We also have our own account manager who helps with new certificates and renewals. It's extremely nice just be able to call someone.

</comment><comment><USER21> Check out my startup, SSLMate: [https://sslmate.com](https://sslmate.com). What sets SSLMate apart is that we're working on making SSL certificate management extremely easy on Linux servers. You buy certs from the command line in a single step that takes a minute or less and automates important details like bundling the chain certificate. You can set up a cron job for automatic renewals. Even well-run sites have been known to forget or botch cert renewals, and we want to put an end to that by automating everything. Many features are in the pipeline and will be announced in the coming weeks.

Regarding EV certs, they're not worth the extra money and inconvenience. They provide no additional security, and the assurance they provide visitors is highly questionable (e.g. see shiftpgdn's comment about how switching to a non-EV cert resulted in absolutely no change in order metrics: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8344666)).

<comment><USER22> I didn't found pricing information about your certs. I even tried to register to find these prices, but you asked me for my credit card. Sorry.

<comment><USER21> It's on the home page:

Standard: $15.95/year

Wildcard: $149.95/year

But thanks for the feedback; I'll make this more prominent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just to address point 2. No. Those who say yes probably do not understand what EV certs actually do.

You get the exact same level of security from EV and non-EV certs. The whole "extended validation" criteria is pretty handwavy and varies from CA to CA. Paying more for that warm, fuzzy feeling isn't worth it.

<comment><USER24> Who are you to say that, for him, giving his customers a "warm fuzzy feeling" isn't worth paying a few hundred dollars? It could easily increase revenue far more than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't EV certs create a net increase in security risk (if any web users understood what they were supposed to mean)? I'm not expert in these issues, but I've always doubted their security value:

EV certs are supposed to communicate certainty[1] to typical web users about identity, confidentiality, and integrity. But, if I understand correctly, obtaining EV certs in someone else's name (or something close enough to fool web users) is possible without great cost, and so that message of high security is misleading. If EV certs were believed by end users, wouldn't we merely be creating a social engineering security hole? Competent thieves also would use EV certs and increase trust in their websites too.

Thankfully, I've never met an end user without technical knowledge who understood what an EV cert was. I do know what they are and I don't trust them more than regular certs (which is not much for identity, but I do as protection against low-cost confidentiality and integrity attacks).

[1] Re: "certainty": I know EV certs are supposed to be more secure and not perfectly secure, and that there is no perfect or 'certain' security. However, few end users understand the latter, and of the ones that do few would take the time to learn the degree of increased security EV provides. We shouldn't say, 'trust the green bar' unless we expect people to do it.

<comment><USER10> Could you explain more about obtaining it under someone else's name? There are many checks in place to prevent this.

<comment><USER25> > Could you explain more about obtaining it under someone else's name? There > are many checks in place to prevent this.

Here's what I know, which is not conclusive but possibly persuasive, and as I say below, I've never seen someone call the checks effective: 1) In my experience obtaining regular certs, the identity verification looked ineffective (though I wasn't trying to fool anyone). 2) Regarding both EV and regular certs, I've read several times about ineffectiveness of the verification, and I've never seen someone say otherwise. 3) Finally, effective verification is hard and manually intensive; it's hard to believe it's economical or practical for the large volume of certs issued.

<comment><USER10> Organizationally validated certificates do not require a lot of paperwork or manual validation. The effectiveness of the verification is still a topic for discussion. However the last point is dubious at best, as CAs make >$30-40 per certificate and validation takes max 30 minutes spread out over a day or two (typically).

I will say there are very few maliciously issued EV certificates.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for responding. I get the sense that you have some expertise in this field? As I said above, I don't, so if you do please forgive any ignorance on my part:

> CAs make >$30-40 per certificate and validation takes max 30 minutes spread > out over a day or two (typically).

$30-40 isn't much, and 30 minutes doesn't seem nearly sufficient to reliably verify someone's identity.

> I will say there are very few maliciously issued EV certificates.

How do we know? And is there a lower fraud rate for EV certs than for standard certs? (Probably there is little fraud in any set of business transactions -- otherwise nobody would participate -- but I don't think that's what you mean.)

<comment><USER10> Sorry for the late reply:

> 30 minutes doesn't seem nearly sufficient to reliably verify someone's > identity.

It's actually not that long of a process once you read over the CPS's of a few CAs and the EV baseline.

> How do we know? Ah, the golden question! Hopefully CT (certificate > transparency) will sort this out within the next 3 years. My statement _is_ > an assumption but any high level fraud (e.g. Google/MSFT) is caught > immediately (chrome pinning/reporting and internal CA logs, if you're not > DigiNotar). I don't know about small companies though.

I don't think there's ever been a maliciously issued EV cert _in the context of_ the ComodoHacker and other very public hacks. They typically have tighter internal controls, that I know (e.g. RAs have very limited EV issuance power) but I have no numbers. :(

You should note that EV implies DV validation, so to, without hacking, maliciously issue a certificate an attacker would probably settle for a DV cert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> startssl.com gives out free certs to individuals. This is great for personal projects, blogs, etc. Otherwise I use Namecheap and their $9 certs. I have not found a great wildcard cert provider yet (why all certs are not wildcard by default is beyond me).

</comment><comment><USER26> 1\. I use Namecheap, generally their resold Comodo offerings. No complaints.

2\. No. An EV cert is nice little warm fuzzies, but the absence of it doesn't really tell me anything useful that would dissuade me from making a purchase.

</comment><comment><USER27> And cue the SSL resellers and affiliates!

3\. 2. 1. Go!

</comment><comment><USER28> Hard to beat [http://gogetssl.com](http://gogetssl.com) price wise. I'd get a Comodo Positive SSL Wildcard so you can use it for the main site and the static sub-domain. That way one cheap cert covers everything and it's SHA-2.

</comment><comment><USER17> 1\. In terms of pricing, [https://www.gogetssl.com](https://www.gogetssl.com) seems good. I haven't used it personally, but $27.85 for an EV in the first year seems quite nice. Namecheap is good, too, but a bit more expensive.

2\. Yes

<comment><USER29> Where do you see an option for an EV at $27.85 on that site? I'm seeing prices that start at $110 a year for 2 years. [https://www.gogetssl.com/extended- validation/](https://www.gogetssl.com/extended-validation/)

<comment><USER17> [https://www.gogetssl.com/business-validation/comodo- instants...](https://www.gogetssl.com/business-validation/comodo-instantssl/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I recently purchased an ev cert for one the my client in Netherland from [https://www.cheapsslshop.com](https://www.cheapsslshop.com)

they are good with price and service, you may give them a try.

</comment><comment><USER31> I used [https://www.ssl2buy.com/](https://www.ssl2buy.com/) in the past few months and it worked well.

<comment><USER32> +1 for ssl2buy. Bought a wildcard cert[1] from them for a special price.

[1] [https://www.ssl2buy.com/ssl-discount-offers](https://www.ssl2buy.com/ssl- discount-offers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've been happy with cheapsslsecurity.com, they are resellers but they offer _huge_ discounts compared to the actual issuers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, everyone - this thread has been enormously helpful to me. I am grateful for your time, attention and input.

</comment><comment><USER15> Make sure you get an SHA2 certificate as google is deprecating the SHA1 certificates over the next months.

</comment><comment><USER34> SSL certs are an untrusty ransom based on the tyranny of bad UI.

FF, and chrome and IE are totally ok with login/pass passing in clear over http, which is wrong. But when you don't have a certificate signed with by one of the root certificate in your wallet it screams to death. (Which is totally in hierarchy of risk WTF).

Your wallet contains organization that should have been shut down according to the rules of SSL: we normally cannot trust any authority that even once or for good reasons emitted a joker certificate to make a MITM (or helped people doing so). [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138565)

In your web browser default certificates list you find microsoft. in 2007, they put in IE for the Ben Ali gvt a special certificate to be able to do a MITM on the tunisian opponents. (ofc those using ff would see a warning).

MS did not emit the certificate, but for them who can issue SSL certificates that's clear not right to provide a SSL joker root certificate in its web browser used for MITM (without your nice little icon you care about to get red).

MS is still in my list of trustful SSL certificates. How can you trust them. If they could betray once for a few money (tunisia had less money as a state than MS, google, whatever country) they have incentive to redo it again.

Knowing MS has gone through the death penalty, other SSL issuers can now have an incentive to do the same.

SSL central certificate are NOT to be trusted anymore. We have proofed once a company in our "trustfull" wallets betrayed without consequence. So betraying is OK.

My recommandations: \- Ever dane (but that is a combinat) or the new technology google is secretly working on (maybe mozilla too), \- set a cookie on http landing page ssl_cert_on=bool \- if not present redirect to [http://www/my_cert](http://www/my_cert) \- give a link to your self signed certificate on your domain so that your user add it its wallet securely (must be a js or a MIME extension to set so that IE/FF/google open at the "add this certificate to your wallet page" \- correct the world and FF/Chrome/IE mess by providing a way for the user to read the mess of the X509 certificate (for which domain this cert is valid, the fingerprint) \- correct the world another time by explaining to your customers it is normal they should not trust this special web page or this certificate and give them links for them to check your allegation, (knowledge and tools) \- provide another secured way to access your cert fingerprint (DNS SEC TXT record for instance, snail mails, flying carrier, PGP mails...) \- and make a rant on how much security UI/UX is so much sucking and poorly thought that it is the major security hole nowadays and how all security guru giving us advice on how to code to "secure" code should be regarded as cons that should be imprisoned.

Then, now that you corrected the whole "what gone wrong with central authoriy"'s mess, you can very easily make your free self signed cert secure certificates and sleep on your 2 ears because your customers are now understanding security the right way.

If you understood nothing of the text above, just buy a normal certificate to whoever you want. You will be "safe" according to the green icon, and this is all that matters in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER35> 1\. Namecheap according to me.

2\. Yes.

</comment><comment><USER36> get this [http://puu.sh/bGSOF/3809882b0c.png](http://puu.sh/bGSOF/3809882b0c.png)

</comment><comment><USER37> 1\. cheapsslsecurity.com 2\. Yes

</comment><comment><USER38> Geotrust work better for us.

</comment><comment><USER39> 1\. SSLS.com is rather nice.

2\. Yes.

<comment><USER39> I can't edit now, but I thought by non-green, OP meant a self-signed certificate. Didn't realize OP was referring to EV certificates. I don't have a problem with buying from domains without EV certificates as long as the certificate is valid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> DigiCert

</comment><comment><USER41> No love for Gandi?

<comment><USER42> Gandi looks good, especially if one already use them for DNS. We intend to start using them for SSL.

<comment><USER43> Same here. Gandi is an interesting solution.

<comment><USER42> Curious: What do you mean by interesting?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lyft Is Said to Seek a Buyer, Without Success - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/technology/lyft-is-said-to-fail-to-find-a-buyer-despite-talks-with-several-companies.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Travis Kalanick made an succinct observation on ridesharing's future yesterday:

"If we are not tied for first [in autonomous vehicle rollout], then the person who is in first. . . rolls out a ride-sharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Uber's, and Uber is no longer a thing," Kalanick said."(1)

Lyft has raised ~$2b at a recent $5.5b valuation, Uber has raised ~$9b at a $85b valuation.

Lyft is able to somewhat compete with Uber on today's ground war of drivers & customer acquisition, but unlikely to compete in tomorrow's war of autonomous without a partner.

The recent $500m round Lyft got from GM clearly has GM positioned as takeout partner - GM brings the autonomous / Lyft brings the customers.

What I bet happened here is that Lyft tried to power move GM with some large stalking-horse bids, the tactic backfired, and now GM is leaking to put pressure on Lyft to accept a diminished offer.

(1) [http://www.businessinsider.com/travis-kalanick-interview- on-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/travis-kalanick-interview-on-self- driving-cars-future-driver-jobs-2016-8)

<comment><USER3> People are _way, way, WAY_ underestimating how long it will be before "self driving car picks you up, takes you to location". If we don't have self- driving cars everywhere on highways moving cargo, then we won't have self- driving taxi cabs for many years after whenever that happens. City driving, where Uber can actually make money with the density of people, is the hardest driving of all, and will be the last place where self-driving cars without any human operator take over.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention even when that happens, a properly invested public mass transit system will still be more efficient.

<comment><USER5> They're extremely complimentary. In LA (for example) mass transit has a tendency to strand you, and traditional taxis and car services have gigantic no-go areas unless you're a VIP.

I can take a bus or train anywhere at any time, knowing that if I'm, for example, south of Washington at any time of day or downtown after 2am, I can call a car and still get home. In the 00s, the only way out of those zones was to bring your own car or be prepared for a "Falling Down" style 10 mile walk.

Yellow cabs (then and still) don't enter a massive buffer zone around regions where they might get a black guy as a fare even if you called, but Uber serves those areas reliably, 24/7.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely agree with this. There is no reason we can't move people the way we move goods. Public transit, trains/planes, etc serve as the distribution network. Self-driving cars are the "last mile" delivery service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So is it reasonable to surmise that what's happening here is:

Lyft has a 1.2B cash reserve, ~400MM/yr in revenue, isn't profitable, and has now hit the end of the line on "unicorn" infusions at favorable terms. It's locked in a total war with Uber, which it cannot win or even stalemate while simultaneously shielding its reserves to keep an adequate runway to profitability.

So, since it can't win the race against Uber, its prospects are greatly diminished, and the greatest value it might hold is as someone else's strategic asset.

Or is it something more fundamental than that?

<comment><USER8> I would add that their flanking Uber internationally (China) failed. Whoever purchases them would want some asset whose value isn't tied to fighting Uber head-to-head.

Perhaps the network could be valuable to Google? I notice that Waze seems to be inching in that direction, and perhaps they could get value from the mapping too.

The ride-sharing market seems to have network effects, which means the service with 80% of the market will get much more than 80% of the profit.

<comment><USER9> I believe Google has a not-insignificant stake in Uber already. Would be interesting to see them on both sides.

<comment><USER10> Google is in a really interesting spot:

\- They own a significant stake in Uber via GV (formerly Google Ventures)

\- They own Google Maps, which everyone relies on at the moment

\- They own the most advanced self driving car and are closest to Level 4 autonomy

\- They own Waze, and have a significant community there

In my mind they should acquire Lyft, let it run as is. Then when they are ready to go primetime with their self driving cars, start piloting them as a cheaper/free option within the Lyft app. If the pilot works, expand the cars nationwide and aggressively finance the fleet using their balance sheet.

<comment><USER11> What is really interesting about that is Google's ability to price it as a loss leader propped up by the ad business. They could even tie in a new AdWords extension to let people pay to have customers driven somewhere.

They could completely undercut Uber on price AND have better data sets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Information reported that they declined an offer from GM and ended up pursuing another round of funding. (It's a little unclear whether there was a formal bid.)

[https://www.theinformation.com/lyft-rebuffs-acquisition- appr...](https://www.theinformation.com/lyft-rebuffs-acquisition-approach- from-gm)

(sorry for paywall)

</comment><comment><USER13> I like Lyft and use them preferentially, hope they stay afloat.

<comment><USER14> why? same drivers. very similar app.

<comment><USER15> Not in the city I'm in. Lyft drivers are notably more friendly, to the extent that it's almost a stereotype. Uber seems to have more regular taxi drivers moonlighting, Lyft seems to have more people making it their second job.

<comment><USER16> During driver on-boarding Lyft trains drivers to converse with passengers, while Uber actively discourages it. This is the dynamic you're picking up on, and to me it plays out clearly in the customer space. I prefer a quiet ride, therefore I choose Uber, but I know plenty of people like you who prefer the conversation.

I think currently its a good differentiator for Lyft but Uber's preparing us for our driverless future.

<comment><USER17> I took a Lyft recently - when I made it clear I didn't want to talk, the driver clammed up, was polite and I got to ride in peace (had a headache & just got off hours of customer calls).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm honestly a little surprised Uber and Lyft can't manage a duopoly, considering how many miles ahead of the nearest competitors they are and how many mutual enemies they have.

<comment><USER18> Competition is so last-cen. You need a monopoly, so you can screw over the customers. Read Peter Thiel, "Competition is for losers".[1] "If you corner the market for something, you can jack up the price; others will have no choice but to buy from you."

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is- for-l...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for- losers-1410535536)

<comment><USER19> Your quote is taken a bit out of context, but still – I already didn't like Peter Thiel, this further reinforces my impression of him being a scummy, shady character.

<comment><USER18> Name one "unicorn" with a competitor that's at least half its size. In automotive, GM, Ford, Toyota, and Chrysler have been plugging away for decades, and all have US market shares within a 2:1 range. We're not seeing that in new businesses.

<comment><USER20> I thought your grandparent post was being facetious, but are you being serious with this one?

Here's off the top of my head: Airbnb, Xiaomi, Flipkart, Pinterest, Snapchat (if you count instagram as a competitor), Zenefits, Didi until last week, Dropbox, Theranos, Snapdeal, Slack.

Now that I think about it, it's probably much harder to come up with unicorns that _do_ have a monopoly.

<comment><USER18> AirBnb vs HomeAway is bigger than 2:1. [1]

Xiaomi is a cell phone manufacturer, in an established industry.

In the social space, Facebook towers over Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.

Zenefits is indeed in a competitive space. It's in B2B, where crushing the competition is harder because of lock-in.

Theranos may have a value of zero.

Shopping cart companies (Flipkart, Snapdeal, Alibaba) tend to be nation- oriented, so you have to look at them country by country.

Slack and Atlassan do seem to be in the 2:1 range. Again, B2B with lock-in.

[1] [http://fortune.com/2014/03/12/growing-quietly-in-airbnbs- sha...](http://fortune.com/2014/03/12/growing-quietly-in-airbnbs-shadow/)

<comment><USER20> I wasn't thinking HomeAway, I was thinking every hotel chain out there.

You said within 2:1, so Pinterest and Snapchat definitely qualify if you are counting their competitor as Facebook. Unless you meant 1:2, which doesn't make sense for your argument.

Sounds like you agree then that Thiel's "You must be a monopoly" argument is bunk? Haha, I'm still confused by your comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Isn't transportation a "commodity" service? And if so, how can Uber's and Lyft's valuation be explained then?

I'm not an economist, but I would predict that the future of personal transportation is going to look like a race to the bottom, just like what is happening to cable companies (who transport data instead of people, and actually own some important infrastructure to keep their quasi monopolies up).

<comment><USER22> I 100% agree. Uber would like to own a 2 sided marketplace like Ebay, in which case it's nearly winner take all. The dynamics of ridesharing don't seem to match up with that. Every driver in NYC has 2 or 3 phones running multiple apps, the supply is not constrained to any particular network. Autonomous cars owned independently would obviously be smart enough to take the ride with the highest revenue. Thus the marketplaces are going to have to compete based on how much they pass through to the car owners. The margins are going to be paper thin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not surprised: I've only done one Lyft ride in my life. I arrived into Newark Airport and needed to get to New York City. Uber had a 3x surge, so I downloaded the Lyft app. I saw that Lyft was offering $5 if I did their ride share option, so I chose it.

\- Driver picks me up quickly, no problem

\- Driver makes 3 loops around the airport to pick up my ride share, but she cannot understand the Lyft app's GPS/map and is unable to find the person.

\- Driver decides to just leave the airport without picking the ride share person

\- Lyft app cancels other ride share's ride AND my ride, while at this point we are on the high way.

\- Lyft driver tells me to re-request the ride, but after a couple of attempts, I am unable to pair back with the driver whom's car I am in (kept pairing me with other drivers)

\- Eventually I get out of the car, on the side of the highway, and order an Uber.

\- Because I'm not in the airport geofence, I didn't get a surge :O

<comment><USER24> Wait...what? The Lyft driver ordered you out of the vehicle on the shoulder of the highway?? Because his own app isn't functioning???

How does this person still have a driver's license let alone a job?

If that was me, I would have told him, "tough luck, sorry your app sucks, but I'm not getting out of this car, feel free to phone the police...sure they would be interested in hearing about your plan to drop me off on the highway shoulder..."

<comment><USER23> They didn't order me out of the car; I actually chose to get out and order an Uber because this driver took me to a random warehouse area off the highway. They said if we waited there a few minutes that the app would let us pair up and then they could drive me. I didn't feel safe so I decided to not participate any longer; I requested an Uber near the highway entrance ramp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If Uber is investing heavily in self-driving cars, there's a case to be made that Lyft represents a "purer" investment in ride-sharing without assuming the cost/risk of that massive expenditure.

Uber is betting that they'll be first to self-driving cars, Lyft is betting it will be any one of a dozen companies that aren't Uber.

I think that's a pretty reasonable bet. If/when self-driving cars hit there's no way they'll be limited to ride sharing, so the chance that Lyft will be able to benefit from general availability is high.

<comment><USER26> I agree there is not a great difference in the places I am mostly (SF and LA) but I think Uber was smart to bring on a lot of cheap capital the past few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I do not see how this is different from the airline business, where several airlines co-exist in the US

</comment><comment><USER28> The ride-sharing hype train ran out of investors. I struggle to think of a company who would want to buy Lyft. The most interesting one which comes to mind is Didi Chuxing.

Though given how much money they wasted competing with Uber in China and then buying Uber out of China; I don't think Didi has much cash left (or interest) to buy Lyft in order to compete with Uber on US soil - They probably just want to bury the hatchet with Uber and each plow their own fields.

I don't think Uber would buy Lyft for several reasons: \- Uber started cutting back on spending - Probably not the best time for acquisitions. \- Such an acquisition could raise antitrust issues. \- Uber knows that there aren't many potential buyers for Lyft - Uber may be tempted to just wait it out and let Lyft go out of business - Then Uber can pick up most of Lyft's old customers for free.

I would not want to be a Lyft employee right now; especially not the kind who has stock options.

</comment><comment><USER29> In my (limited) circle, I often hear Uber mentioned. I never hear mention of Lyft.

Paywall is keeping me out of the NYT article, at the moment, but I wonder whether Lyft is simply on the losing slope of a plot of momentum, at this point.

Shame, as I am not very fond of Uber's business practices. Though I don't know that Lyft is any better.

<comment><USER5> I know a lot of people prefer Lyft as a first resort but to me it has two serious problems:

* Lyft doesn't let you book a ride by web or sms, which means in an emergency, I can't cadge a ride easily at a web cafe, library, laptop at a Starbucks, borrowed phone, etc. Lyft is optional, having a working m.uber.com login is a survival skill.

* I've never experienced the level of drivers outright misbehaving and fucking with passengers in an Uber that I semi-frequently experience as a friend's guest in a Lyft. I don't know if it's culture or what, but Lyft drivers seem to feel comfortable doing things like picking a location and ditching you or not accepting your instructions to drive a particular place, which as far as I can tell is a "never drive for us again" infraction over at Uber and the drivers know it.

<comment><USER30> What city are you in? I've never experienced a terrible ride like that from Lyft, and I use it exclusively, almost every day. The weirdest experience was a driver offering to take me to a weed dispensery to buy weed for me. And that was him tryin to be nice! Besides that it's just maybe tired or awkward drivers who can't hold a conversation...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why is everyone so afraid of going public?

<comment><USER32> Because it brings accountability.

<comment><USER31> I want accountability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> this is playing right into Uber's hand's, part of their fundraising strategy was to scare investors from putting more money into Lyft and it may be finally paying off.

Now Lyft won't be in a position of leverage when they have to sell themselves as no one wants them at their current price and acquirers will know Lyft is running out of options and will be 1/4 of the price by the end of 2017

</comment><comment><USER34> I know HN is not a big fan of proverbs but "Great companies are not sold, they are bought" rings a little too true in this case.</comment>


New wonder material that could revolutionise batteries and electronics - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/we-accidentally-created-a-new-wonder-material-that-could-revolutionise-batteries-and-electronics-115347 <comment><USER2> [https://www.ossila.com/pages/black- phosphorus](https://www.ossila.com/pages/black-phosphorus)</comment>