SaaS Fatigue - <AUTHOR> http://sachagreif.com/saas-fatigue/

<comment><USER2> I love all HNers dearly, but I have to say, prior to writing off monthly payments as a model: consider how much you're likely to gain in business from someone who occasionally buys apps for $10 and thinks $130 is a lot of money versus how much you're going to lose by not being able to debit the bank account of a business $200 to $2k a month. (P.S. Neither of those are large numbers if you are doing something worthwhile for them.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, I'm sure that in a lot of case SaaS makes perfect financial sense. I'm just saying it's not ALL the cases.

For example, would it make sense to run Bingo Card Creator as a SaaS?

<comment><USER2> If I got a do-over this would be the first thing I changed. I thought teachers would rebel against recurring billing because every other education product did it. It took me five years to spot the logical flaw there...

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. If you ever do switch, it would be interesting to see what your customer's reaction is and how much more profitable the SaaS model is compared to the current one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> People will always pay for things of value - myself included. I run a consultancy of 10, and I love the tools I use.

\- I pay $100 a month for Harvest

\- I pay $100 a month for Pivotal Tracker (though we're going to be replacing that shortly with our first SaaS product, <http://projectorpm.com>)

\- I pay $49 a month for Basecamp

\- I pay $39 a month for Flowdock

Are these worth it? Absolutely. I will gladly pay for products that kill the pain of running a company (invoicing, project-centric communication) and make me more money (ability to keep tabs on all of my receivables, etc.)

I don't even consider things like Redmine because I don't want to deal with managing my own infrastructure. For example, it's up to Harvest (in order to survive) to monitor, backup and provide a reliable service.

The SaaS model isn't going away anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ah yes, the good old days where you bought a program and owned it. I remember those days. They were the same days in which the computing awesomeness available to us for $117/mo was only accessible to large corporations.

Sure, review your subscriptions periodically to make sure you are getting value for money. Don't subscribe to services that lock in your data. Aside from that, it is at the same level as "don't subscribe to magazines that you don't have time to read".

</comment><comment><USER5> If you do go with monthly payment options, PLEASE make it possible to pay for a full year of months. Part of my fatigue with these services is the monthly credit card payment paperwork I have to file at our institution for each of these charges. As we use more and more of these services, the tracking ads up.

SaaS fatigue wish #2...add LDAP support.

<comment><USER6> Build something that can expose any LDAP to any web app safely and you'd probably make millions.

<comment><USER7> Already exists: JBoss Teiid (<http://www.jboss.org/teiid>) virtualizes your LDAP (and more besides) allowing you to 'safely' expose your directory as a restricted view. I use it all the time. Haven't made any millions yet, but I'll keep smiling.

<comment><USER6> Key part: "to any web app". You'll need some kind of OAuth provider on top so people can just plug it in right next to their Google, Twitter or Facebook providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I'm interested in cutting SaaS costs I think the first thing I would cut was a site that monitors my SaaS bills. But I'm probably not the target market.

<comment><USER9> I agree. The whole time I was reading the post all I could think was "Why is the author ignoring the countless benefits of SaaS?" - Scale indefinitely, access from any device, no need to install updates, no need for IT department, etc.

Then you get to the punchline, "You have too many monthly costs. Now add me to that list so I can help you remove the others!".

Ironically, the least expensive plan on his monitoring service is almost double the most expensive plan on the list of his own SaaS subscriptions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if I gave off the wrong impression, but I'm not related in any way with Cloudability. I just thought it was a cool service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason there is no SaaS fatigue is that $117/month is still chump change for most companies or even angel funded startups. So yes, if your customer base is made primarily of individuals or nonprofitable or nonfunded businesses then there is a chance for fatigue. Most profitable SaaS cos charge what is perceived as a tiny amount by their profitable or funded clients.

<comment><USER2> Angel funding is very much not a prerequisite to being able to pay for business tools which cost $120.

<comment><USER10> It's amongst the possible prerequisites. Others include being profitable, of course. If you are not profitable, funded or part of a large corp, there is a real chance of SaaS creep from a cost angle.

<comment><USER11> Real businesses are either cash flow positive or (somehow) financed. If you are neither, then for the purposes of market segmentation at SaaS companies, you are not a real business.

Every time the topic of SaaS pricing comes up, someone makes the point that 3-month-old startups with no revenue can't afford $10/$20/$50/$100 per month. That SaaS companies could set up a pricing scheme that would allow even 3-month-old startups to use their services. That this might pay off in the long run when a few of those companies make it big.

SaaS companies _could_ do that, but if their service is truly valuable, they don't need to --- companies with traction will pay for value whether or not it comes with warm fuzzies attached --- and if their service isn't truly valuable, they should fix _that problem_ , not their pricing table.

<comment><USER10> _and if their service isn't truly valuable, they should fix that problem, not their pricing table._

Totally agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What pisses me off is when SaaS offers aren't offering a pricing model that would actually fit for me althoug it wouldn't be a technical difference to them.

I'm currently trying to move away from gmail to something else that also offers me caldav/carddav integration. I could run my own mail server, but I really, really don't want to ...

One perfect solution for me would be atmailcloud(.com). They offer a snappy webinterface and cal-/carddav for 2 USD/user. The problem: the minimum amount of users is 5. I could just change the http post and probably get away with just buying a single user, but I'd rather be able to pay for something I'd love to use without having to fake my way arround it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested in knowing which SaaS you guys pay for a monthly basis, to see where I stand.

<comment><USER13> * Rackspace Email ($20/mo)

* SnapEngage ($19/mo)

* ZenDesk ($9/mo)

* RepositoryHosting ($6/mo)

* PayPal Website Payments Pro ($30/mo + per-trans)

* Authorize.net ($40/mo + per-trans)

* Merchant account ($30/mo + per-trans)

* Softlayer ($600/mo)

* Linode ($19/mo)

* Kall8 ($2/mo)

I think that's about it for the monthlies.

If I didn't own them, I'd also be paying $9.95/mo for W3Counter, $69/mo for w3roi and $20/mo for DialShield based on my own usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Considering our org chucks way over $5k a month at salesfarce, I reckon dynamics CRM would be cheaper...

Oh and don't get me started on Atlassian's products. They are hideously expensive when you hit 90 users.

SaaS is fine for a couple of users usually but it doesn't scale from experience. By then it's way too late to switch.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would be interested in hearing results from anyone who has switched the payment structure of their product. From say, one-time-purchase to saas, or vice-versa.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've written a follow-up to this post: <http://sachagreif.com/saasternatives/>

</comment><comment><USER16> Lean startup SaaS tools bundling for cost is an idea I'm vetting now: leanmeanbundlemachine.com

</comment><comment><USER17> You know what everyone else calls this? _The cost of doing business_. Recurring expenses are a fundamental part of business life, it's best to get comfortable with them.</comment>


My Quadriplegic Husband and Me - <AUTHOR> https://catapult.co/stories/what-the-world-gets-wrong-about-my-quadriplegic-husband-and-me <comment><USER2> The prejudices which a disabled person faces or their partner in this case are humongous.

I'm a dwarf with limb deformities, as CEO of a startup I perform the role of at-least dozen able-bodied people of my age each day. Still, since people who I haven't met personally don't know I'm a dwarf expect a 6ft Suite clad man at the business meeting; at the meeting I can see the sense of disappointment when they see me initially and then overwhelming realization of "This guy did all these?". But I've learnt to cope with these situations.

Always remember, a disabled person see's themselves as disabled only in the eyes of the people with prejudices.

<comment><USER3> _Always remember, a disabled person see 's themselves as disabled only in the eyes of the people with prejudices._

I really hate these aphorisms. I have a mild disability - I have cerebral palsy that affects mostly my left hand and to minor degree my left foot. While I've done a lot of things that most people haven't done - run half marathons, was a part time fitness instructor for over a decade, etc., I know I'm inconvenienced by my disability every time I have to ask other people to do things for me that requires the use of both hands.

Almost any disability comes with certain inconveniences that remind you everyday of what you either can't do or that takes you longer.

<comment><USER4> Agreed I have syringomyelia which causes intense pain and on a bad day I limp (imagine walking with your leg encased in water close to boiling point).

On a good day you can't tell.

I still cycle and swim and am in better than average physical shape for 37 but as soon as I tell someone it _all_ becomes about my (mild) disability.

The drugs work and I live a normal life but they come with significant side effects.

Some of them are funny (they use gabapentin off label to treat premature ejaculation - so I had to explain that one to my GF early on), they also make me wooly mentally, it's not a bad feeling but I'm a bit of a space cadet for a while after they kick in.

<comment><USER5> > _I still cycle and swim and am in better than average physical shape for 37 > but as soon as I tell someone it all becomes about my (mild) disability._

To strangers that might not understand (or take multiple meetings to see that's not a problem), it might be better not to tell at all. For people one actually know mid/long term, it's easier to be open without the prejudice.

(This sounds very House MD).

<comment><USER4> The my prognosis is good, the pain is mild to severe but with medication mostly under control.

It doesn't actually impair me physically but the pain makes me not want to move, sometimes it's just gritting my teeth and getting it done.

Given the rareness and potential severity I got off damn lucky, I have to remember that occasionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am rather disappointed that she chose not to describe anything and just whine over prejudices she's visibly not in the mood to take down.

I understand not wanting to draw any sympathy over this and not to be pitied, not to be seen as a caretaker or whatever, but she also needs to understand that it's NOT most people daily lives and we can't imagine what it looks like.

So yeah, this whole dishes thing. Is he really picking them up and putting them in the dishwasher, without use of any limbs ? I mean maybe their home is designed in such a way and it's the case but I don't see how ? He's up with the baby, great. Can he pick it up, change diapers and feed it ? Or will she have to come ?

I really don't know all these things and how it works, I'm not acquainted with anyone with disabilities, how do you want me to see further than all these limitations if you don't offer any insight of how they are absolutely "non factors" in your relationship and daily life.

<comment><USER7> Hi! I am the writer of this piece. To answer your questions: Your use of the phrase "without use of any limbs" is the problem here. That is not what quadriplegic means. It means that all limbs are affected and at least partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, or other injury/illness. My husband's injury level is C 5/6, which is a fairly mid-level injury- higher in the spinal cord than many and lower than others. So every quad is going to do different things than others. My husband, for example, has full sensation all over his body. Many do not. However, he has no use of his fingers, while some do. He can, however, use his upper arms, and adaptive tools, which he has used to do everything you mention: changing diapers, feeding, picking her up and putting her down, and yes, the dishwasher, cooking meals, etc. I have left the baby with him overnight while I was away for work/at the hospital. It takes him a lot longer to change diapers, but about the same amount of time to put a bottle together. He drives (with special controls in a wheelchair van), etc. Many quads do.

There are already many resources--books, videos, myriad articles, etc.--that cover quadriplegia/how spinal cord injuries affect the body/quads and parenting, etc. This was a personal essay. I hope, if you're truly interested, you make use of some of those existing materials.

<comment><USER8> It sounds like this is the misconception that makes people respond the way they do. If you haven't tried this yet, maybe you'll find that your life improves if you take a moment to describe to your friends what quadriplegic really means. I personally have always assumed it meant "completely paralyzed and helpless."

You could even jumpstart it by saying he's "partially quadriplegic," which of course isn't technically correct but would give uninformed people like myself a better picture of your true situation, and an opening to ask what you mean by that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR: "Hell is other people."

I wish I had more to add. I don't. No one in my family is quadriplegic, but we all three have _special needs_.

 _Special_ is the new _retard._ As the author so eloquently describes, so many people see that and only that and erase everything else about you.

<comment><USER10> It reminds me of privileged people who dont care about safety nets, rich people who dont care about high taxes, innocent people who couldnt care less about throwing weed dealers in jail for 10 years, healthy people who have no concern for healthcare costs...

People lack the imagination to really put themselves in others shoes. They are shitty and cruel when they cant empathize. And they have little incentive to try.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. This is a problem of lack of imagination and empathy. How do you think it can be fixed in mass? I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of disadvantaged groups. Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it.

<comment><USER12> >Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it.

Texas has this for abortions. The law requires that a woman get a sonogram from the doctor who will be performing the procedure at least 24 hours beforehand, during which the doctor must display sonogram images and make the heartbeat audible to the mother.

It's controversial.

<comment><USER13> I think you made a nice addition to this discussion, but I think your comment possibly would have gotten less downvotes had you quoted the line before that one in the gp.

> I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of > disadvantaged groups.

Where the disadvantaged group you mention is the baby. I only say that it might help, because the part you quoted about VR seems almost completely unrelated to sonograms and abortions, but had you quoted the line before it then it would in my opinion be more closely related.

<comment><USER14> I don't know. The example was clear to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of some great graffiti I saw once: "get out and face your world". It was doing to me, breached it's a one word change from the normal "get out and face the world". But that one word change makes you realize it's one world, but it's very different for each of us.

</comment><comment><USER16> She makes some great points. As a quadriplegic, I can definitely relate to

1\. People expressing pity. This doesn't always need to be verbal, the look people give me is sometimes all it takes to remind me that I'm not "normal".

2\. Being called "strong" or "brave". This is frustrating not because I think it's not a genuine compliment, but because it genuinely isn't true. I certainly don't consider myself an exceptionally inspirational person: I just try to live a normal life like any average schmuck in the upper-middle class in a first world country. I may have had the misfortune of being born with a disability, but in many ways I've been exceptionally lucky: born in a moderately wealthy family, academically nurtured by good teachers, granted an Ivy-league education as a result of good teachers, and given a comfortable career in BigSoftware as a result of said education. Nothing in my life is exceptionally off course from that of a pampered son -- aside from my lack of arm or leg function.

3\. Restaurants and stores lying about their accessibility. This is a huge problem with review sites and often is a stark reminder that the world fundamentally wasn't designed for people like me from a UX perspective.

This article also captured a lot of my concerns with dating as a disabled person. I realize that any woman I get into a relationship with has to, in a way, endure my pains as a disabled person. That the pity, genuine-but-wrong compliments and the wrenching realization that the world is for the ambulatory easily spreads like a disease from me to the people that I love.

It's definitely frustrating. I am glad that she seems happy with her marriage for now though. As a quadriplegic, I know that we don't have a good track record for happy relationships, which has always been something that keeps me up at night. Steven Hawking [1] and Christy Brown [2] are two examples of quads I can think of who have been known to have less-than-fulfilling marriages.

I hope that I can do better, but for now I'll just focus on being a better software engineer so people have something else to look at besides my disability :)

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

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

<comment><USER17> While I wholeheartedly agree to your points, and I feel it really is bad to focus on someone's disability when there's so much more there to inquiry about (a whole human with skills, stories, wisdom, successes, failures, interesting and differing points of view), I must offer a counterpoint:

In most humans, the different is intriguing, and while a disabled person has all of the same (and good and interesting) attributes I've listed above as all other people, they also have this extra bit of experience which is their disability and which most people don't have.

I am with you that you should be genuinely bummed at watered down compliments and empty shit like 'warrior', 'brave' and all that awkward stuff that just makes you the center of attention for no reason. In essence, We are ALL warriors and each day we win at making money, getting fed, and breathing is a victory and a blessing (another chance to do it again tomorrow, possibly better!).

But, please notice that some people are just specifically curious about how do you go about your day, how different it is to tackle the same challenges they have but with your perspective (people normally like to compare, so it's not gonna be different with you and it shouldn't if you wanna be level). So if you recognize an honest and genuinely curious person among those other in the crowd that are just bringing up your stuff because they have ran out of subjects to talk, well, telling them those tiny details of your life is a sure fire way to get past that awkwardness and condescending membrane and will bring you together in a deeper way than most watercooler conversations you've been caught up.

Have a good one, man!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a physically and mentally handicapped son and I have to agree with the author ... he leads a great life but it's different. The reality is that everyone's life is different to some degree (more or less).

<comment><USER19> Two autistic sons. Both are happy. I've gotten questions before about their future. I tell people that if they are as happy as they are now in the future, what does it matter what they do? I know people that apparently have a good job and good education and all that, and they aren't happy.

Your perspective shifts.

<comment><USER20> I'm the youngest of four and two of my siblings are disabled - being by far the youngest I was kind of oblivious at the time what this meant for them and my parents. One thing I do remember from my parents was that my mother always asked me "are you happy?" \- not was I successful, or how much money I was making but how happy I was.

Now that I am the parent of a 18 year old (and the stresses that come with that) I am repeatedly stuck by what an incredible amount of stress my parents must have been under and frankly, how well they coped. Now my own concern for my own son is very much "are you happy?".

<comment><USER18> When asks what I wanted my kids to be when they grew up I've always said "happy" too ... Life's too short to aim anywhere else!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I feel like there's this weird preciousness fetish that comes up around hardship. "Oh, you poor thing! Life must be so difficult and interesting for you. Please, tell me about your struggles, preferably in 15-20 minutes while alternating personal anecdotes with general observations about society."

I see this in how we think about disability, but also poorer countries, where the gold standard is the noble African tribeswoman, carrying water for her family, living in a hut, eating soup made of sticks or whatever. Shame she has a cellphone and wears a t-shirt. It kinda ruins the magic.

And I think deep down we want that magic, the idea that things could be _so different for us_ that we try to amplify differences beyond understanding and into caricature. It's hard to believe that if we were in a wheelchair, or carrying water every day past all the World Vision cameras, it would just be mundane for us. How's things, N'gatu? Oh, y'know, carrying water again. Same old grind.

It would be harmless enough, except that you really want to be firing on all cylinders against hardship and deprivation. These aren't problems that need wide-eyed mysticism or hand-wringing sympathy. They need pragmatism.

Why is someone in a wheelchair disabled? It's not because they can't walk, it's because they can't walk in a world that expects them to walk. If they went through a portal to nobody-has-working-legs-Earth, they'd fit right in. But of course, on that Earth stairs would never have been invented. The nobody-has-working-legs-Earth scientists would have been hard at it on wheels and ramps from day one.

Which isn't to say someone with legs would be just as disabled in that world or some nonsense like that. Legs are better than no legs. But also being able to fly or see infrared is better than being stuck here on the ground with nothing but the boring visible spectrum to watch. Without society as a reference, there's no disability, just degrees of ability. And more is still better.

So finally we come to enhancement. Technology enhances a paraplegic into a person with wheels for legs, the same way it enhances N'gatu into a person with a detachable water stomach, and the same way it enhances you into a person whose hydration comes through a vast external network of water arteries. There's nothing mystical about any of these examples; it's just ability being enhanced by technology.

So I think we could do a lot worse than just taking disability to mean "has the most to gain from technology". I mean, I'd gain a lot from a jetpack and infrared contact lenses, but if my quality of life could be significantly improved by an inclined plane, well, that sounds like the definition of an easy win.

<comment><USER22> >poorer countries, where the gold standard is the noble African tribeswoman, carrying water for her family, living in a hut, eating soup made of sticks or whatever. Shame she has a cellphone and wears a t-shirt. It kinda ruins the magic.

I've traveled quite a bit in recent years, and there are quite a lot of fellow travelers who express something like this. Oh it's so sad that we can't see the REAL China anymore. Or something of the sort. Like other people are just their for your entertainment.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have a time machine and visit ancient China, but there's a severe disconnect if you think people should continue living a certain way to fulfill your stereotypes.

<comment><USER13> I was going to comment on that statement as well.

> I see this in how we think about disability, but also poorer countries, > where the gold standard is the noble African tribeswoman, carrying water for > her family, living in a hut, eating soup made of sticks or whatever. Shame > she has a cellphone and wears a t-shirt. It kinda ruins the magic.

I lived in the Philippines for over a year and my first sixth months I lived in a pretty rural area where most people had dirt floors and bamboo/cinder- block houses. I believe some of them had cell phones but not all of them.

The interesting thing about the above quote to me is that though people live in such humble circumstances that doesn't necessarily make life more miserable for them then for you and I. Some of those people I met in those circumstances were very happy people. They may not have the same things, but the things they have like family they hold dear.

On a tangent, I think the principle behind the article's solution (basically that we should not pity and should help by building ramps) is the difference between empathy and sympathy. Like it was stated earlier in the comments we need to put ourselves in other people's shoes and see if they have any problems with their situation. Once you know and they know you know there is a problem then you can go about expressing your concern for them or providing a solution. The problem with just giving pity outright is shown in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great read. Is there anyone out there with suggestions on how to go about 'just' building ramps? I would do this all over the place, giving time and labor: but I don't want to also give the time needed for all of the back-and- forth.

<comment><USER24> Just recently I learned about StopGap[0] after my neighbour attended a fundraiser. The ramps.org mentioned in sibling comment looks pretty US-centric but StopGap is based out of Toronto.

[0] [http://stopgap.ca/who-we-are/our-vision/](http://stopgap.ca/who-we- are/our-vision/)

<comment><USER25> That's awesome. In many cases it's just a little thing, but it makes such a huge difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've met a lot of people who with seemingly good intentions, are way too quick to give pity.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did anyone else feel that this post was very difficult to read? I'm not being insensitive. I haven't really understood what the author was saying in this post.

All I got was that some colleague (or her husband was it?) was feeling bad for the author. After that it was a lot of words & sentences, broken up into paragraphs. Couldn't get anything more than that.

</comment><comment> adam-seeliger I'm sorry the author feels this way. I can't help to feel that she's trying to draw sympathy to herself. That is very sad, that is stress she doesn't need.

My father was a paraplegic due to a military injury. Growing up he was a great role model because it never slowed him down. He has never expected, nor demanded anyone accommodate him. I always wondered why. I finally asked him. He explained that it's morally wrong to demand or require someone to change their way of doing business/practice for him — something very rare. He further explained those who want to go out of their way to accommodate him out of true appreciation for his business are people with true high moral standards and those are the people he would rather do business with.

<comment><USER28> Did you actually read the link?

Seems like she very specifically wants to draw LESS sympathy for herself, at least over this. From her description, her husband doesn't seem keen on letting his disability slow him down or prevent him from living life either.

As far as the demanding accommodations go, I think ramped entrances and handicapped parking spots are pretty reasonable standards, ones which have been legally mandated for many years now. While I commend your father for finding folks who respect him to do business with, I cannot agree that it is morally wrong to demand equal access. The American Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act both exist because it was determined that equal access to public businesses and accommodations is a moral imperative, and a right even. I don't think the author is out of line for being frustrated that in 2017 it's still difficult to do something as benign as go out to eat with someone who uses a wheelchair.

<comment><USER29> adam-seeliger deleted a comment it appears, but I'll respond to what was there anyway.

No, I'm not embarrassed that my wife wrote this -- it's brilliant writing. No, I'm not embarrassed that she "aired our private lives in public." She didn't. Why would I be embarrassed that my wife writes about my spinal cord injury? Sounds like maybe your father was ashamed of his paraplegia, in which case I'm sorry he felt that way. That is why we need articles like this and more ramps, so people like your father don't feel ashamed of their disabilities.</comment></comment></comment>


I've Read More Than 83 Audiobooks This Year, Here's What I've Learned - <AUTHOR> https://blog.karljtaylor.com/blog/i-ve-read-more-than-83-audiobooks-this-year-here-s-what-i-ve-learned/ <comment><USER2> How does one 'read' audiobooks?</comment>


CDN vs S3 - <AUTHOR> http://jdorfman.posthaven.com/medium-bitcoin-660x493-dot-jpg-cdn-vs-s3 <comment><USER2> For everyone saying this is obvious: I'm one of those idiots that didn't quite get it and I appreciate this post a lot.

For the past week, I've been working on writing a little static site generator and putting it on S3 and I thought I was pretty damn clever for finally getting around to doing that... except now it turns out I'm clueless yet again. I'm looking at Cloudfront now, but I'm still not sure if has all the features that I was expected out of S3 alone (someone already mentioned Route 53 integration).

<comment><USER3> I don't think you're an idiot, it's more likely that you were just unaware of cloudfront or perhaps CDNs in general.

S3 is for storing files, Cloudfront is for serving cached versions of them really quickly out of edge locations (i.e. the closest CDN datacentre to the user that requests it).

In your usecase, your best bet is to use them in combination. Set up a Cloudfront distribution to point to your S3 bucket, then setup DNS to point to your Cloudfront distribution.

One big point to note is that you need to either:

* Configure Cloudfront to expire objects after a TTL (time-to-live) that is reasonable to you (e.g. 1 hour, 1 day etc). You can do this from the Cloudfront 'new distribution' wizard.

OR

* Let Cloudfront respect HTTP headers and then make S3 (or whatever your custom origin is) set cache-control headers that make sense for how often you update your site. Not sure if/how you can do this with S3, with a custom origin its your app so you can set whatever http headers you like.

To be clear: if you don't do this, I'm pretty sure cloudfront caches things forever, or at least a very long time.

Personally, I think triggering cache invalidations should only be for emergencies (e.g. someone has uploaded questionable content to serve to other users and it's cached in at and edge). Rather than screwing around with that, save yourself some headaches: pick a sensible TTL and wait a little longer to have things up to date at your edges.

Note that by using Cloudfront in this manner, you get the performance benefit of serving static files. If performance at the expense of convenience was your main reason for going with static site generation, you might want to rethink that decision (there are other perfectly good reasons for wanting to use a static site generator, security being my favourite).

Do feel free to ping me over email if you have any questions on the above.

<comment><USER2> >If performance at the expense of convenience was your main reason for going with static site generation, you might want to rethink that decision (there are other perfectly good reasons for wanting to use a static site generator, security being my favourite).

Great comment. I didn't get this part though. What would be a better alternative?

Performance _is_ one of the main reasons I considered this (uptime is another). Let's just say I've had the same shared hosting for over 5 years and the speed/uptime have been a disappointment for a long time. When I was working on a site and noticed a 500kb background image was taking 2 seconds to load and around the same time I saw that the spotify homepage was streaming a fullscreen video instantly, that was kind of the last straw.

So I thought the idea was that skipping dynamic generation, using distribution (well, I think my assumption was S3 _did_ have edge locations), and just having a better host was a big win.

<comment><USER3> > I didn't get this part though. What would be a better alternative?

To clarify: I'm not saying that static assets behind an edge cache is not performant, just saying that a dynamically generated site behind an edge cache is effectively the same performance wise. It's probably not worth the sacrifice in convenience _if_ performance was your main reason for going the static generated route.

I can't speak to the argument from uptime as I haven't used shared hosting in a while. Using an edge cache (without S3) might give you a little help there, as it only needs to hit your shared hosting on cache expiry, but that obviously won't be as safe as statically generating the files and making CF read them out of S3.

I think S3 behind CF is a perfectly good approach. I was just saying that if you've currently got a dynamically generated site and are considering moving to static generation because of performance alone, the trade-off probably isn't worth the effort.

I wouldn't advise you personally to go back on that decision at all, especially because of the issues you've seen with uptime.

> I think my assumption was S3 did have edge locations

I think you get this from the rest of my comments but just to be clear: I've only ever experienced bad download times from S3 and would not feel comfortable recommending that you use it to serve traffic directly from the internet. It's not what S3 is for and so you shouldn't expect good performance from it in that use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> True, S3 is not a CDN, but for a lot of use cases, serving directly from S3 is fine.

Taking Vine for example, I picked a random vine from twitter (<https://vine.co/v/bE3YI365gxd>) and a popular vine from twitter (<https://vine.co/v/bEFFxdwjK9x>). The popular video and thumbnails are served from a CDN, where the new one with no traffic is served directly from S3.

YouTube did the same thing in it's early days. CDNs are not required for all traffic, and blindly recommending them is a bad prescient. They're really great for content that is frequently accessed, but their value greatly decreases on long-tail content.

<comment><USER5> When S3 first came out, people used it for this without considering its latency issues, and it was a disaster. S3 _is not a CDN_ and shouldn't be used as one; this is the reason for CloudFront.

While I can't compare CloudFront to other CDN's, I do know it works well for my clients that have been using it (and certainly better than serving directly from S3).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since this thread will likely turn into people asking about Cloudfront performance, does anyone have any real-world experience with CloudFront vs. Rackspace with Akamai CDN?

On paper the Rackspace one looks like a great performance/price alternative.

<comment><USER7> I am in the process of abandoning Cloudfront, because they have a serious bug when serving video files. They serve HTTP 206 (Range-Get) as HTTP 1.0 but 206 didn't exist in HTTP 1.0. Chrome and Firefox treat this as "uncacheable", thus media assets bypass the local media cache.

Depending on the nature of the content, Cloudfront is not usable for video, particularly the kind where people seek around a bunch, like instructional videos and tutorials. Also, people with slow connections expect the video to buffer while paused. This doesn't happen if you serve the videos from cloudfront.

<comment><USER8> You're doing something horribly wrong. I work for a live streaming company and we make extensive use of Varnish. It can probably solve the problem you're describing.

<comment><USER7> I'm not doing a damn thing wrong other than using Cloudfront. The problem is on their end, not mine. Thinking Varnish could solve this problem is utterly confused. Do you know what CDN does? CDNs have servers located around the world so files are loaded quickly and with low latency.

Furthermore, your profile suggest you work for a pump and dump penny stock company (basically a scam). If your employer is paying you in something other than cash, you need to walk away asap.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like troll bait, recall the recent article about PG's modding algorithms. Life's too short.

There's lots of video CDN "solutions", and it's almost always cheapest (even after labor support) to DIY with bare metal at very large scale. If it were me, I would eval video CDN shops using tsung test cases wired up as nagios checks. Gotta make sure their stuff stays working __.

 __A payment gateway once mistakenly deployed API changes to production without notice. Trust no one.

Anyone evaluated? <http://live.bittorrent.com>

<comment><USER10> _and it's almost always cheapest (even after labor support) to DIY with bare metal at very large scale_

If you simply need to deliver files or live streams, without needing to provide complex functionality at the edge (various kinds of protection, geo blocking, or pay-per-minute), and your traffic patterns are predictable - it's often cheaper to build your own solution. Once you start thinking about backbone and colo redundancy, deploy in different countries with contract commits - things get expensive very quickly.

The beauty of using a massive third party delivery service isn't performance, it's elasticity. Just like with the web apps (frequently hosted on DIY systems) that go down as soon as the link goes up on HN - being able to absorb traffic spikes without failing (and without forcing you to commit to a higher tier for a year) can be very valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Amazon Web Services does offer a worldwide CDN, CloudFront. <http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/>

<comment><USER12> Cloudfront doesn't offer some services that I find necessary, such as nested directory indices (e.g. example.com/folder/ instead of example.com/folder/index.html) and it doesn't return a 404 header on missing pages. I just emailed MaxCDN to see if they provide these.

<comment><USER4> Cloudfront as a CDN supports directory indexes and 404s, it's just S3 that doesn't. If you point a CF distribution at your own server with directory indexes enabled, CF will send those through to the user.

<comment><USER13> S3 supports both of those, via its "bucket as a website" feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought this was obvious? Amazon's Cloudfront on the other hand is a CDN and works great :)

<comment><USER15> If only Route53 allowed you to point the apex domain at Cloudfront (as I understand it, it's currently S3 or ELB).

<comment><USER16> You may not want to do so as:

      1) POST (and so are PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS and CONNECT)
         are not yet supported on CloudFront.
      2) HTTPS/SSL for your own domain is not yet supported
         on CloudFront.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is next? A blogpost saying "Hammers are terrible screwdrivers. Don't use a hammer with a screw!"?

</comment><comment><USER18>
        $ curl -I http://phaven-prod.posthaven.netdna-cdn.com/uploads%2F2013-05-17%2F20%2F3128%2FErQE0vKlNMIeNvaxbneY75nWy

        HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
        Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 20:31:08 GMT
        Content-Type: application/xml
        Connection: keep-alive
        x-amz-request-id: 41706FB9149898AF
        x-amz-id-2: d5F1JMIBLaQzNG5A

Boo. :)

<comment><USER19> @kmfrk

PostHaven cut off the URI:

curl -I [http://phaven-prod.posthaven.netdna- cdn.com/uploads%2F2013-0...](http://phaven-prod.posthaven.netdna- cdn.com/uploads%2F2013-05-17%2F20%2F3128%2FErQE0vKlNMIeNvaxbneY75nWyy4%2Fs3ul27%2Fposthaven- loves-maxcdn.png) HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 20:34:13 GMT Content- Type: binary/octet-stream Content-Length: 52958 Connection: keep-alive x-amz- id-2: NO6o51/19JsQJN9YHc+T/sraZSGNT+f3R+1GWl2QL3aD4SubqazjbMURb4VYaZyS x-amz- request-id: E640348D2D6EDA7B Last-Modified: Sat, 18 May 2013 00:47:10 GMT ETag: "f95534e9752b560f4acdda20228f90ba" Server: NetDNA-cache/2.2 X-Cache: HIT Accept-Ranges: bytes

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As the sysadmin to a company that does use both S3 and Cloudfront, I'm a little shocked anyone would think to use S3 for distribution. A little testing will reveal just how slow S3 can be.

</comment><comment><USER20> obvious: Amazon product isn't that great @ a service that's optimally provided by another Amazon product.

<http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/>

<comment><USER19> @molecule obvious to you and I. I wrote this to inform those who think it is a good idea to use S3 as a CDN, that it isn't. If we can educate a few developers then we (this awesome community of hackers) are making the web faster.

<comment><USER20> > If we can educate a few developers then we (this awesome community of > hackers) are making the web faster.

You're not making the web faster, you're shilling for your employer by comparing their apples to a competitor's oranges and proclaiming "our competitor's oranges make bad apple sauce!"

Failure to mention CloudFront is disingenuous.

<comment><USER19> CloudFront

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Who said s3 is a CDN at the first place!?

<comment><USER5> Certainly not Amazon, or they wouldn't have provided a service that acts as a CDN based on an S3 bucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > I think S3 is a great origin server for static assets

Pro-tip: If you're using Rails, just create a distribution with your app as the origin server and in production.rb, set your asset host to your distributions host. You get the asset cache without having to do the precompile step. Tastes great with Heroku.

<comment><USER22> This is smart, I usually use the precompile with upload to S3 via asset_sync gem. Since Heroku will precompile by default, what do you do to disable it. Just turning on config.serve_static_assets = true is likely not enough.

<comment><USER3> > This is smart, I usually use the precompile with upload to S3 via asset_sync > gem

I used to do the same until cloudfront rolled out custom origins.

> Since Heroku will precompile by default, what do you do to disable it.

I misspoke in my comment, what I meant was you can skip the synch with S3 step. I've never actually bothered to stop heroku precompiling assets (though I may as well). This question on SO looks promising:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8953360/preventing- heroku...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8953360/preventing-heroku-from- using-precompiled-assets-in-development-mode)

If you do that though, as you mentioned, you will definitely need to flip serve_static_assets on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was using S3 to deliver secure signed downloads to customers. It worked well enough for a long time but eventually customers started having major connectivity issues and dead slow downloads.

I switched to CliudFront and, of course, downloads improved dramatically. I had to go with CF because we needed signed downloads. Would be nice to have alternatives but I'm happy with CF.

</comment><comment><USER24> <https://twitter.com/zeeg/status/297888975463542784>

</comment><comment><USER25> What do you think CloudFront is for?

</comment><comment><USER26> Just put Cloudflare in front of it, it's free :)

<comment><USER27> This is what I ended up doing. I've been using Cloudfront for a while now, but Cloudflare is free, and people seem to indicate it is just as fast if not faster.

I have my static assets on a sub-domain, so I just set cloudflare to cache everything on that subdomain (and left it off on everything else).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: My co-founder's lost passion for the company, what do I do? - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder has been having a tough time raising from VCs and we're very quickly running out of runway. However, traction and usability has never been higher -- we are growing pretty rapidly. Our numbers are fantastic, company is growing up and to the right.
Everyone in the company thinks there is potential to be a successful billion dollar company, even with the fierce traction some of our competitors are experiencing - we do not believe that this is a zero sum game.
Our CEO, who is also my co-founder, is now realizing that even if the company is successful, it does not align itself with his long term vision and he thinks the best path is an acquisition so that he can take the team and start a new company.
He's the primary shareholder in the company, but his lack of desire to continue is an issue because we have to depend on him to pitch the current company to VCs so that we may continue growing. If he no longer believes in the company, how can he really convince VCs to invest?
There is resistance to sell and obviously, if the CEO no longer believes in the company - even though it's growing, it doesn't make sense to continue. What are some options out of this mess? What do I do in this case? Who can I talk to? <comment><USER2> A. You need to talk openly and honestly to the co-founder.

And frankly if you are in a disagreement you need to have constructive suggestions rather than abstract disagreements like "you don't have the passion". And yes a statement like "This could be a million dollar company" is wonderful, but it doesn't mean much if you run out of runway. If you're running out of runway is there any revenue coming in? Are there areas you can cut back on? Are there better ways of investing the resources you have left? Maybe the CEO shouldn't be doing the pitching at this point — maybe that's gig goes to another person?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we've 5x'ed our revenue since last year. We're growing at roughly 40% month over month.

<comment><USER2> If there is revenue coming in and you're running out of runway then if you don't sell something needs to be cut. The only other option is to shift some resources to get someone who just raises VC, or at least does the leg work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're growing like crazy, you could be a billion dollar company, you have fierce traction... IMHO you're either misjudging the situation or your co- founder is crazy.

Also, if you really are growing like crazy, why are you having trouble raising money?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's definitely a possibility. I might be misjudging the situation.

The feedback we've been receiving is that VCs believe, that even with our growth, we can not beat our competition as they are much more heavily funded and have a lot of mindshare at the moment.

However, even with insane growth, if your CEO does not pitch with conviction, he will not convince a VC to invest. It's as much about passion and conviction than it is just about numbers.

<comment><USER4> What kind of competition are we talking about?

<comment><AUTHOR> Another startup that's VERY hot right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sorry, I don't know the answers to your questions.

 _he thinks the best path is an acquisition so that he can take the team and start a new company_

Most acquisitions are for the team, so if the company gets acquired, its unlikely that he can take the team to start a new company.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are you on the same page when it comes to finding ways to bring in revenue?</comment>


Ask HN: Ideal path after college for a technical founder? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a CS major at a decent college. I know I want to start my own web startup in the future. (I'm working on a couple things now.) But I'm not sure what to do immediately after college?
For instance, I know I'll work fervently on a side project. But should I go to grad school? (And where? Stanford for CS? NYU for ITP?) Or do I try my hand at Y-Combinator? Or do I work for a $big_company?
If it matters, I'll be 20, and will have money saved up. <comment><USER2> After hanging around the startup community for a while, it's become clear to me that the best thing for personal development and expected value is getting in as an early employee/founder at a company that will both give you a big equity stake and pay you a slightly below market to market salary.

I don't particularly recommend grad school unless you know exactly why you want to go.

</comment><comment><USER3> Work at a startup. Personally I learned more, in a shorter period of time, while working at a startup than I did during any comparable stretch of time spent in college. That experience will be indispensable regardless of what path you later follow.

<comment><USER4> I would agree even if it weren't self-serving ( _cough_ gazehawk.com/jobs/ _cough_ )...I worked in industry for a year before starting my own company, and I'm really grateful for it (my team was awesome!). At the same time, my experiences at larger companies (internships), while useful, didn't give me nearly the experience and exposure to different parts of businesses that smaller companies do.

My theory is the smaller the better, but I only have ~3 data points to support that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Learn on someone else's dime. Find a job at a company that has an interesting product, try to pick the smallest company possible. You'll learn a lot of stuff, work on something that kinda/sorta interests you, meet new people (possible co-founders, investors) and get a paycheck to do it.

I'm a marketing guy and I got my start in a jr marketing position at a small company (~40 employees). I got to play around with their money and resources to build up my own skill set. I use those skills now on my own projects and client work, and I picked up a ton of tips on things like running a business/hiring/sales techniques/etc. I also met a ton of awesome people, some of which I'm still really good friends with.

Go in with an open mind and try it out for at least a couple months, if you really don't like it then you can always leave and find another place or get to work on your own idea. P.S. Don't burn bridges, ALWAYS bites you in the ass (had to learn the hard way).

</comment><comment><USER6> There is no set path for these things, but if there was an ideal path it would probably be working as an early employee < 15-20 at a startup. While at the Startup you get real-life experience working at a company, you meet new people and mature. Maybe you stay 1,2, or 3 years, then you go off and do something on your own. Meeting/Networking is crucial because your co-founders have to be good matches.

Grad school would be great if there is a purpose. ITP would be good if you want to be a founder that leans product/design. Stanford/MIT would be good if you want to lean more in technical.

Y-combinator is the startup-MBA. It is an amazing program that I would recommend to any entrepreneur at any stage (college undergrad, grad, 1-10 year, or older). My issue with someone from college jumping right into YC is lack of life experience and technical experience. There are exceptions to that rule, and PG does a great job in picking those young entrepreneurs that can handle it. So if you feel you have what it takes, apply.

<comment><USER6> I just realized, I only gave you descriptions for your options, although I did give my suggestion (work at small startup).

If you have a great idea and feel comfortable with the entire web stack, apply to YC or other comparable programs. If that doesn't work out, then work at a small startup. If you can't get that, maybe you go to grad school. Thats probably my best advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> at 20? Isn't there the Peter Thiel program?

Do you have an idea worth submitting to YC? Do you have a good network of people to mine for cofounders?

I'd say that if you've got other people to work with, and an idea to pursue, then try your hand at it and go after YC and similar programs.

If you don't, I'd pick the opportunity that will add the most valuable people to your network (other people who want to do start ups, people who complement your skills, people who could become your best friends/people you'll be willing to go through hell with). That's not necessarily a startup, something like APM at Google would be killer for your network and experience, and bigger companies => more people to connect with.

Final pro-startup caveat: If you find the right people to work with, join a startup. You're only 20, and you're not short on cash. There might never be a better time.

<comment><USER8> _Final pro-startup caveat: If you find the right people to work with, join a startup. You're only 20, and you're not short on cash. There might never be a better time._

Really agree with this. There's two things you should know which you might not figure out till you're out in the workforce.

\- This first is that, despite all the news about the economy blowing up and unemployment on the rails, your industry is still aggressively looking for smart people to hire. I get emails almost weekly from companies looking for people to interview. It's a hard feeling to digest sometimes (I'm in my mid twenties), but you won't be left out to dry with your skills even if you go do a startup, burn all your cash, and fail miserably.

\- Understand working capital for what it is. Your age counts for a lot; lots of young people will never realize that youth is working capital that should be spent while they still have it.

I guess the last thing you want to be weary about is burnout, and understand what it is. People love to throw the word around, but they never quite put it into terms, so here it is -

 _What I learned is that burning out isn't just about work load, it's about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. It was relatively easy to drag myself to classes when I thought I was working for my own betterment. It was hard to sit at a laptop and crank out slides when all I seemed to be accomplishing was the transfer of wealth from my client to my company._

written by a former consultant of a large firm - <http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html>

<comment><USER7> > you won't be left out to dry with your skills even if you > go do a startup, > burn all your cash, and fail miserably.

That's true, but you might develop a distaste for 'regular' jobs. Not that those will be your only option, but it might be harder to go back.

> lots of young people will never realize that youth is working > capital that > should be spent while they still have it.

I'm in my mid twenties too, and I'm sure I'll sound like an idiot when I say that youth is also social capital that shouldn't be wasted. I've spent most of my 20s with my head down on work, and I would take a lot of it back to do some more living. I'm not saying that your youth isn't working capital - it is. But always work smarter, not just harder and longer. There's no immediate prize for effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for asking this question! I don't have an answer for you, but I just want to say you're not alone. I'm 24 and after college, I decided to work for $big_company. Now I really think I should have worked for a startup instead. Perhaps do what rms said and form an early stage startup yourself or join someone else's.

Or try what friends of mine have told me, and just work on as many potential startup projects as you can in your free time until one of them becomes successful. A quote I saw recently: "Have multiple sticks in the fire because you never know which one is going to bring you luck." I think that's a good rule to live by.

P.S. If your interested, feel free to contact me if you want to work on something together.

</comment><comment><USER10> ITP is a joke coming from a CS background. It's good for internet fameball self-promoter types and people from an design/art background.

<comment><USER11> Word. If you're interested in this kind of work, look to MIT (Media Lab), Georgia Tech, Stanford (CCRMA), the UC schools (CNMAT, UCLA design, UCSD, UCSB, etc.), McGill (music tech|CIM|SRE) & Concordia (SIP|comp. arts), RPI (empac), and others. ITP is for beginners.

<comment><USER7> Presumably, a CS person isn't going to ITP for the tech education. Are there not other things for them to extract from the program?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few thoughts here about getting an MBA: [http://steveblank.com/2010/05/10/entrepreneurial- finishing-s...](http://steveblank.com/2010/05/10/entrepreneurial-finishing- school/)

"Or do I work for a $big_company?" You may have already answered your question. A startup is not a job choice.</comment>


Amazon is removing ad-free viewing on Twitch for all Amazon Prime accounts - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitch.tv/changes-to-twitch-prime-a986f0d8c9a9?sf195911378=1 <comment><USER2> I'm tired of ads, tired of how they make me waste my time, attempt to manipulate me, tired of the billions we spend (read: waste) each year on the entire ad industry. Millions of hours of smart brains wasted on getting people to click more on their fucking useless ad.

I really wish it was easier to do micropayments (and wish these would't get abused _cough_ gaming) instead of paying with ad-views.</comment>


Digital taxidermy: Collecting memories in video art - <AUTHOR> http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/9693/digital-taxidermy-capturing-memories-in-video-art/

<comment><USER2> While Arago (See Hans Christias Boos)has already a system that is 95% AI, I think it takes just a little bit more collaboration between disparate projects like this to truly create consciousness, even learning from people's actual memories. We should be very close to that moment.</comment>


Delighting with Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomtaylor.co.uk/talks/delighting-with-data

<comment><USER2> "build, then think"

I like that. "Think by building" might be more accurate, but his version gets the point across.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mind-scratching and motivating. Examples like @lowflyingrocks is giving me ideas for simple twitter micro-apps - surfacing information from interesting news sources</comment>


Today's correction isn't much like the dot-com bubble - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/are-we-cusp-next-dot-com-bubble/600232/ <comment><USER3> There's another often unwritten element here around companies basing their valuation on false markets. For example, if I sell $2 for $1 that's a false market. Of course I can grow like crazy and gobble up lots of customers. I could even "disrupt" existing players like those stodgy old companies (banks) that sell $2 for $2.15 (a loan).

The VC subsidies for some of these companies are so high that they are basically selling $2 for $1 in some cases (WeWork was basically losing nearly $1 for every $1 of revenue!)

Ride share companies grew fast when they sold VC subsidized rides but have struggled to maintain that market share dominance without subsidies (lots of other players quickly move in). MoviePass sold lots of subsidized movie tickets until the money ran out.

Thus the fallacy of the whole "it's ok that we're unprofitable because look at how fast we're growing" is that in many cases these companies were only growing BECAUSE they were grossly unprofitable in the form of their investors massively subsidizing purchases.

<comment><USER4> That's not an uncommon nor unheard of tactic in business. Fuel growth, and capture the market for your brand, by selling at a loss.

The trick is always the transition to profitability. Generally, this comes through layoffs and maybe price increases.

<comment><USER5> Imo this should be illegal. Taking a loss undercutting smaller competitors in a way that's only possible because you have piles of money unrelated to your actual business is going to distort the market in a way that's really bad for consumers in the long run.

Anecdotally I noticed this with Pita Pit in New Zealand. There used to be lots of independent pita places that had decent pricing, then pita pit started buying them out and replacing them with pita pit chains, while still competing on price relatively well. But as soon as they'd bought out all the competitors in the area they immediately almost doubled their prices.

<comment><USER6> I know retail stores in France cannot legally sell _anything_ at a loss, except during government-decided 'sales' periods (twice a year, usually in January then June) which are mostly aimed at emptying stocks for the new 'season' (as if that mattered in the 21st century when most stores are a on a bi-monthly product cycle, but hey, that's the inertia of law/gov).

Not sure about businesses in general but I seem to recall it's a general law for commerce.

The problem is that retail is thus basically unable to compete on price beyond a certain (very mild) degree, notably forbidden to say _" I'll sell item X at a loss to attract customers, and then make up for it on other items they buy"_. It's just illegal to do it in France.

A little bit too reminescent of a planned (communist) economy if you ask me, because it applies to each and every item taken individually, not the store overall or over a certain period of time. Needless to say this doesn't help thwart the collapse of retail versus online shops, especially in the way of services — and consider that foreign online businesses don't even have to follow such regulation, obviously, so...

It's a very, very grey area to regulate, and government being just awful at understanding how business works makes it ill-suited (often misguided) to regulate such things. I think branch negociations (within a given sector) is a much better approach: let actors (businesses) decide how they will compete, and only regulate if there's anti-consumer (cartel) behavior, not prior to any wrongdoing! — it reeks of a view that 'capitalism is bad' yadi-yada (typical French view) and hurts consumers' purchasing power in the end.

<comment><USER7> Wow.

So if a merchant buys in too much stock and can't offload it - they're literally banned from selling it below cost?

I assume they can still sell it on a secondary market (just not direct to customers)? Or do they actually have to eat it entirely and just like, burn the stock or something?

<comment><USER6> Edit after the fact: called my ex-boss, she kindly reminded me that as a company we would store goods for months and sell them during "les Soldes", so yeah you get twice a year a 6-weeks period to offload your stock.

Sorry for the confusion. Note that this only applies to non-perishable goods, food for instance is treated differently. Each sector in France falls under different regulation, it's a mess, very hard to navigate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One perspective that I gained much later than I should have:

Suppose you have a small software company, Reinvest Software with big margins and lots of opportunities to expand. You can take home that profit and pay taxes. Or you can invest in growth. That investment in growth is an investment in intangible assets with insanely good tax treatment. But it looks bad on the financial statements.

Suppose an investor, Smart Capital, sees your business potential and invests even though your GAAP income is low or negative. Smart Capital does very well for itself.

Suppose another investor, Sucker Capital, sees Smart Capital doing well, decides that profits don't matter and invests in Negative Margin Software, which never has hope of making money.

I think a lot of people can't distinguish between Negative Margin Software and Reinvestment Software. For many years, I didn't realize that they were separate things and I thought tech was mostly a Ponzi scheme.

At first glance, I see more Reinvestment Software vs Negative Margin Software compared to the dot-com era.

<comment><USER9> What are good examples of Reinvest Software? My guess would be Amazon, but what others?

<comment><USER10> Facebook was a good example. They avoided excessive advertising in their growth phase, effectively spending potential profit for a huge user base. Critically, the profit was intangible as was the investment as the IRS does not care about money you never collected or the number of users you have only cash.

YouTube is another, as far as we can tell it's currently extremely profitable yet people looking at their financials where laughing at the sale price when Google Snatched it up. Part of this is from ever more advertising coupled with ever lower bandwidth costs.

<comment><USER11> google derives much more value from youtube's viewership data than the profit in ads it makes imho.

Youtube's profit model is only profitable at google scale - imagine the capital expenditure to build out such a large video platform (not very many other tech giants have been able to build video, and have it be free).

<comment><USER12> I always understood that the viewership data was valuable because it enabled Google to earn more money selling ads.

What is the value of viewership data apart from advertising?

<comment><USER13> I read the parent post as asserting that the value of ads _placed on youtube_ is not as large as the incremental value to _non-youtube ads_ (which is a much, much bigger market) from better targeting enabled by youtube data.

I don't know if that's true - youtube ad revenue seems to be ~10% of total google ad revenue; so for that to be true youtube data would have to provide 10% revenue boost to existing ads over all the other (many!) data sources that google has, and I'm not certain if it's realistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article touches on this, but I don't think it really addresses the root cause of the difference between 2000 and now. IMO the main difference is really just timing. Companies are staying private _much_ longer than they did in the .com bubble. Back then, the IPOs still occurred during the "only thing that matters is eyeballs" phase, and when markets eventually expected profitability, the emperor was shown to be pantsless.

Now, though, companies that are going public are already large and have gobbled up a lot of their market due to VC funding. What's happening is that they are at the point where that profitability signal has to be in view - <USER2> can no longer say "it will be just around the corner". This flamed out most spectacularly with WeWork, but it's a bit of just desserts that private investors wanted to gobble up all the big early gains, only to find that the additional time just gives public investors more reason to be skeptical.

<comment><USER15> Punting a risky investment is a fine line between the dream still being alive and the bad news starting to roll in. For some investors - and sadly, even for some founders - this is during the earlier stages, which is why it is a huge red flag if founders or early investors insist on cashing out during later rounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a fantastic book that just came out in ... 1954 ... that I'd highly recommend. John Kenneth Galbraith's _The Great Crash, 1929_.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/great- crash-1929/oclc/3136579...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/great- crash-1929/oclc/313657908)

The tech and land booms of the time involved Florida real estate, railroads (a/k/a airlines), airlines (actual aircraft involved), "Radio" (RCA), new alternative energy source and distribution plays, and of course, Goldman Sachs.

I'd first read it following the 2007-8 global financial crisis. It's still relevant now. Short, highly readable, entertaining, and informative.

<comment><USER17> See also Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.

Which was written in 1875. About the financial scandals of the 1870s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> " The problem with tech today isn't so much that software failed to eat the world, but that the most celebrated unicorns weren't actually software companies. They have struggled to achieve liftoff because their feet are stuck in the mud of the physical world"

This sums it up nicely.

Investors got deluded enough to think that if they threw enough money at a non-software company it would magically start making software company levels of profits.

Hopefully the real economy won't be affected too much when this bubble finally bursts.

<comment><USER19> The thing is I don't think investors got deluded, I think investors new exactly what they're doing. They were hoping some greater fool would take the investment off their hands

<comment><USER20> That's not investing, that's speculation.

<comment><USER21> "Venture"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The obvious counter-example to this is Slack, a "pure-tech" company whose value has halved since IPO, and there's a similar story with Snapchat (though its value has recovered somewhat in the past year).

<comment><USER23> I don't think there's fundamentally anything wrong with slack though. Investors just don't understand it, I don't think. I've read so many articles about how Microsoft is going to crush it with teams and it's so obvious to anyone who has had to work with both of them that they simply are not competitors — really the only thing close to it is Discord and it's not going after the enterprise market.

<comment><USER24> The barrier to entry to compete with slack is fairly low. And Discord can just decide to start focusing on enterprises. Microsoft is just one company with the leading office suite that happens to be really kludgy. Slack has its pluses and minuses. So just because slack works great and is fun to use, and has lots of companies giving them money, doesn't mean they are worth their huge valuation. They aren't getting enough money, and another hipchat like competitor can come along and do even better. The best thing slack has is they are the default safe choice.

I say this as a slack stock holder who lost money, so I clearly know what I'm talking about ;-)

<comment><USER25> The only way slack's valuation makes sense to me is that it could be used as a covert business-intelligence tool. I tend to think of github the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> All that's happening is that the market is calling BS on companies that lack sound business fundamentals. The days of valuing companies sky high that are deeply unprofitable but "it's OK because we're a tech company so it doesn't matter" are over.

This is ultimately a good thing for companies with real businesses that were for much of recent history valued far less than those that had no clear prospects of making a profit. See all the writings about IWG vs WeWork on some of the previous insanity there.

<comment><USER26> It still works for taking over highly fragmented industries. And always will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> That article seems to harp on the fact that it is "not-com bubble", basically that the companies are getting punished because they are not "pure tech/software companies". Quite a way to miss the point, IMO.

As if delivering pure software was a sign that the company is worth investing in. Just look at all the cryptocurrency/blockchain startups from about two years ago. Most of them literally didn't have anything else but a whitepaper and some hacked up "coin" \- a derivative of the open source Ethereum code. And 99.9% of them has gone bust already, disappearing with all the investor's money.

This is about investors finally wising up that a start-up with no path to profitability is not a viable business, regardless of the explosive growth fueled by cheap VC dollars and undercutting the competition ("disrupting the market") by ignoring existing laws (Uber, ...).

At least not for public investors - it is still immensely profitable for the founders and early investors of those "unicorns".

However, their goal is not to make a profitable company but to grow fast, attract a lot of VC money and then recoup the investment in an inflated IPO when the entire Potemkin village gets sold off to a lot of naive suckers who end up footing the bill once the house of cards finally collapses.

This is what needs to called out, not some BS talk about "not-com" bubbles.

<comment><USER28> > This is about investors finally wising up

Well, _this generation_ of investors, at least. ;) We had much the same thing happening 20 years ago, and I have no doubt that we will again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Something I've been wrestling with is the perceived 'unsexiness' of certain technologies, like C#. When I joined this industry, I thought that anything that wasn't powered by Rust or Python or Haskell was irredeemable, that C# was a dinosaur not long for this world, and that tech unicorns would be set the tone of our industry going forward. Now that I'm a bit older I've begun to see that something like C# isn't going away anytime soon - that people still use .NET and other technologies because the enterprise endures, and companies like Microsoft are continually investing in their tooling. This article reminded me that sometimes unsexy technology powers the world, and if you can bring value and or mastery of that technology you can greatly benefit.

<comment><USER30> Dont forget that even if C# feels old and stodgy, F# gives a very fresh and "cool" experience on top of .NET

<comment><USER31> Agreed. Also the recent C# language developments are themselves pretty good, as are the runtime / SDK improvements in dotnet core.

With mostly a Linux, python / slightly FP background I "should" be the skeptic. But a recent project had me on a dotnet core app developed mostly on OSX and deployed on Linux. It was honestly pretty neat and while I no longer work on it, I am bullish on this space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was getting insecure that my side-projects/hoped-for-businesses are things like a social news app and a podcast discovery app while Uber, SpaceX etc are changing the world but now that the software-is-eating-the-world companies are getting massacred in the stock market I feel at least some slight relief about my choices. Near-zero-marginal-cost is a magic that only pure-software (and other IP-based?) businesses have...

(Of course I'm overlooking that most new software biz that is doing well is B2B unlike my projects... but still.)

<comment><USER15> SpaceX is real. Uber, AirBnB, WeWork and all the other 'lawbreaking as a service' and 'subsidizing transactions with massive VC' companies are not.

<comment><USER32> I think the word 'subsidy' is kinda questionable here. (This writer's previous article used the same word to discover many companies[1])

If a company is not losing money on gross margins--if they are losing money in total 'unit economics' because the customer acquisition cost is high--does it really mean they are subsidizing usage?

An example is Casper, the mattress company. They are still selling mattresses to consumers for more than the mattresses cost to them. They are losing money on ads. If I see/hear a Casper ad, is that ad really a subsidy to me?

PS. Saw an interesting Twitter thread from Tren Griffin: "Whenever you read or hear the phrase 'losing money' you should ask yourself: what does this person mean?"[2]

1) [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/say- goodby...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/say-goodbye- millennial-urban-lifestyle/599839/)

2) [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1184981449172144128.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1184981449172144128.html)

<comment><USER33> In my opinion, customer acquisition cost should be baked into your effective margin calculations. If you're selling things "for a profit", but it costs you more than the entire profit on the sale to make the sale, your business model still sucks and is being subsidized by _something_ , debt or otherwise. This is a common trap online sellers fall into - gross margins are kind of useless if your selling costs are through the roof.

<comment><USER34> See also Blue Apron et al. If you're selling something to a customer base that is almost certainly going to have a lot of churn, that acquisition cost _has_ to be built into your business model. _Maybe_ if churn is low and the main cost is initial acquisition you can sustain losses for a time but not if it's ongoing.

ADDED: And a mattress is an example of a product that people buy very rarely so the marketing/advertising to acquire a customer is mostly a cost of a unit sale. Yes, maybe they get some residual word of mouth but it's mostly effectively part of the product cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> "You might not have heard about these "real tech" companies—like Zscaler, Anaplan, and Smartsheet—because they mostly sell business-to-business software or cloud services. But all of them are trading more than 100 percent above their listed IPO price."

All of those are also down significantly from their all time high though.

<comment><USER36> Sure, but that isn't relevant to the IPO dynamics. Investors threw hundreds of millions at Zscaler, heavily subsidizing their growth, because they drew some charts saying they'd be profitable in the future. I'm sure that in 2014 you could have written an explainer about how suchandsuch Zscaler product is only competitive with Symantec because of VC money - or you could have written the reverse explainer, about how the Zscaler product isn't really competitive at all and they're duping people into using it using VC money and modern buzzwords. Both those genres are pretty popular about consumer-facing unicorns.

But it turned out the charts were right, and Zscaler is now profitable, although they still aren't making as much as investors at the all-time high expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> One could argue the cloud services companies aren't really pure software as alluded to in the article, but a software veneer over a gig economy for the underlying hardware. This perspective would allow for a bit deeper of a comparison between what's working and what's not.

<comment><USER38> I don't understand this argument at all; it seems to be only buzzwords.

What is the relation of the gig economy to a cloud hosting service, other than most gig economy apps are built on cloud servers? Also, how does looking at the problem this way enlighten us?

<comment><USER39> I think the idea is that a cloud company is primarily renting hardware. Therefore, it doesn't scale like a software company; as its number of customers goes up, its number of employees and amount of capital equipment has to go up as well. This would mean it should not have a multiple like a pure- play software company, where the costs go up little if any as the number of customers goes up, because almost all of the software's development costs are up front.

<comment><USER38> I assume you mean that these companies are in the business of renting hardware, not that they themselves rent the hardware they are using.

I believe the virtualization they are offering allows the service to scale a bit more like software, but I do agree that these cloud providers don't have 0 marginal cost.

Either way, thank you for de-buzzwording the original argument. It makes much more sense in English

<comment><USER37> Sorry for all the buzzwords....It was 6 AM PST and coffee hadn't kicked in yet.

Interestingly the de-buzzwording of the argument makes sense for the actual thing called "gig economy" too. It could just as well be called the "human rental business".

<comment><USER38> Hey it happens, no value judgements really; I do it myself all the time. The problem lies in my misunderstanding more than anything else.

"Human rental business" absolutely makes whatever economy that is sound much more like the reality these workers live in. We should use it more instead of the euphemisms we all use now.

<comment><USER37> In fact it highlights the difference too. Cloud services companies own the hardware they rent. Human rental services are pass-thru accounts. Cloud services are more financially successful.

A similar thing happened with eBay and Amazon: Amazon owned the products they sold (initially anyway) and eBay was pass-thru. Amazon was more successful.

So Bezos is currently thinking, how can we own some Amazon humans and provide them for rent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Ctrl-F "Interest rates" not found. That's what's different. Where is money going to go if not in the most hopeful investments, in bank accounts? If there is a bubble it's the fault of central banks

</comment><comment><USER41> The part about stock prices for non-tech and tech isn't entirely true, what about stocks like PD? Here's a company that's trying to posture itself as an enterprise grade ops system, stock is in the gutter

<comment> o-__-o Nothing sexy about monitoring. You or I could build our own overnight. Twilio is the true leverage and why they command a much higher P/E multiple

<comment><USER42> I agree with you but I'd phrase it differently. Perhaps that neither monitoring nor sms is "sexy," but that you could reasonably hack together a monitoring MVP over a weekend but not a telephony MVP. There's a natural barrier from the underlying problem domain.

<comment><USER43> Of course you can put together an SMS sending service over the weekend. It just won't scale to the whole world and will have limited throughput.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's an incredible mix of hubris (on the startup's part) and delusion (on the investors part) to call some of these "tech companies". Like WeWork. It's a real estate company that should be valued like a real estate company.

But somehow everyone concurred that it is, indeed, a tech company. How or why, no one bothered to ask.

<comment><USER45> To be more specific it's a real estate company, that started out with a low asset ownership position.

Then it got into the asset game leveraging their revenue, but mostly leveraging some meaningless sociological/technological gibberish to skewer an investor.

I think this speaks to the state of the kind of people making decisions about things they don't even try to understand.

<comment><USER46> This is what amazes me; that there are so many supposedly intelligent individuals throwing money at shitty ideas.

Google investing in Juicero comes to mind.

It's like any semblance of due diligence is just an afterthought.

<comment><USER36> I think calling Juicero a shitty idea is too strong. It didn't end up working, and probably it was knowable in advance that it wouldn't, but the difference between early-stage Juicero and early-stage Keurig is smaller than most people gave it credit for. There's a strong and robust market (at least in the SF Bay Area) for weird expensive juices.

<comment><USER47> I agree, fresh juice on demand is a good idea (besides the fact that the amount of sugar is usually terrible for you).

But they had to have found out very early on with Juicero that squeezing the packets by hand basically produced as much juice as their expensive machine.

<comment><USER43> Well, even if you can do something by hand, there's a market for a gadget that will do it more conveniently. There is a market for food processors and rice cookers. I don't think Juicero is a good example of "stupid money" craze. Theranos is.

<comment><USER47> Were that the case. But squeezing the juice out of the packet was far easier and quicker than putting it in the machine letting it get scanned, phone home, and then slowly squeeze the bag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> uber needs to shift to self driving taxis quickly

<comment><USER43> How they will be better at making self-driving cars than established electronics and auto-manufacturers?</comment></comment>


Start a "hacker house" with two YC founders - <AUTHOR>

A friend and I are driving out to the Valley from Virginia for the winter YC round.  I'm actually writing this from a car on I-40 in the middle of AZ.<p>We're looking to start a "hacker house" in Palo Alto.  It'll be a 4 month lease January through April.  We're looking for 2 - 4 other hackers.  If you're interested, check out this page for more details: http://bluwiki.com/go/User:Sam_Odio/Hacker_House or you can email me:  first name at odio.com <comment><USER2> Perhaps you should include the "no-rape assurance" as a selling point.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360910>

<comment><USER3> I remember that thread!

Maybe this guy does too, but no one that he's stayed with can give the no-rape assurance.

WARNING: Until someone (whose account has existed awhile so you know that Sam_Odio didn't just make a new account to do it) gives the no-rape assurance, be very wary of his house.

Kidding, for the extremely dense.

I'll even say that Sam's never raped me. The fact that I've never met him is irrelevant.

<comment><USER4> Ummm, the original thread _WAS_ about Sam_Odio. See the parent of the post that kirubakaran linked to: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360891>

I was one of the people that gave said assurance in that thread. I stand by my previous statement.

Heh heh, assurance.

<comment><USER3> Oh, didn't bother checking who that one was about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good luck guys... don't think you'll have any problem filling it with hackers, that's a great price in a great location.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like there could even be a business behind having large houses and turning them into hacker houses...

</comment><comment><USER3> _> Several wireless networks_

Several? Are these your networks, or your neighbors'? ;)

<comment><USER7> They're simply making use of "community resources" ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds fantastic- congrats!

</comment><comment><USER9> a "house that hack built"?</comment>


French TV channel in hot water with gamers for Twitch teardown piece - <AUTHOR> http://www.rudebaguette.com/2014/09/02/canal-twitch/ <comment><USER2> The touchiness of certain varieties of nerds with bizarre hobbies occasionally just makes them look worse.

If you have a weird hobby, people are going to make fun of it. Heck, if you have a mainstream hobby then there's someone out there who's going to make fun of it too. There's no point in getting upset when they do, just laugh it off.

Everybody on this planet is a bit weird in one way or another, and we should all reserve the right to make fun of each other for our peculiarities.</comment>


Patrick Vlaskovits, Explains CustDev & Lean Startup in a Nutshell | Foundora - <AUTHOR> http://www.foundora.com/2010/11/09/patrick-vlaskovits-co-author-of-entrepreneurs-guide-to-custdev-explains-custdev-lean-startup/ <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpts: What Steve describes in "The Four Steps to the Epiphany," is a method of doing that in four stages but when Brant and I sat to talk to Steve about this, Steve himself said, "if I can convince people just to get out of the building, they have done 90% of what needs to be done." And, getting out of the building means getting out and talking to humans about the problem, the solution and the product. It's not feature mongering, it's not market research, - it's trying to really find the pain points and depending on who you are, this can be pretty difficult or very easy.</comment>