Uber and Lyft Have Become Indistinguishable Commodities - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/uber-and-lyft-have-become-indistinguishable-commodities/ <comment><USER2> I took Uber a half dozen times in the past couple days (on vacation). Since I'm very interested in the Uber vs. Lyft battle, I've been talking to all of the drivers.

All of them except for one drive for both Uber X and Lyft, and none of them really care one way or the other about who wins. Only one had a pink mustache, and it was a little stuffed one on the dashboard, probably six inches wide; he also had an uber sticker. One expressed worry about Uber taking over and not having a competitor to hold its feet to the fire.

The one who only drives for Uber is a new mother that just likes to get out and talk to people who aren't babies, and she gets paid to do so.

To them, at least, the article is right. The services themselves are awesome, yet mostly indistinguishable.

Interestingly enough, I'm 99% sure if I came here pre-Uber/Lyft I would just rent a car. I have a serious aversion to taxis, but Uber just takes the pain away. The drivers noted that tons of people have been saying that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using Uber for a while now, at home and on holiday. I still haven't tried Lyft. The main reason being it's not available outside the US, and I'm one of the few people out here in the world.

Last month I was in San Francisco and I STILL couldn't use Lyft, because you need a US phone number to sign up.

From day one Uber has been thinking on a different scale.

</comment><comment><USER4> "I've noticed lots of Lyft drivers dropping the signature pink mustache from their cars. Many also don't bother with the fist-bump introduction, another Lyft convention."

This is very noticeable now. Lyft used to stand for a different customer experience to Uber, but now it's effectively the same. It's sad (although probably inevitable) that their growth has lead to such a dilution of their brand.

<comment><USER5> The fist bump was always awkward. This isn't Couchsurfing, you're not my buddy and we're not about to share some profound life experience together. I'm not going to get out of your car in 10 minutes with your contact and a promise to grab a beer.

This is strictly a quid pro quo transaction - nobody is going around riding Lyfts to meet interesting people, except maybe journalists hunting for a story. And nobody is out there driving Lyfts to meet interesting people... except maybe journalists hunting for a story. Let's not pretty it up with SV- style faux-populism.

Friendliness and mutual respect? Absolutely, the same respect and courtesy you'd show to any other human. But let's be real about the other stuff.

The fist bump got dropped because neither the drivers nor passengers cared about the fist bump.

<comment><USER6> I thought the fist bump was awkward, but I would disagree with your statement that nobody drives around to meet interesting people. Most of the drivers I meet actually say that's a big part of the appeal.

<comment><USER7> He didn't say nobody drives around to meet interesting people, he said nobody _rides_ for that reason.

<comment><USER8> He said both

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For one thing, how many drivers they have matters. More data might produce better estimated ETA (at least Uber use the data from the drivers to predict future traffic congestion, etc.).

Another thing is how well they control supply and demand. Say Uber has 10x drivers than Lyft, what if Uber has 100x consumers than Lyft? Uber likely has to surge at a very high rate, and the consumer can't afford a surge might go to Lyft instead. Since Uber can't control well how many total consumers they have at the moment without surging, one realistic alternative is to just reduce the number of Lyft drivers, so Lyft have to charge higher rates as well.

Here Uber doesn't just want more consumers coming in, because even less consumers is better than more consumers come in initially and can't afford a surge and then have to turn to Lyft.

So to sum up, in the end, Uber have to recruit more drivers (hey, they even just opened API for their product) or cut the number of drivers from Lyft (through alluring them). You can't blame Uber on that, it's the competitiveness of this market.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't use these services much, so I might be confused, but wasn't Uber initially a limousine/black car type service with professional (insured, taxed, maybe trained) drivers, and only later expanded into "ride sharing" with UberX, while Lyft has always been doing ride sharing?

Personally I prefer the old Uber over the "ride sharing" Uber and I don't really understand why they have diluted their brand to the point where some people don't even realize that Uber drivers are not necessarily random people driving their family car, but may be professional drivers.

<comment><USER11> I use both of these services extensively, but have only used Uber (the limousine service), a half dozen times or so.

UberX is at least a 20x, if not 30-40x larger business than Uber proper, which is why they transitioned away from simple black limousine service. A trip to San Francisco by Taxi from Redwood City is about $105. Via Uber it is about $150 (presuming no Surge Pricing) - Lyft/UberX charge me about $40-$55 (depending on wait time). And, unlike a Taxi, I get almost immediate service, by a courteous and professional driver eager for good feedback. As a 15 year+ user of taxis on the peninsula, and having taken Lyft/UberX around 100 times so far - I get a much more enjoyable experience in Lyft/UberX than I ever did in a taxi, some of who _did_ know the area, but many of them just confused new-arrivals to the Bay area in dangerous vehicle that had me fearing for my life.

<comment><USER10> I didn't realize RWC-SF is only $50 on UberX, maybe I should try that some time! The only experience I have made with taxis around here is meeting them on the road as cyclist, and that's enough to never want to be inside one.

One thing that speaks for taxis is that they are insured for commercial transport of people so if I get hurt in one, it is likely that I get compensated. How does this work for UberX/Lyft where people use their personal cars?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They absolutely have not. Lyft is far cheaper and the experience has been better for me.

<comment><USER13> If the services are pretty much equivalent, and the only thing left to compete on is price and/or some vague elements like experience, isn't this basically a textbook case of commodity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Based on my own personal comparisons in San Francisco, I would mostly agree. Most of the differentiation relevant to me is the app itself. I still mostly use Sidecar, solely because it has the easiest workflow of choosing pickup and destination. I also agree with the article that this is a good thing for riders.

<comment><USER15> I'm glad to see Sidecar mentioned. I too live in SF and use all of these apps, and Sidecar has been my first goto for years. It's odd that Lyft and Uber seem to get all the press. When Lyft got really obnoxious with the mustaches and fist-bumps, my order of checking for rides was: Sidecar -> Flywheel -> UberX -> Lyft.

<comment><USER16> I think it's because sidecar is significantly smaller than the other two. It's in <=10 cities or so IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Recruiting drivers from each other: So if Google heavily recruits sw developers from Apple or Facebook does that mean Google and Apple are basically the same company? Did someone tell Amazon yet that you don't want to be a commodity? I'm ok being the number 1 in a commodity market if the opportunity is to make 10 cents on every mile anyone ever travels on the road?

Not really sure what the point of the article is given this is transportation the actual "thing" (getting from point a to point b) creates commoditization. But there are sooo many ways to use technology and service to then differentiate and then win. And this is an industry in such a early/nascent state.

</comment><comment><USER18> The sharing economy has a common core I.e uber,Lyft,airbnb. Social currency and brand equity will make one win over the other. What customers remember to say about the brand is what will make someone remember to either open their uber or Lyft app the next time they need a ride. If I were in charge of their marketing id invest heavily in product placement for at least a year.

</comment><comment><USER19> The fact that these companies are working extremely hard to recruit each other's drivers means they are the same companies. Otherwise they would focus on some other core competency.

Google does not need to tell you they are better than another search engine. Use it once, and decide.

</comment><comment><USER20> Assuming Uber goes public in the near future (and I believe it will), I wouldn't be surprised to see them buy Lyft. Who knows. Lyft could IPO before that happens, but I would bet on it happening. See also: Seamless & GrubHub, Zillow & Trulia

<comment><USER21> Whatever happens, it's very likely that only one of them will go public.

And given how indistinguishable both have become and how non-sticky their service is, it wouldn't surprise me if the very existence of two competitors that are so similar makes it impossible for either one of them to reach the kind of profitability that's a requirement for IPO's.

Kudos for disrupting the taxi industry, which was in dire need of a kick in the butt, but I think both companies are about to discover that profitability is a lot harder to achieve when you have competitors who can run a business that's 100% a clone of yours.

The simple fact that most drivers are working for both Uber and Lyft should be a red flag for any savvy investor.

<comment><USER20> > Whatever happens, it's very likely that only one of them will go public.

Your analysis of the IPO situation could use another look. I personally think it's very likely both companies will go public -- or Uber will snap up Lyft before it has the chance. While it's pretty reasonable to think there would be a "profitability requirement", a look at tech IPOs dispells that myth. Look at the recent ones, the ones from a few years ago, the 20 year old ones from the 90s, doesn't matter which period you look, you'll find scores of unprofitable companies.

Recently Go Pro and Twitter went public. Neither, I don't think, are profitable. Of the 4 companies I mentioned in my comment, I don't think any are profitable consistently though perhaps Zillow has been recently. Amazon went public 20 years ago and is still not profitable.

Neither of these companies need to turn a consistent profit in order to IPO. I imagine they both already have sales high enough to pass the chickenshit threshold. That's all that counts.

<comment><USER21> Fair points, we'll see how things unfold. I still stand by my claim that at most one of them will go public. After that, either that one will buy the other one or one of them will fade (probably the one that didn't go public).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Might as well treat them as that, then. I envision an app called _RideMETA_ that orders you a cab from each and cancels on whichever doesn't arrive first.

It's all about the customer and raw, capitalist competition as they keep telling us.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I envision an app called RideMETA that orders you a cab from each

Such app has been built, promoted, denied access and subsequently shut down [http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/02/corral- lyft/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/02/corral-lyft/)

<comment><USER22> Well, part of the whole _commodities_ thing is that the ones being turned into commodities don't want to be.

But in true capitalist fashion, Travis would be proud, we of course can't allow them.

<comment><USER23> There's no theory of competition that expects incumbents to allow their own infrastructure to be used against them.

But you're right, if the article is correct, we should expect Uber and Lyft to fight tooth and nail to provide the better product for consumers, which is the beauty of competition. They do all the work and take all the risk, we get almost all the benefit. Both companies seem uniquely placed to have exactly zero chance of capturing regulatory favours.

<comment><USER24> It's not necessarily a competition thing though, is it. Intermediaries sit on top of them, rather than competing. And they rise in many industries because they can provide value that suppliers can't. In the travel industry, consumers want (for example) the cheapest rates on elements of holidays, hotels etc. So price comparison sites happened. Suppliers can't do anything about this in terms of competition, because the intermediary has a value proposition that the suppliers can't offer which the market wants, and the suppliers want the sales anyway.

With ride sharing, consumers presumably want the cheapest, quickest, cleanest fleet. I doubt fist-bumps really factor in to the experience. Suppliers can improve their fleet, improve their drivers and so on, using their own perspective as a guide. Aggregators can offer the cheapest, quickest, cleanest fleets to the market without having the limited perspective. They get a better view of the market through this too, potentially adding value to the whole supply chain.

Incumbents don't have to allow their own infrastructure to be "used against them", but they will, because this is what the market wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think taxi's are naturally commodities.

Uber and Lyft are basically dispatch and payment processors. Similar perhaps to a credit card processor.

<comment><USER26> This is where they are heading, they want to be the Visa of personal transportation (and more).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Uber is a good business, but valuing it at $18 billion seems absurd to me. You can't price businesses as though they will have incredible growth without some discount for the risk involved. One of the risks is competition.

<comment><USER28> > You can't price businesses as though they will have incredible growth > without some discount for the risk involved. One of the risks is > competition.

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that the investors understand this basic principle perfectly well, you're not being cleverer than them by disagreeing on the valuation, you're just using different assumptions about how incredible the growth could be and how large the risks are.

If Whatsapp can sell for $18 billion I don't see why Uber can't. Uber, after all, has an actual business model and income stream.

<comment><USER29> Whatsapp is a paid service and was profitable (probably highly highly profitable)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it still worth it to learn RoR? - <AUTHOR> I know Go, Rust, and Node.js but I'm wondering if it's still worth it as a freelancer to learn Rails. <comment><USER2> In short, yes its still worth it, Rails is a mature and fully-fledged framework which is not going away anytime soon. From a business perspective there is no shortage of rails work to be had.

Anecdotally, I'm also seeing more and more traditional organisations move from "corporate world" frameworks (Java, .NET etc.) to RoR because they are seeing how fast smaller companies and startups that use RoR are able to get things done. Probably also a side effect of how much people from the startup world like to brag about how much they can "get done".

Though as a result of people seeing how fast you can get things done in rails, I've seen a lot of really poorly coded rails sites which does hinder progress. However I think that is an inevitable outcome of any good framework - if you make it easy to get the boring work done then that will have two effects:

1\. it allows good developers to skip over boring or repetitive work and focus their efforts on hard problems.

2\. it allows inexperienced or just plain bad developers to churn out applications which may get the job done but the code will be a mess.

So yes if you enjoy coding in RoR then I see no reason not to stick with it. However I'd suggest you pick one language/framework and stick with it. This might not be an opinion appreciated by the hacker news crowd but the reality of getting work as a freelancer is that most managers or potential clients will be more impressed if you can say "5 years experience with Ruby on Rails" rather than "5 years experience as a programmer - working with Go, Rust, Node.JS, Ruby on Rails".

</comment><comment><USER3> As a freelancer, the value prop of learning Rails is that the market of projects you can take on becomes much larger—there's a lot of legacy Rails code out there that freelancers get hired to work on. I'd say its much more valuable from a business perspective than either go or rust.

As a developer, however, my opinion is very different. I've been doing Rails work for about ten years now and while in the beginning it felt great, I see it now as a big liability in terms of long-term growth of a project. "Just add a gem" is neither a good scalability nor a good growth story on a project.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's always worth to learn something new as long as it fascinates you and you enjoy working with it. Otherwise stick deepening your knowledge in the languages you are already know, as somebody else already said.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's still tons of work in Rails, but I think you'd be better served by becoming an expert in what you already know than knowing another language, unless you're targeting the lower end income-wise.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are indeed interested in taking a substantive look at Ruby frameworks may I suggest opening the aperture a bit. While Rails is indeed feature rich and "one of the big boys" you would be well served by looking at Sinatra as well. It's as minimalist as they come while still scaling very well. Beyond that there's also Padrino which builds upon the former very nicely and still maintains much of Sinatra's elegance. Food for thought.

<comment><USER7> I agree with this wholeheartedly. When I first started learning Rails, I found that a lot of the automagical stuff hindered my understanding of how Rails actually worked. After building a few projects in Sinatra, it was easier to see how much of the heavy lifting Rails does for you behind the scenes.

<comment><USER6> Yes! I'd argue that the same can be said for Django for those either currently using or exploring the use of the heavyweight Python web framework. Take a look at Flask and build your understanding from the ground up. Anyway, at the end of the day they all have their place and IRT the Op's question: It never hurts to gain an understanding of another language/framework. There's so many amazing projects across the entire landscape that it never hurts to have even a cursory familiarity (e.g. breadth and depth being complementary).

<comment><USER8> And for anyone going down this path with Python, I recommend taking a look at web2py after Flask.

web2py is where I finally settled after trying Django and Flask first. It's got more magic in it than Django, and yet, I found Django felt heavier and more "over-engineered". Flask, on the other hand, is very elegant, but as soon as you start patching together a few different libraries, the cognitive load of needing to understand Flask, WTForms and SQLAlchemy was too much for me.

web2py has most of the features of Django, but is written by only 1 person so the API is much more consistent than a Flask-based smorgasbord. It took me a small fraction of the time to get up to speed on the web2py documentation than it did for me to figure out the Django and Flask ecosystems :) I recommend it whole heartily!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the help everyone, I'll add it to my list :)</comment>


Ready to found a startup, but my co-founder is on a temporary visa - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder and I have been bootstrapping our startup for a couple of months and things are starting to ramp up.  However, we have an impending problem: he is here on a temporary work visa that expires in September.
What are the options for him to stay in the US to continue working on the startup?  So far our main thought is for him to apply for a job that would offer a more permanent visa.  Then he would continue working on the startup on nights and weekends while I work on it full time, but this is obviously not ideal.
Has anyone had to deal with a problem like this before? <comment><USER2> Yep, lots of founders have to deal with this problem. I'm not a lawyer, btw.

H1-B caps have indeed been reached, and neither Startup Visa nor the Startup Act, with its entrepreneur's visa, are expected to pass anytime soon, though I'm working on that. That's the primary route folks use for hiring foreign talent, so it'd probably be difficult for your cofounder to get a visa until April anyway.

You say bootstrapping, but if you can get $50k+ in capital and your cofounder is from one of the E-2 countries on this list, this could be a viable visa: <http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_3726.html/>

It sounds like the startup is either unincorporated or incorporated like usual in DE. If it's incorporated for a year abroad, your cofounder could qualify for an L-1.

I've had a few friends go the route of taking an adjunct professorship in an entrepreneurship program at a county college and using the F or J academic visa to build the startup with the tacit permission of the school, but that requires friends in the school's administration and may not be legal.

Your best bet is to probably try and raise funding between now and September and go for an EB-5 (requires $500k or $1M, depending on where you're located).

There are some other hacks that might be useful once you've decided on which visa to go for in increasing your chances of a successful application that I've written out for founders here: [http://www.quora.com/Blueseed/Are-there- any-interim-solution...](http://www.quora.com/Blueseed/Are-there-any-interim- solutions-to-Blueseed-co)

If you're still tracking this thread, feel free to email me: craig (at) politihacks which is a dot com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm aware of the startup visa act (<http://startupvisa.com/>), but that is not going to be available by the time we would need it (assuming it even passes).

<comment><USER3> Wikipedia says this bill is awaiting committee review. I'm curious, and I'm not familiar with US Congress stuff, but how long do these things usually take?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have him apply to an MBA program that offers CPT courses and give him an "internship" position.

<comment><USER5> He would be able to do only part time CPT from the get go. This is capped at a max of 20 hours per week. Once 9 months have passed, he can do full time CPT of 40 hours.

<comment><USER4> Not true. Some colleges let you take full time CPT classes (3 credit) as part of their curriculum. However, if the total exceeds 1 year of full time work he will not be eligible for a year of CPT with no school after he graduates.

Where are you located?

<comment><USER5> From here: ( [http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-...](http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-11261/0-0-0-17197/0-0-0-17800.html) ) Refer the paragraph:

"Practical training may be authorized to an F-1 student who has been lawfully enrolled on a full time basis, in a Service-approved college, university, conservatory, or seminary for _one full academic year._ "

<comment><USER4> I know for a fact that this is not true for an MBA student. Maybe it only applies for a bachelors.

Email me if you need specifics.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: What I do during breaks from coding. Free Music - <AUTHOR> https://soundcloud.com/stephansquintet/sets/overflow <comment><USER2> What is the license of this "free" music? Free as in beer, I suppose? SoundCloud shows no info about that.

As a rock music lover, this sounds pretty great, btw!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah I mean I made it and copyrighted it, but outside of that want people to download it for free and feel free to share. It's just what I do for fun, so I'm not really worried about monetization or anything...</comment></comment>


Making Self-Learning Less Lonely and More Fun - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/difficulties-with-self-learning-and-3-systems-to-solve-them-exbd32kb <comment><USER2> MOOCs suck unless they come with plain text transcripts that make watching the lecture optional. I can read faster than lecturers can talk.</comment>


How the CIA Stole a Soviet Satellite - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-the-cia-stole-a-soviet-satellite-61cb49cdab66

<comment><USER2> Soviet probes were not just attempting. In fact these were the only ones which delivered lunar soil to the mankind for research. Almost everything we know about the Moon geology is from success of the Luna robots. The author is very ignorant and keen to raise the US superiority in the eyes of the uninformed reader. Looks like the Cold War is still running, huh. Robots did the real job. Sending man to the Moon was a joke of some self-important mind. Robots do better. Lunokhod-1 is quite a thing, not a Hollywood animation. It is still there!

Upd: for the interested mind [http://www.zarya.info/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php](http://www.zarya.info/Diaries/Luna/Luna.php)

I seriously doubt man really stepped on the Moon. Lunokhod-1 laser experiments had more practical value than fancy jumps of Aldrin.</comment>


Bacteria are winning the war - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/07/antibiotic-resistance-bacteria

<comment><USER2> One interesting piece of this puzzle is that one of the body's own antibiotics (well, technically it's an anti-microbial peptide) is cathelicidin [1], and it is regulated by vitamin D. Anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 of Americans are deficient in vitamin D, depending on what cutoff you use to determine deficiency.

In other words, doctors may want to ease up on prescribing antibiotics until they have checked a patient's vitamin D and taken care of that problem. Some of the infections will likely go away after the body has enough fuel to fight back.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathelicidin>

</comment><comment><USER3> Glad to see phage therapy mentioned. It is time to begin investigating it again. While most of the world was focused on antibiotics, the Soviets were researching phage therapy. Much of that work fell with the Wall.</comment>


What we've learned from 20 weeks of "Getting the News": it's really fucking hard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.news.me/post/20118586769/getting-the-news-20-weeks-later

<comment><USER2> TV news isn't bad. It's mainstream cable news that's bad.

A network news program isn't a terrible way to keep up with what's going on in the world. When the revolution happened in Egypt, the network coverage used the best HD television techniques to put you in the action -- the events and the places where the story, not the studio and the branding.

If you look at Fox or CNN, on the other hand, 35% of time*space is devoted to branding for the channel. Fox shows a crawler that says "ALERT" whenever the camera leaves the studio because this is a dangerous intrusion of the real into their matrix.

There's enough going on in the world to fill a quality one hour news program, but not enough for 24 hour news -- so they cover a lot of non-news and the production values are awful. It used to be they'd bring in an expert in a suit to get interviewed on camera, now they call some guy on the phone who's curled up in bed wearing bunny slippers.

There's also a fetish with being live that results in boring footage of white people talking. When North Korea's dictator died, CNN showed some white guy talking about it in the dark. Al Jazeera showed South Koreans launching balloons with propaganda telling people in the North to revolt... What's better television?

Al Jazeera largely ditches the studio and revolves around (mainly) short segments of documentary programming produced by local teams throughout the world -- a team like this with a few people and prosumer equipment can turn out at least one segment every 24 hours. They'll play segments more than once and mix in an occasional one hour documentary produced by a better equipped team.

It's much better TV, and one of the reasons they keep it off cable in the U.S. is that it would make Fox and CNN look terrible in comparison and force them to raise their game.</comment>


How 'One Weird Trick' Conquered The Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/how_one_weird_trick_conquered_the_internet_what_happens_when_you_click_on.single.html <comment><USER2> I stumbled into some weird data as to how startups may be able to use this kind of technique without exploiting people. Yeah, it sounds hard to believe. But you have to understand that every technique out there can be used for good. Anyhow, turns out that there are some tricks that these type of advertisers use to increase their response. One just needs to carefully read the source of their pages (specially the Javascript), and you will find lots of interesting stuff in it. Just beware. Once you dig into this type of advertising your view on the subject might change dramatically. You can learn more about it here: [http://bit.ly/13wOrj2](http://bit.ly/13wOrj2)

 _Edit:_

16 clicks on 2 minutes. This sort of technique works on everybody, including _smart hackers._ Its mostly about talking about what you want. Some people want to lose weight, others control their diabetes. Apparently, lots of people want to learn of _a little known advertising secrets for startups._ I should make a Copy as a Service startup. (:

See how many are suckered into clicking: [http://bit.ly/13wOrj2+](http://bit.ly/13wOrj2+)

<comment><USER3> I grew up in Utah. Living there taught me at least one thing that helps me deal with certain types of more fanatical or difficult people I meet and deal with on a near daily basis:

        Everyone wants to be part of a secret society or have some esoteric knowledge that
        makes them feel set-apart from the norm.

Unfortunately, this is incredibly easy to exploit and I've watched nearly every member of my family get taken in by someone or something promising them unrealistic benefits from some 'secret' or another.

<comment><USER4> Jesus!

<comment><USER5> The gospel of Jesus is a poorly kept secret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/](http://www.oneweirdkerneltrick.com/)

<comment><USER7> I made this! Please see the slides, they are more "up to date" than the respective papers.

<comment><USER8> Your site practically made me pee myself with laughter. You totally nailed the tone and presentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would feel a lot better about Slate (and everyone else) if they didn't run those "SPONSORED FROM AROUND THE WEB" pseudo-article links at the bottom of each page with this _exact same kind_ of manipulative ads in them.

Come on Slate. You think better of your audience than this, right?

<comment><USER10> That's Outbrain: [http://www.outbrain.com/engage/](http://www.outbrain.com/engage/)

In theory the ads are targeted to the content of the site, but I agree that they're often pretty crummy.

<comment><USER11> As far as I can tell, that's not Outbrain, Outbrain is the "More from Slate" / "From Around the Web" section.

The "SPONSORED FROM AROUND THE WEB" section appears to be a standard ad panel from Content.ad.

<comment><USER10> You're right!

I thought "From Around the Web" was what we were talking about, but of course there are multiple similar blocks of paid links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When we launched Perfect Audience, we wanted to make things easy to use and as open as possible to marketers looking to get into retargeting.

Yes, we were a bit naive.

The sheer multitude of bad actors participating in the ad/marketing world is bewildering. It tooks us a solid month after launch to get processes in place that let us weed out the bozos swiftly without tying up the whole team.

We have many many of these "one trick" people sign up and try to use our tools. We'll keep turning them away and staying vigilant for the next ruse.

<comment><USER13> > weed out the bozos swiftly without tying up the whole team.

I bet there's a trick to that. You should sell an ebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article doesn't seem to mention this, but there is another trick in these guys arsenals - fake news articles about their products.

They build entire webpages, along with side-stories and article comments that support their product. They look SO real that once I (and I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, having access to Internet for 15 years) fell for it briefly, and then had to explain it to my wife who stumbled upon them as well. I was truly impressed by amount of work these guys went through not only to write a pretty long science-looking article, but to build a whole (albeit pretty static) webpage and write realistic comment sections. Sadly, this whole effort is done to deceive other people.

<comment><USER15> Indeed they do. I recently looked into a similar scam, although the starting point was a hacked email account that sent out links to everyone in the address book to a hacked wordpress install. It was interesting following the rabbit hole. Here is a quick write-up I did on that instance:

This is what the original wordpress instance looked like (just the frontpage, which did not carry malicious content):

[http://i.imgur.com/FeCKUu9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/FeCKUu9.jpg)

\- However, the malicious page on this wordpress instance redirects to a site named foxrxs, registered a day ago (as of this writing) [http://whois.domaintools.com/foxrxs.com](http://whois.domaintools.com/foxrxs.com) \- to "Gergo Czako" in Hungary.

\- The foxrxs site is made to look like Fox News, but it basically just tries to sell people "raspberry ultra drops" \- a diet supplement:

[http://i.imgur.com/RHMxj7T.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/RHMxj7T.jpg)

\- Most of the links on foxrxs go to onlineslimdiet:

[http://i.imgur.com/e4tdYm1.png](http://i.imgur.com/e4tdYm1.png)

\- This site was also registered yesterday (as of this writing): [http://whois.domaintools.com/onlineslimdiet.com](http://whois.domaintools.com/onlineslimdiet.com) \- in this case to "Uta Kalb" in Germany. However, what is notable is both domains use exactly the same name servers: ns1.dnscentral.ru ns2.dnsmax.ru So, given the same exact registration date and same name servers, chances are, both are owned by the same entity.

\- And, this seems to be a common scam: [http://www.complaintsboard.com/bycompany/raspberry-ultra- dro...](http://www.complaintsboard.com/bycompany/raspberry-ultra- drops-a456219.html) Basically, an email address is hacked one way or another, which then often links to a compromised wordpress blog. That redirects to a new domain that is made to look like fox news. The fake fox news site appears to endorse this miracle diet supplement, with all links pointing to another site where you can actually order the product. People apparently do receive the product, but I'm guessing the product itself is a scam. Nice way to make money - only $60 for two ounces of snake oil!

<comment><USER14> > [http://i.imgur.com/RHMxj7T.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/RHMxj7T.jpg)

This is exactly what I had in mind. A web page stylized as a news website with an article that subtly points to some diet pills. If one didn't read the URL he could really fell for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is the same as the 'Nigerian 419' fraud concept. They fill the email with spelling and grammar mistakes and in doing so, they filter out the marginally intelligent, resulting in a pre-filter to attract the most gullible.

The crappy, hand drawn ads, the dire videos, and the bad production have the same effect. The punter needs to be a gullible fool, since a fool and his money are soon parted.

<comment><USER17> Makes sense, but Occams razor is more than enough to explain the bad grammar and production effects. Any evidence its a conscious decision?

<comment><USER18> PlentyOfFish did a small test: [http://blog.ads.pof.com/2012/04/03/throw- everything-you-know...](http://blog.ads.pof.com/2012/04/03/throw-everything- you-know-about-ads-out-the-window-pics-inside/)

<comment><USER19> Hmm, I didn't even notice the first ad, because I subconsciously scanned over it as an ad. The second one looked liked content to me, so I saw that one, and even felt an impulse to click and see what kinda game someone built with such a campy art style

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I work with a dozen or so people who are involved in this sort of work. I think it is very interesting to see how they rationalize and deal with their moral compass internally.

One of the guys is the most caring, liberal, loving person you'd ever meet; he justifies being involved in this sort of skeezy marketing work as "I can take a small amount from a lot of people and amplify the result to do good with a lot of money."

He genuinely believes this. A lot of the other guys simply try not to see the "punters" (potential customers [1]) as real people, they are disconnected through the impersonal nature of the internet.

[1] [http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/punter_2](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/punter_2)

<comment><USER21> I saw lots of cognitive dissonance when I worked for a company that was something of an advertising firm. Everyone hates pop-ups and spam... but it's probably OK if we do it.

We can turn off the user's pop-up blocker right? What do you mean we can't get around it? How are we supposed to get them to see our side offers if we can't do pop-ups?

And the constant discussions about how to keep our emails from landing in spam folders. Since we weren't running a scam, there had to be a way to get our emails in the inbox right? Even though we don't know the person... bought their address from someone (who bought it from someone)... sent them 3 emails this week already...

I'm glad to not be involved in some of that any more.

<comment><USER22> Just to show a little balance - there are those of us in advertising who try to do the best we can for our audience, and don't even need morals to make that decision, since doing the right thing gives us better results than trying to trick people.

<comment><USER23> But there will still be people like me who consider any amount of advertising to be an offense, something that is more desirable if it doesn't exist. You can be as nice about it as you want or feel is appropriate, and I appreciate that, but at the end of the day, your interest is antagonistic to mine.

<comment><USER22> If you find all advertising offensive then I think that's an issue with you, not with advertising. If you want to look at or use something that doesn't belong to you (whether that's getting on a bus, or visiting a website, or watching a TV channel) then the owners should be allowed to show you advertising if they wish. If you prefer not to see it, you can make that choice and avoid it.

Is it more desirable if it doesn't exist? Perhaps - if you really hate it all then fine, that's your opinion, but do you really hate it enough that you would prefer every website that is financed by advertising to either bill you for usage or shut down, every public transport subsidised by advertising gets more expensive, every TV channel price goes up, cinema tickets, everything...

And as to my interest being antagonistic to yours, I disagree. I (personally) want you to buy a laptop or a PC and I want you to, when you next need one of these items, consider my brand. I target audiences very tightly to try and ensure that people who see my adverts are likely to be interested, and do rather a good job of it if I say so myself. If you end up being interested in what I am advertising (as plenty of people who view them do) then great for me, great for you. If you don't, then you can ignore my adverts, I don't buy any that are overly annoying or evasive, so even without adblock installed they won't cause you any problems, you can just ignore them.

End of the day, my goal isn't to trick you into buying something you don't want, it's to make sure the people who do want to buy these things know about them, and to avoid other people as much as possible. Feel free to hate bad adverts - I do. Even feel free to hate all adverts, including mine, if you wish, though I disagree with you on this. But don't go so far as to call them offensive. They just aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "Research on persuasion shows the more arguments you list in favor of > something, regardless of the quality of those arguments, the more that > people tend to believe it,"

[1] has some different research which claims that people average the arguments made, rather than summing them up, which most expect. It won't make any difference if you have a whole bunch of low value arguments, but will if there a combination of strong points and weaker ones.

[1] [http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/the_presentation_mistake_you...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/the_presentation_mistake_you_d.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm sorry if this is trivial, but "what's holding you back from the big penis you deserve" has to be one of the greatest phrases ever written.

</comment><comment><USER26> >Why are the illustrations done by small children using MS Paint?

None of those images look like the were drawn by a small child. The ones in the screen cap vary from "kind of crappy, but obviously done by an adult" to "probably the work of professional illustrator".

</comment><comment><USER27> Another "weird trick" sites use is to include numbers in headlines. The sidebar of this very Slate article lists headlines for _" 7 of John Adams' greatest insults"_ and _" 'A Different World': 12 Things We Learned"_. There must some psychological lure that makes readers think "oh, that is such a specific number that it must be a very important and definitive list!" :\

<comment><USER28> This is basically the entire premise of cracked.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you have to watch the video for 15-30 minutes, I think it's not the persuasion aspect but probably loading different sites in an iframe to defraud advertisers: [http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering- adv...](http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2011/03/uncovering-advertising- fraud-scheme.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> The culmination of this article was just as obvious and unsurprising as the very ads it describes.

</comment><comment><USER31> I like how one of the stories in slate's sidebar is "The Secret Ingredient [...] will blow your mind"

<comment><USER9> Spoiler: It's Mint in your iced coffee. I'm eager to try it now.

<comment><USER32> Mint facts! The reason people say to put toothpaste on a bruise or a hickey is that toothpaste is traditionally flavored with mint. It's really the peppermint oil they're after, which is a strong vasodilator.

For this same reason, peppermint oil is, at high doses, an abortificant.

<comment><USER33> TIL I learned a new word ... it sounds kinda cute..

I'm sure there's a pretencious band name in there somewhere :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Scams aside, it would be interesting to use some of these techniques on landing pages for _legitimate, valuable_ SaaS apps.

"One weird trick to improve your SEO/conversions/customer satisfaction/whatver KPI" which links to a page with a crude, long-form, un-pausable video. After that, you could probably at least get them to create a trial account.

Has/would anyone try this?

<comment><USER25> "Scams aside", your scam would work as well as theirs.

<comment><USER22> It's not a scam because of the way they hook users, it's a scam because the end product doesn't work. If callmeed has a genuine, decent product at the end of it then his version wouldn't be a scam, even if he marketed it the same way as these guys.

<comment><USER35> It's a scam because it deliberately attempts to undermine the reader's ability to determine if the product being sold is factually able to do what it says. These techniques take advantage of distorting information literacy in order to make a sale, regardless of the effectiveness of the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> _Conquered the internet?_

I don't think so. I've never clicked on any of those ads, and I'm sure that millions of other users of Ad Block, etc, have never even seen these ads.

Of interest to me was the author's reluctance to click on links due to malware threats.

Even when I used WinXP, years ago, I never have been infected with any malware, but then, I'm not the average PC user.

<comment><USER37> What, you don't want free animated smilies?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > You've seen them.

No. AdBlock.

<comment><USER39> It's truly amazing the amount of mental energy people will apparently spend dwelling on advertising, even worrying that if they accidentally click it their life could be forfeit to a scam, but yet they won't spend the five minutes it would take to simply install Adblock.

<comment><USER40> I use flashblock instead of adblock. Advertising pays for much of the internet, so I feel it's reasonable to let some of it through. Flashblock kills the worst offenders, and given I also run noscript (which isn't for everyone), the rest of the bad ones are taken care of as well. Simple images are allowed through, and these kinds of ads aren't particularly distracting. In the rare case there is a bad animated .gif, hitting 'esc' stops them cycling.

Adblock just feels like bad faith to me - there is no 'give and take', it's just 'take'.

<comment><USER39> Advertising wasn't always the norm, and I would personally _love_ to return to the days where people published because they actually had something to say. How many search results these days are from those extremely valuable sites with one person geeking out on everything they know about a topic, versus the sheer number of content farms regurgitating the same simplistic crap just to get page views and ultimately waste your time?

In fact, I'd been waiting until the next DuckDuckGo thread came up to throw out the idea that DDG could further differentiate itself by having an option to only return results from sites without advertisements. I would love such a feature, even using Adblock, because I think the quality of the results would go up immensely.

<comment><USER41> Advertising pays for a lot of very legitimate content-focused blogs/news organizations as well.

People can't afford to pay for every single blog or bit of news they read and authors can't do anything substantial or meaningful without making it a job(and needing money to do it).

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure that "can't afford" is the right conclusion. The amount of money a site makes off each person by showing ads is miniscule, so almost anyone could afford to pay at least as much for the content as the adverts make.

I think it's more likely that the mental overhead of choosing whether to pay for something (which is roughly constant, even for small amounts of money) adds enough friction to the process that charging small amounts never works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How this stay-at-home mom used one weird trick to conquer the internet! Click here!

(And yes, that's how I parsed the link title at first glance.)

</comment><comment><USER44> Once again I give thanks for AdBlock.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well... I excepted the article to go deeper. Investigate who actually pays these ads,,where does the money go, why are they allowed to basically lie in the ads.

Instead the author just clicked on the ads and watched the videos. Well, I can do that too.

</comment><comment><USER46> What actually happens when you hand over your credit card details? Do you get an eBook or something? The article doesn't actually say.

<comment><USER47> The last paragraph hints at it. It appears two were pills and one was a pamphlet, the cinnamon for diabetes one isn't clear probably a pamphlet or ebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Reminds me a lot of the X10 ads that used to be everywhere in late-90s/early 2000s.

<comment><USER49> It was more recent than that, and there was a great deal of overlap with Netflix's popunder ads (which still persist to this day).

<comment><USER50> X10 came online in '96, and their most aggressive campaigns peaked around 2001. They filed for chapter 11 in 2003:

[http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5095260.html](http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5095260.html)

I don't know if they emerged or if the remains were bought, but the "current" X10 never got anywhere near as aggressive as their pre-chapter 11 self.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I once worked for a company that operated along these lines. It wasn't quite as bad as those mentioned in the article due to the fact that the industry in question had several government agencies watching almost everything they do but it was an interesting learning experience.

There's likely two reasons why so many follow the same pattern. It's possible that many did enough A/B testing to determine the best direction that provided the best results. More likely one person came up with the pattern, the rest decided that it seemed a successive effort, and they all copied that one person's pattern.

I can't tell you how many times I created a landing page and/or email that was built in one specific way that originated with one guy that the rest perceived as the most successive guy in their type of marketing. If he said it, then it was gold. It was a tad disheartening as there was no real design involved. "Copy is king!" was the mantra and a nice design was not necessary. Even a decent design that made the copy easier to read was not considered worth the time. This was typically the type of landing page that uses the funnel method of long, sensational text with call-to-actions sprinkled down the page leading to a short order form at the bottom.

This insistence of copying everybody else because of perceived success, no data to support that perception of course, made for interesting conversations. "We're doing it this way." "Why?" "Because that's how they did it." "Why should we do it because they did?" "If they're doing it then it must work."

Although it was always fun to introduce a new kink to the marketing pattern and watch everybody else copy you. Especially when we hadn't yet decided if the new method even worked or not.

My favorite story that shows how locked into a pattern they would be until something shattered their illusions involved one sales email. For the longest time it was the rule to use as few images as possible in emails. The reasoning being because modern email clients do not automatically download images so you don't want things hidden from the potential customer before they interact with the email. I fought that quite a bit using legit companies like Apple and NewEgg as examples in that they successfully sell stuff and use images quite frequently through their emails. No dice. So one day I design a new email template that did use images heavily, our products were displayed in a grid that looked like stickers placed on the email. That meant that the copy listing details and pricing of the products were in the images, which was a no-no. I didn't tell anyone I did this knowing that all of them had their email clients downloading images automatically that came from us. The email was approved and sent out. A few weeks later I asked how that email did, "Best money-making email we've ever sent out!"

I then confessed to what I had done to their totally shocked confusion. After that I was able to actually design stuff that looked nice instead of the scammy look they insisted upon. And of course most of those newer designs, not all mind you, made more money. Interesting that I didn't see many other companies copying the new pattern. I guess it broke the mold enough to not be perceived as successful.

Anyway, even with the occasional moral problems, it was a good learning experience. Almost everything I know about SEO, ads, email, marketing, analytics, customer relations, and much more came from this company. Kind of gives me a somewhat unique perspective at my new job at a more traditional agency.</comment>


How to stop illegal downloads - <AUTHOR> http://danariely.com/2012/11/03/how-to-stop-illegal-downloads/ <comment><USER2> >Then I asked him to imagine if the product in question represented several months or even years of his life. All that time he was creating, writing, editing, and marketing this thing in order to fund his next project. And then everyone downloaded it, illegally, for free.

So he responded to an actual argument with an appeal to emotions? And he seems to be proud of this?

Sorry, no. If you have a problem with an argument, you point out the flaw in the argument. You don't try to make the person giving the argument feel bad for the conclusion.

> It turns out that we view ourselves categorically as either good or bad, and > moving from being 3% legal to being 4% legal is not a very compelling > motivation.

This is very silly reasoning. People who download illegally don't view themselves as "bad", and most people I know who download illegally (aka "most people I know") also buy stuff in the same category as what they download.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I would love to hear this man explain how prices should be structured for a country like India or China.

Oh, you make less than 20$ a day? Well, I guess that means there is no legal way for you to become culturally enlightened.

I mean the claims that pirating are bad are easy for me to buy for pure entertainment, but I think it really falls apart when it comes to music and especially books. The idea of being able to distribute ereaders with 100g sticks filled with textbooks in any wanted language - it astounds me. It's so cheap. So easy. So many children would be able to get such a head start on life, with so many wonderful words to guide them on their path to becoming an adult.

But it will never, ever happen. Not until people start thinking less about exchanging money with other rich people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By preemptively dismissing any and all "rationalizations" as examples of flawed logic, this wise author has effectively created a black hole into which he can throw any counter-argument of his thesis, dismissing it all as "proving my point". Yikes - do we want to pay attention to the kind of rhetoretician who constructs such a system wherein no possible counter-argument is allowable?

<comment><USER5> I think you're missing his point. The ability to rationalize is what allows people to do bad things. Do you think someone who wants to steal something is going to say "Yeah, this is bad, but I'm going to do it anyway"? Not very often. It's probably more like: "I've had really bad luck in my life lately; I need this to help my family/etc...; One item won't make a difference to the shopkeeper".

So, no, he's not automatically dismissing any counterargument. He's saying that the ability to rationalize anything is a strong reason for immoral behavior.

<comment><USER6> For me he automatically dismissed the argument of the student giving his reasons to download (he wouldn't buy the music anyway, and the disc production are exploiting the artists).

If I killed somebody and tried to rationalize it (he would have died at some point anyway, maybe he was a bad person, etc.), you could retort that no matter what, I killed someone and it's just bad because you are causing lots of harm (the victim, his family and friends, etc.), but you couldn't tell someone who downloaded illegally some music that it's just a bad thing to do.

That's why I agree with the GP that his mention of the rationalization process is here to automatically dismiss counter argument. It is an interesting point, and I am sure people used this process to have a clear conscience having done really bad things, but it is not by itself a counter-argument to illegal download, or anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like Ariely but he's off the mark here, and ironically I think his "conversion" is just as much a rationalization as any he represented in this post.

It sucks to work hard on something that you're not renumerated for to the degree you'd like. Suddenly maybe you're a big enough name that this isn't simply due to obscurity, and you resent the fact that people got something out of your effort without paying you for it. But the only thing obligating them to do so in an absolute sense is copyright, and the moral compass of great swaths of the general public seems to have evolved quite decisively beyond it, and as problematic as that is for the current model of creative business I doubt it will change any time soon. I'm no economist but I suspect it has to do with an innate understanding of the value of the bits in and of themselves, which due to the low cost of reproduction, is practically zero. This causes cognitive dissonance in some, who believe it is their moral duty to support the originators of those bits by purchasing them through on online store, but apart from the few who actually take an overtly principled stance on the matter, I suspect most who prefer this mode of distribution actually do so because what they are really buying is the convenience and quality of the transaction.

So yeah, artists deserve a fair shake in all this. But perhaps it's more sensible to recognize the market is shifting and that the artists and publishers of the future are going to need to take new approaches toward monetization.

<comment><USER8> > But the only thing obligating them to do so in an absolute sense is > copyright, and the moral compass of great swaths of the general public seems > to have evolved quite decisively beyond it, and as problematic as that is > for the current model of creative business I doubt it will change any time > soon.

I wouldn't be so sure respect for intellectual property was ever all that widespread.

We've simply transitioned from a state in which it was difficult to 'disrespect' intellectual property, to one in which it couldn't be easier.

I'm sure if, in the past, people could have costlessly and near-instantly duplicated and shared vinyl records, cassettes, etc. people would have done it in similarly large numbers as they do today.

<comment><USER9> That is because prior to the widespread availability of the Internet and of PCs, only a tiny minority of people were ever expected to think about copyrights. Nobody was being sued for copying pages from a book using their pen.

Supposedly, we expect people who have no legal background or training at all to understand a legal issue that is full of nuances and subtleties. Except that in reality, nobody expects people to be thinking about that, even the RIAA and MPAA, which is why restriction systems are being deployed all over the place. Everyone knows that the average American citizen never cared about copyrights and was only buying from "legitimate" sources because there was no alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this issue deserves more thought and introspection than Ariely seems to have given it so far.

I think grecy's comparison to Catholicism is very striking. One common criticism of Christian religions is centered on the idea of "original sin" -- the idea that people are inherently evil and need to be saved. A similar criticism could (and maybe should) be applied to any law that is broken by a large number of citizens. When this happens, I would take it as a sign that there is something wrong with the law, not with people.

But anyway, the key thing is that Ariely seems to have a really exciting research question here, which is how and why do people rationalize illegal downloading, and he seems to be tossing it away in favor of dictating morality at them through a megaphone.

</comment><comment><USER11> I download ebooks as well for several reasons without paying for them. I mostly get a epub version of a book and start reading it. This way I can see if I like the content and the style it's written in. I will get the book as a hardcover version and continue reading on paper at home and on my kindle on the go if I like the content after the first three chapter. So I have the advantages of both media. However, I wouldn't purchase the book a second time as ebook, because it's doesn't make any sense to pay for the same content again. And I wouldn't buy a ebook in the Kindle store, because I don't support this DRM crap at all. It's the same with movies. You'll have more disadvantages if you are honest and buy the movies then just downloading it from the pirate bay _without_ copy protection, ads & propaganda("bootlegger are criminals and have to go to jail for five years. Buy your movies").

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it is very hard for people to understand the value of something that you can duplicate 1 million times with no additional resources or effort. Most honest people know that if you spent time building a birdhouse and they just took it from you, that they are stealing. You don't have it anymore and you spent time and money to make it. If there was a magic "replicator" machine, I think even our normal idea of what theft is, would change. If I could copy your birdhouse, and you could still keep your birdhouse, how is that even stealing? It think the only thing that would ever work is to allow people to give a "token" payment, perhaps a few cents, for the privilege of duplicated electronic content. iTunes offers something approaching that idea and it is doing great.

<comment><USER5> If I could copy someone's birdhouse, and they could still keep it, why should they even bother putting time into making the birdhouse in the first place if the whole point was to make money off of it? In that case, there's no incentive to create anything at all.

And secondly, I believe people need to respect other people's rules for their own content. It's rude to disregard someone's wishes with regard to what they've created. If someone says "Yeah, go ahead and feel free to copy my book" then that's fine. But if someone says "I'd really prefer it if people did not copy and distribute my work", and you do so anyway, well... that's just not very nice because you're disrespecting that person's wishes.

<comment><USER9> The only thing that matters when it comes to copyrights is what benefits society. It is not a matter of being rude or not being rude, it is not a matter of morality, it is not a matter of the creator's wishes, it is a matter of ensuring that the general public has access to "science and useful arts." Copyrights were created to promote businesses that make copies of creative works, because in the 18th century that was the best way to spread knowledge and art.

Of course, today we have a much better system for spreading knowledge: the Internet. We should be promoting that, and developing new systems for paying for creative work that are based on using the Internet (and especially peer to peer networks) to spread that work.

<comment><USER5> You're saying an author's own wishes do not matter in the manner his work is treated?

<comment><USER12> That is correct. The intent of copyright is not to support the wishes of the author, but to stimulate the progress of arts and sciences. [http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh/Copyright/...](http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh/Copyright/origin.html)

<comment><USER13> I like this. Living in America, I get bombarded with the Libertarian idea that one should focus on the self so much that I forget that there was a time when focusing on the progress of society was not heresy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My opinion is the same as Rick Falkvinge's: "The role of any entrepreneur is to make money given the contemporary constraints of society and technology. They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if - and perhaps especially if - they are unable to make money in the face of sustained civil liberties."

</comment><comment><USER15> What is funny is that if you look for the name of the book and the format you want the book to be, there is no single download link where you can buy.

So if this guy wants to sell, why don't give that options to the users. When the SEO will come to the books world?

</comment><comment><USER16> To arrive at this dubious conclusion, the author, intentionally or not, mixes up a number of concepts that really have to be kept separate, should one want to arrive at any sane conclusion:

1) Not every download of his book is automatically illegal. Many countries have laws in which uploading constitutes copyright infringement, which can fall under criminal code if done commercially or on large scale, but where downloading is entirely legal. Calling people "illegal downloaders" won't help his case.

2) Identifying copyright infringement with theft does not help his case either. Such rhetoric is often used to make an action seem worse than it would otherwise be, but is dishonest and usually does not lead to a fruitful discussion.

3) From "illegal download" he makes the jump to "dishonesty". This confuses the matter of legality with morality. Ideally the two would align perfectly, but in practice this is often not so. Copyright law seems to be a field where very many people have doubts on whether the current system is a good one.

Once he has connected downloaders to "dishonesty", the whole thing essentially degrades into a bad rant. Making broad accusations of immorality, implying that people should think of themselves as polluted, and then claiming a moral high ground for himself, offering others a "fresh start" and "amnesty" won't accomplish any of the outcomes he seeks.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Between September 2003 and April 2004, the RIAA, through its Clean Slate Program, offered individual file sharers amnesty for past infringements, 'on the condition that they refrain from future infringement,' and delete the infringing material."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_fil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_file_sharing#Amnesty_programs)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is all too closely tied to "confession" in the Catholic sense.

Ugh.

<comment><USER19> Or perhaps we can be "Born again users".

<comment><USER20> I do use a Borne Again Shell :P

ObOnTopic: I thought the way copyright was written was that downloading is not illegal, but uploading (transmitting) was that actual illegal action. The only reason torrenters get in trouble is because they upload and download at the same time.

That could be a legal technicality in which someone writes a torrent client to download only, as to show lack of culpability in the act of uploading. Of course, this does indeed kill the network.

<comment><USER21> I believe it depends on the country. I think in Switzerland (and perhaps Canada for music?) downloading copyrighted material was legal, but uploading was illegal. But I am pretty sure that is not the case for the US, and downloading is still copyright infringement.

Perhaps food for thought here [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2009/09/p2p-downloading-i...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2009/09/p2p-downloading-is-it-legal/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Amnesty isn't going to work because people don't feel like they're going to be caught, let alone punished. They feel safe downloading content and will even if the threat of enforcement is raised; humans have a natural tendency to feel safe doing "dangerous" things if they do them often and are familiar, i.e. driving, smoking, habitually lying or cheating.

People pirate in part for convenience and in part so they can sample the goods without risk. I doubt most people pirate to save money, but in all cases, either having a DRM-free product with a strong money-back guarantee, or offering all content available as an unlimited use subscription based product (like Safari) would make it more appealing to whip out that credit card, rather than pirate.

Sometimes people are just too poor to buy the content, in which case I think there should be a "food stamps" program for books. Yes, I know libraries exist but they're either poorly stocked or inconvenient in the eyes of younger people, making piracy uber attractive.

</comment><comment><USER23> > However, the behaviors we most often observe and notice are ones that are > outside of the legitimate domain (e.g., doping in sports, infidelity by > politicians, exaggerated resumes by CEOs) and in these cases the social > proof can change things for the worse.

The idea of scandal also has its place in the catholic doctrine, see the Catechism 2284-2287[1]:

> 2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. the > person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue > and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is > a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a > grave offense. [...]

[1] <http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P80.HTM>

</comment><comment><USER24> Oddly enough the first ebook I wrote for Kindle was pirated. It was not the best book, but sold 800+ copies in the first few months. I am trying to improve as a writer so I can write better. The ebook only got one star in a review, and I did not use DRM to protect it, so I guess someone bought it for 99 cents and then converted it to other formats and pirated it.

In a way it made my ebook more popular when it was given away for free. Kindle only allows me 5 days of a free Kindle Select promotion every 90 days, but because the book was illegally downloaded it someone became more popular even if it was hard to read and poorly formatted.

Eventually the Bit Torrent site took it down, and Amazon found it and I guess issued a cease and desist order or something.

<comment><USER25> _I did not use DRM to protect it, so I guess someone bought it for 99 cents and then converted it to other formats and pirated it._

Even if you use DRM, the DRM can often be stripped off and then pirated. This is possible on the Amazon Kindle Store at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Easy. Make it legal.

<comment><USER27> Easier , make a product that cannot be downloaded , instead of selling ebooks , make an paid online eduction service where the added value is that you can ask question directly to the teacher giving the class, have your lessons updated ,etc... I'm a musician , i used to try to sell music online, now i sell my production talents to other musicians. That cannot be downloaded. So instead of trying to sell "goods" , sell services.</comment></comment>


Building Accurate Shipment Timelines – A Sorted Affair - <AUTHOR> https://flexport.engineering/building-accurate-shipment-timelines-a-sorted-affair-7ed25c8457c9 <comment><USER2> Author here! This was the first post of our new Flexport Engineering blog (we'll be adding more content soon). Happy to answer any questions about the article or how/why we're using kahn's algorithm.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what the intransitive example (with A > B, B > C, C > A) was exactly

<comment><USER2> I think the section talking about that was phrased a little weirdly. It was meant to express that we decided to assume transitivity unless we could find a counterexample, and that we haven't yet found one. I've updated the wording a bit to have it be clearer now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, I would like to share an idea i had a while back with you flexport folks.

I work in an IoT company that focus on the hardware side, while I am the one responsable for having the software running smooth.

Chatting about the new hardware piece that were coming my first though was the following.

Have a very small piece of hardware, transmitter, to ship along whatever you are shipping. The transmitter will regularly (even every 5 minutes) transmit its position so that would be possible to track the geographical coordinates of every lot of product that is shipped.

The difficult part is that the transmitter need a receiver (with Internet connectivity) in close range ~10km, the solution would be to install those receiver in the ship or in the truck or in the train.

The hardware itself is something that we are using every day and it is not a big issue, the only real problem that I see is the installation of those receivers.

Is this something worth solving?

<comment><USER5> From what I've seen of this industry, there's two major hurdles to getting this working: One, getting the shipping companies to provide any kind of network infrastructure would be like pulling teeth, and two, a lot of the companies doing this shipping are running on margins so tight that they care about things like saving 25 cents on a box. Their idea of cheap is completely different from yours.

I'm interested in solving a slightly different issue: could you build a cheap device that records accelerometer data while an item is in transit, to create a record of which way a box was oriented, and how hard it was dropped? Maybe provide a USB interface to download the data on arrival? Something like that would be interesting to businesses that ship fragile, high-value items and want evidence to back up the claim that items were damaged in transit. (I'm thinking of things like television sets.)

<comment><USER6> There exists already mechanical drop and tilt sensors, such as [1], which are commonly used for this purpose. A search for "shipment data logger" results in some electronic devices which do what you propose, though most of them are more expensive and seem intended for reuse e.g. when shipping machinery to a location for installation.

[1]: [https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage- Indicators](https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage-Indicators)

<comment><USER7> Popular Mechanics did some tests with a logging accelerometer. Nothing cheap enough to be practical, but illustrates the potential usefulness: [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/a6284/whi...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/a6284/which- shipping-company-is-kindest-to-your-packages/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice article

Will any software be open sourced related to this?

<comment><USER9> It sounds mainly like a pretty basic topological sort applied in an clever way. You probably could find pseudocode for the basic algorithm on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER10> You can! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_sorting#Kahn.27s_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_sorting#Kahn.27s_algorithm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A+ technical gifs</comment>