BankSimple: A Bank That Doesn't Suck - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/157/banksimple-josh-reich-shamir-karkal <comment><USER2> Who is Fast Company serving with this article? So the PR firm BankSimple hired pitched an article; fine. Declaring that a product that hasn't even launched to anyone outside of family "doesn't suck" is irresponsible reporting. "Aims to not suck" is accurate. There's nothing in this article to indicate that the writer has been using the service (just perhaps seen the interface). I'm as excited about BankSimple launching as anyone else but these type of articles rub me the wrong way.

<comment><USER3> Who does Fast Company ever serve with an article? The charter of Fast Company is to identify what the cool kids are talking about, digest it, and regurgitate it for the kinds of people who use magazines like Fast Company to keep up with trends.

With a few notable exceptions this is how all print tech journalism works.

I think you're looking for a semiotic value to Fast Company stories that doesn't really exist. They aren't getting written up because something important is happening. They're getting written up because people have been talking about them. That is probably literally the only element of newsworthiness underpinning the story.

<comment><USER4> I never heard of BankSimple anywhere except for the HN and al3x's Twitter which I happen to follow (and I read lots of technical news). There were maybe couple of mentions on TC. BankSimple is not Foursquare or Facebook, I seriously doubt anyone, leave alone cool kids, _talks_ about it.

So, yeah, it apparently was just a pitch from the PR firm.

<comment><USER5> Eh, I for one have been talking about it. I hate banks and bank apps and things that only work with mint some of the time. If they solve this problem I'll be a happy man and I'll tell everyone I know. I don't care if this is just self serving PR. Here's hoping I'm pleased with the product and that they get the hype / exposure needed to become profitable.

<comment><USER6> You might want to try USAA's bank rather than waiting around then. They have had an option to deposit a check with your iPhone for almost two years (out much before Chase had theirs), have consistently scored high in customer satisfaction, and have been mentioned in several places as having some of the lowest fees around. FWIW...

<comment><USER7> Except their mobile deposit option requires you to be a member of the military or a qualifying family member, so for the general population, the feature might as well not exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tangent to the article, but what I really want is a bank that allows me to do funds transfers immediately. I understand they make a lot of money off of the floating period, but there's got to be a way to place some other kind of restriction on me so that I can transfer funds quickly. Or, just find a bank that offers both a checking account and a high interest rate...

<comment><USER9> FWIW, USAA does fund transfer immediately, at least perceptively. When I transfer from a BoA account to USAA, funds are available within 10 minutes (close enough to "immediate" for me).

USAA also does interest on checking accounts, debit-card-as-credit points, and ATM fee kickbacks.

<comment><USER10> I've noticed that while funds show as arrived/available in USAA, the originating account stills shows the funds available as well. This tells me it might be a convenience offered by USAA, even if the transaction hasn't processed yet. This is similar to cashing a check that the bank hasn't collected from yet. They take your good standing with them into account, and give you the money.

<comment><USER11> That's what they do with deposit@home. I don't think USAA cashes the checks immediately when you cash your checks online. That's why they require you to have a line of credit with them. When you cash a check they give you an interest free loan for the amount of the check. When the check clears the loan is paid off. And if the check doesn't clear they have the ability to take the money out of the account, or they actually give you a loan to cover the check if you have drained your acccounts.

<comment><USER12> I use deposit@home and have no formal line of credit with USAA. It may be something they're doing internally, but my only products with them are debit accounts. (My credit and insurance is done elsewhere due to non-competitive rates charged by USAA).

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I think its done internally, but according to the requirements you need to have either an active property insurance or an active line of credit, and you need to be qualified for both. So I don't know what's going on there. But I have noticed some of the bank's rates are not competitive. <https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/bank_deposit>

<comment><USER13> You basically have to be P&C eligible to use deposit @ mobile / home. To be P&C eligible you need to be military or spouse / child of military.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ING and USAA are two really good banks that have no physical presence. I use both of them. USAA has mobile deposit of checks, too. I can't see how BankSimple can beat them, but maybe they can.

<comment><USER15> Of note: ING direct was sold to Capital One last week. Capital One has til now addressed an entirely different demographic, so it'll be interesting to see if there are changes...

USAA is good, but it's interface doesn't compare to what BankSimple is shown so far.

And many banks have mobile deposit of checks... PNC, Schwab, Chase, State Farm etc.

I personally really like Schwab bank.

Edit to reflect that USAA banking is now open to all

<comment><USER16> _ING direct was sold to Capital One last week._

Wow. That's the first I heard of the news. A quick Google News search shows many ING customers (like myself) are upset.

This could be a boon for BankSimple. If Capital One botches the ING experience over the next two years, I'll definitely defect to BankSimple (assuming it's comparable).

<comment><USER17> You're only mad because you don't know anything about the company that used to own ING Direct (a Dutch bank called ING, currently heavily state supported because of over the top cowboy banking).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really do think there is a great opportunity for a better bank! However, I think BankSimple is making a big mistake by not becoming a real bank, and instead acting as a front end interface. BankSimple claims that all accounts will be FDIC insured "at launch." However, from what I am gathering, it will be impossible to keep these accounts FDIC insured in the long term especially since the company claims it will be transferring money around from bank to bank in order to acquire the best rates. Really? Banks are going to be open to opening a new account for every new customer (which is what would have to happen in order to be FDIC insured)? I am skeptical. Also, a big concern of mine is the claim they will move money between savings and checking automatically for you. Recent legislation prohibits more than 6 electronic transfers from the savings to checking accounts in a month. So if a computer is pushing your money around; you might be out of luck towards the end of the month when you need some extra cash, but all six of your transfers have already been used. Also, at the credit union I work at, we charge the normal returned ACH payment fee if you surpass these 6 charges ($25! yikes!!) and BankSimple states all fees will be passed onto the consumer. So in actuality, BankSimple is really just a nice mobile experience that moves money around the top few banks (which really aren't that great). You still incur the same fees. Just doesn't seem like a very good business structure to me.

However, I would invest in BankSimple because a big bank would pay big $$$ to acquire the technology the company is developing. Mobile is the future of banking and that is what BankSimple recognizes so perfectly. Look for a big acquisition in the next few years.

<comment><USER19> _Recent legislation prohibits more than 6 electronic transfers from the savings to checking accounts in a month._

IIRC, this is regulation DD, and is quite a traditional rule. On the books, banks account for savings and checking funds separately, and have separate capitalization requirements because checking accounts are assumed to be more liquid.

Under these circumstances, you don't want consumers to treat savings accounts like checking accounts (which they have an incentive to do, because of traditionally higher interest rates), so you create a disincentive through transaction limits.

For BankSimple, this is probably not much of a problem. Reg DD allows for more than six transactions if you charge a per-transaction fee. Most banks charge a buck or two (or $25), I'm not sure if there's any regulatory problem with them dropping the fee to $.01 or $.001

<comment><USER18> Regulation D was amended in 2009 to take away the 3 sub-limit that applied previously increasing it to 6 in all circumstances. But you are correct in that this is really a traditional rule that has been around for years. It is definitely becoming more of an issue as more and more people rely on online transfers and shy away from in-person banking (which is exempt from the rule as is ATM transfers).

Are you sure about your last point? I have never heard of this, but I wouldn't be surprised if the bank lawyers found some type of loophole. But just to clarify the $25 I referenced is a returned ACH fee. The money is never actually transferred out of savings into checking when this happens.

<comment><USER19> Ahhh, you're entirely right, I misremembered. Fees aren't required at all under Reg D (not Reg DD, damn alphabet soup). The FI does have a responsibility to monitor excess transactions and prevent non-occasional violations by either converting the account, or removing transactional abilities. So yeah, a token fee wouldn't be a viable strategy.

Getting back to the topic at hand though, I don't think this would be much of a problem for fancy automatic transfers. Deposits to savings accounts aren't covered transactions, so something like "If I spend less than x budget this week, send the rest to savings" would work.

If the FI designed a product that would see more frequent withdrawals, they could just designate it a transactional account and skip the whole issue entirely. Fits in the spirit and the letter of the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> And have been waiting,.. and waiting,... and waiting.... shocked nobody has come around and beat them at their own game it's been so long...

<comment><USER21> I'd argue that USAA is already trouncing BankSimple.

USAA competes with the same sort of value proposition (convenient banking with great service, but without a B&M presence), and is a fortune 500 company with millions of happy customers.

It's hard to find discussion about retail banks on the Internet without finding satisfied USAA customers telling their stories.

<comment><USER22> Yup. I've been a USAA member for about 10 years now and I've never once had an issue with their service, not to mention that I know I can always get an actual human on the phone who is happy to help me. As someone who travels quite a bit, I can't imagine using any other bank.

In the end though, I can't see how having another option in the marketplace could hurt.

Any company seeking to offer better banking services gets a high five in my book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sadly, like all computer programs must expand to include email, all banks that don't suck must eventually get bought by those that do.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was really impressed with the concept back in January when I tried to get a beta account. Being a 20-something and born into the tech generation, I would be comfortable with a bank that didn't have a brick and mortar presence and used the strategies that BankSimple uses (will use) to get great rates, etc. I can see how older generations would be very wary of truly online bank. I know people who were baffled when I told them I would be switching to ING or another online only bank.

<comment><USER11> I really can't image using a brick and mortar store. I've used USAA all of my life, so I don't see any need to talk to a banker face to face. My father has bought several houses through them, and he has been able to do everything over the phone and at home. Any documents that need to be signed are 1-day fedexed. And local notaries are paid to come by and notarize docucments. So online banking is really convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "We're reinventing personal banking." means absolutely nothing. Marketing drivel, like when Chase says "Chase what matters." It's meaningless. It's not simple. It's not direct.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting that the article mentioned one of their main revenue sources is planned to be debit cards.

I use a credit card that I pay off monthly for all my purchases. I chose the credit card because it has the best rewards I could find (1.5% back for all purchases, anywhere VISA is accepted).

Would BankSimple not work with that model?

<comment><USER27> 1.5% seems very nice. Who's your bank?

<comment><USER26> My credit card is through Fidelity, here's the link:

[http://personal.fidelity.com/products/checking/content/inves...](http://personal.fidelity.com/products/checking/content/investment_rewards_card.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Do they do at least two-factor authentification? Do they accept international wire transfers? Can they do online wire transfers? Is the transaction history accessible from some banking software? Do they not send me spam? Can I use their credit card abroad without a hassle? Does the credit card use the chip for authentification instead of the insecure magnetic strip? Do they transfer money instantly without holding back my money for days? Do they have 24/7 and helpful customer support? Can I call them without negotiating with some computerized voice for minutes? Can I call them without suffering through several minutes of elevator music? Can I call them for free? Can I withdraw money from every/enough ATMs without paying a fee? Can I manage account details at a bank franchise other than the one where I created it? Do they have a helpful, easy to use website? Do they have employees that are more than human computer interfaces and are actually helpful?

Now that would begin to sound like a bank that does not suck indeed... (Suckage assembled from several countries)

<comment><USER29> I'd hate to see your list of questions posed to a potential mate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> All these articles about BankSimple are fine and dandy, but I feel like I've been waiting for my beta invite for at least a year. Meanwhile, companies like Dwolla are springing up and poised to pull the rug out from under them.

As long as everything is bulletproof secure, just launch already.

</comment><comment><USER31> We don't _actually_ know that they dont suck..they have not launched yet.

I was really hoping to move to a better bank. I am ready and BankSimple still is not available so I need to go shopping and exclude BankSimple from my list. I wont switch twice that is for sure..Lost my business.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think a lot of the ideas that revolve around making things more convenient for clients have a lot of merit. It's not about gimmicks, but solid business sense: Convenience drives consumption.

If they truly can make banking simpler for real people then hats off to them.

</comment><comment><USER33> ....aaaaand, didn't read it. Why? Cause I was confronted by a stupid countdown advert. At least when it's a movie or a tv show I file a "remember to go steal that" ticket in my brain.. but in the case of a magazine article, I'm certainly not gonna go torrent the thing. Just stupid.

</comment><comment><USER34> There's already a bank that doesn't suck: Charles Schwab.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is it just me, or does the article date say "July 22, 2011" when it's _June?_

</comment><comment><USER36> Do they trade in BitCoins?

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm going to be honest: it's hard to trust a bank who's founders look like people hanging out at my local dive bar. For them to get my money I need a more professional look from the company. This whole informal startup look only works for companies that provide non-critical services.

<comment><USER38> I disagree, I think people should dress however they like. If I'm going to trust them depends on there skill. In a normal bank i feel like I'm not talking the people im talking to what the were orderd to be.

In IT this works much better, some really good programmers walk around in suits others walk around well like Stallmen.

<comment><USER37> This appearance works well for the hacker crowd, but do you really think it helps for people over 40? I seriously doubt it</comment></comment></comment>


Memory Management Reference - <AUTHOR> http://www.memorymanagement.org/index.html <comment><USER2> This is one of my favorite resources on garbage collection techniques. It's opinionated in favor of the tried-and-true approaches (generational tracing GC), which is a very welcome stance.

<comment><USER3> You might find Baker's thoughts on Generational GC interesting[1].

[1]: [http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/YoungGen.html](http://home.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/YoungGen.html)

<comment><USER2> All that shows is that, _theoretically_ , one can come up with a system in which generational GC is counterproductive despite a high infant mortality rate. That is _not_ an argument that generational GC is a bad idea in practice, and the article is clear not to make that argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In their faq they do seem to step over RAII as an idiom to have scalable and maintainable memory management without garbage collection. For (semi-) realtime systems, the predictability of RAII is a huge benefit.

<comment><USER2> RAII is not really a memory management technique per se: it's instead a language feature that can be used to implement smart pointers. Smart pointers can implement reference counting, which _is_ a form of garbage collection.

Smart pointers are certainly covered in the glossary: [http://www.memorymanagement.org/glossary/s.html#term- smart-p...](http://www.memorymanagement.org/glossary/s.html#term-smart- pointer)

<comment><USER4> That's a limited view. One could very well make it's own class with malloc()/free() in the constructor/destructor, without exposing any pointer like interface. This can be done without reference counting, contrary to what the faq suggests.

the C++ STL takes away the burden of 'hard to implement'. It's definitely hard to do right, but the STL has solved that problem.

I'm sure garbage collection has it's place and use, but the site seems a bit biased against alternatives. Garbage collection definitely has it's scaling challenges for large code-bases.

<comment><USER5> pcwalton is right. RAII is just a language semantics to make memory management implicit.

(I feel a little bit cynical today and will say it's typical to C++'s attitude (as opposed to e.g. C): Let users make overcomplex programs more easily, by papering over all the insanity, instead of forcing them to make a clean design).

If there's anything like "memory management" in RAII, then it's the idea of deallocating objects in the reverse order of their allocation. That hardly deserves a note, though, since it doesn't say anything about _how_ the memory is allocated.

(And as usual with OOP, you end up with terrible inefficiencies (too much allocation in this case), since the program is split into needlessly isolated parts in a futile attempt to make them "self-contained". In the end, what that does is also make everything less efficient and more complicated. And redundant, if you care to look at what actually happens as opposed to what the programmer writes).

<comment><USER6> >And as usual with OOP, you end up with terrible inefficiencies

That is not a property of OOP. Counterexample: C++ is OOP and it's not inefficient. It's a property of having no control over the memory layout and no stack allocation. If Java gets value types it's efficiency would massively increase while still remaining OOP.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


RIAA Accounting: How To Sell 1 Million Albums And Still Owe $500,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/03264014993/riaa-accounting-how-to-sell-1-million-albums-still-owe-500000.shtml

<comment><USER2> And I'm supposed to be against piracy? I have no problem giving money to people who deserve it but these people do not deserve a single penny from me. The other issue is that by paying for CD's, I'm directly funding the unethical legal bullying that these companies are undertaking.

Really, it's the same issue with the government. I, for one, do not want to fund operations which kill people in foreign countries. I don't care if it's a 'democracy', I don't care if there's a hierarchy and that I'm supposed to vote to make myself heard. I simply want to cut funds to things I don't agree with but the issue is that doing so results in an entity orders of magnitude bigger than me bullying me into submission.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, the question I have is: how many of those bands/artists make it?

The article mentions an advance of $1M. I think the $20 per CD rate claimed in this album (1M CDs sold is claimed to be $20M in sales) is a bit high (then again, I haven't bought a CD in a while). Suffice it to say, I'd lower that to $10-12M gross and maybe $7-8.4M when costs are accounted for. Even with digital distribution, I think the iTMS/Amazon are taking 30% which would lower $12M gross to $8.4M after Apple takes its cut. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've heard/seen an album costs around $10-12 on iTunes and Apple takes 30% of that. I can't imagine physical stores (who have the overhead of real-estate and employees) taking less. I mean, 20% breakage fees are outrageous, but arguing that selling 1M albums equates to $20M gross is also outrageous since CDs don't cost $20 a piece.

So, how many of these bands succeed? If I gave a $1M advance to ten bands, would nine of them sell a million albums or only one of them? Thinking of it like an investment, that's an important question. If only one of them sold a million albums (and the rest failed), it would mean that I've put out $10M while the CDs sold grossed $12M (and probably $8.5M after the selling store takes its cut, before any other costs). In this case, there isn't a lot of money for the successful band to be well rewarded. Even though they brought in 8x what was invested, there was only a 1 in 10 chance of them succeeding and a lot of that money is going to subsidizing the investment in the failed bands. However, if 9 out of 10 sell a million records, around $75M is being brought in (after the selling store's cut) while $10M was invested and so there should be plenty of money for the bands/artists to be well-rewarded for their success.

I'm not saying that there aren't dirty tricks being used. I simply don't know how often bands that get these advances do well. If the risk is that most ventures are very unprofitable, it means that the ventures that do become profitable don't get well-rewarded because of the risk involved.

There's also the issue of the amount of money. In this case, it's $1M. That isn't a sum that most people can come up with and, as such, commands a premium. A lot of the larger VC investment comes after a team has shown that it can get a bit of traction. Places like YC invest early, but it's small amounts.

In the end, if you believe in yourself and think there is little risk, it's always best to invest in one's self. However, it can be hard to stomach the risk if the costs are high and the industry failure rate is also high. I'm sure that the record companies are making off with loads of money unfairly, but what's absent from the article is a sense of how many bands that get the advance make it and how many fail. That's a critical piece of information that could turn their whole argument on its head. And without that information, it's impossible to realistically evaluate fairness. I'm no fan of record labels. I think they're an antiquated system in an age where digital recording, editing, and distribution can allow people to create high-quality media. However, if the article wants to convince me of its merits, it needs to offer some statistics about the success/failure rate of the bands/artists getting the advances. If the success rate is 90%, they have a good point. If the success rate is abysmal, it casts some doubt. I'd say it casts more doubt on the system of offering advances (than offering a defense of record labels) and argues for a more efficient initial production, but that's the hacker ethic in me.

<comment><USER4> The key issue is that the advance from the label is neither a gift nor an investment; it's a straight up loan (most likely with interest) that is expected to be paid back, but the loan terms are horrendous. I get the feeling you think that the band receives a $1M investment that the label will recover at a certain rate from the generated profit, but that's not the case. After selling for $1M, the artists are still at $0, and they still owe the record company $1M. If the record company brings in $1M in profit from an album, they have covered their expenses. That $1M wouldn't even begin to repay the loan the artist have, though, so now the label is UP $1M - the artist still owes them most of the advance.

At least, that's how I understood the situation, correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER5> The general outlook I hear from people who are signed to deals that pay advances is this: get as large an advance as you can, because you won't be getting anything else. Sure, if you go double platinum it might be worthwhile to audit the label and squeeze some more money out.

Although recoupment provisions make it technically a loan, just like a VC, the label won't come after you forever if you don't recoup. At a certain point, they'll write it off and let it go; they won't be after you forever like a collection agency.

As to how bands can earn a living, the answer is of course touring, merch (t-shirts, etc.) and for those with music with mass appeal, licensing to films, tv, and commercials. If you can self-produce, you can also do a licensing deal (P&D - pressing and distribution) for the record as well.

The way to stay in control, of course, is to bootstrap it and form your own record company.

Anyone curious about how these deals work in more detail should check out "Confessions of a Record Producer" by Moses Avalon (a pseudonym).

<comment><USER6> Worth noting - non-RIAA bands actually _lose_ money touring. Smaller bands signed to RIAA labels still do not do very well with touring.

In many smaller scenes, a successful tour is one that breaks even. They sleep on promoters floors, eat shitty food, and play in bars. I hear a lot of "fans" that download all of their music and think that they support the artist by going to their show. This is _not_ the case.

The one way to really make money as I understand it - which is noted in the book you mention (though it is kind of dated now) - is royalties. If you are fortunate enough to have your song featured in ads and get into heavy rotation on the radio, you get paid outside of your recoupment costs (which they pull from record sales).

<comment> brown9-2 _I hear a lot of "fans" that download all of their music and think that they support the artist by going to their show. This is not the case._

Well, it's not like their ticket purchases are for naught - it still offsets the cost of touring for the artist. The artists would be worse off doing the same tour with less fans attending.

What better choice do the fans have anyway? Buying the records supports the record label, not the artist.

<comment><USER7> And the record label supports the artist, or else why would artist's join them?

<comment><USER8> Larger exposure for the inevitable tour that, if GP is accurate, doesn't make money.

Why people don't go the route of Jonathan Coulton or Pomplamoose, and just scratch it out on their own talents, is beyond me. Hell, I think even those "hide your kids, hide your wife" news parody musicians apparently make more money than major label star. The math just doesn't seem to be adding up anywhere being on a label, is what I'm trying to say.

I guess you have to be a blindingly white-hot ultra-mega-super-duperstar to make a penny from labels and touring, and everyone else should just pack it in or go indie?

Seems like it sucks worse to be a musician than to be a struggling actor or indie mobile app developer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The crazy thing to me is that the deal is structured more like a loan then an investment, and yet they are still only entitled to 10% of _net_ income. Could you imagine a tech entrepreneur accepting that kind of a deal from a VC?

<comment><USER7> Programming ability has a great deal more economic value than entertainment ability.

<comment><USER10> How so, given how much money top singers/bands make?

<comment><USER11> The total revenue of RIAA members in 2009 was about $7.7 billion. At their peak around the turn of the century, they were doing a bit under $15 billion. And that is revenue, not profit. The entertainment industry is _tiny_. Top artists make a lot of money for an individual, but it's only millions, and there aren't a whole lot of them.

That 2009 music industry revenue would pay for, what, 70,000 programmers? And there are a _whole_ lot more programmers than that earning good money.

(Note: I'm only looking at RIAA figures, and ignoring independent artists, so it's understated to a certain extent. However, I believe RIAA revenue still makes up the majority, probably the vast majority, of total music revenue.)

<comment><USER12> The mind-boggling this is that a billion-dollar industry is bullying a (many?) trillion-dollar industry around. Say what you want about DRM, it's strange to me that software and hardware manufacturers actually put up with it.

<comment><USER13> Not that I'm saying laws are applied correctly.

But I sure am glad that the music industry CAN "bully" an industry far greater in the same way that I am glad that I can (if I had time and money) to do it because of the freedom of litigation.

<comment><USER11> The weird thing is that most of the bullying has nothing to do with litigation. DRM pops up all over the place in standards like HDMI, willingly put there by the electronics companies. If they wanted to, they could all go to the entertainment industry and say, "You guys want DRM, but tough luck, we're not building it. If you want to sell your stuff on the next generation of devices, you'll have to work with what we want to build." But they don't, even though in theory they should be able to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Steve Albini's explanation is much more colorful and now almost 15 years old, <http://www.negativland.com/albini.html>

<comment><USER15> Good work linking to that - I was just going to comment that I liked this article a whole lot more when Steve Albini wrote it...in the 90s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hate this headline. This is not RIAA accounting: its having a bad lawyer and not negotiating a good deal. I've been in plenty of deal meetings and seen the good and the bad.

The good artists retain most of their rights, negotiate a buy out of master recording rights, retain all fanclub/merch rights, etc.

The labels try to gun for 360 rights, but the fact is while there was a brief moment when they could deliver on the promise of the 360, that moment has long passed.

If you are a band, and you want to be a multi-platinum act selling world wide: get a really really good lawyer and sign with QPrime, Frontline, Red Light/ATO, etc.

Let me repeat: GET A GOOD LAWYER.

<comment><USER17> If you get a good lawyer and he drives a hard bargain that doesn't mean you get the record label deal though. What's more important is determining how much you are willing to give up for a record label deal. The label is perfectly capable of telling you no deal if they don't want to give you all your demands. There are a lot of other artists out there who will drive an easier bargain.

The lawyer is helpful in actually understanding the deal but he can't guarantee the deal you want.

<comment><USER16> Very true. You also need to be willing to walk away and hold the line. I've seen contract negotiations go for YEARS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I still don't understand why musicians continue to sign up with record labels?

With all the other options out there, the record labels should not be the first choice for any aspiring musician.

<comment><USER19> Those other options aren't always as easy to execute for everyone as you might think. Marketing, web site building, video editing, tour scheduling, public relations, accounting, etc.

That stuff is hard work and you have to be a jack of all trades. Each band is like a little startup looking for a technical cofounder.

<comment><USER20> This. Is exactly how it works. A first-time startup gets worse terms then an established entrepreneur, right? A first-time band is the same way. You do well with your first venture, you get better terms the next time. The indie film industry is very much the same way with distribution rights.

So, VC ~= Record labels ~= Film distributers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A guy named 'merethan' posted a great essay on the subject in 2010. It gives a good explanation of what the music industry is about and why it still operates the way it does, without going too much into the financial details.

The original article is in Dutch, so I translated it into English a while ago: <http://site.jteeuwen.nl/misc/copy_is_my_right.html>

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know why he left out the $300,000 advance from the final calculation on how much the artists make? I'm not sure if that was just an oversight or if there was a valid reason for it.

<comment><USER23> Even so, for a 5 member band, assuming they took the whole advance, (no manager fees, etc) they've earned $60,000. Which considering there's usually 2-4 years between albums, and they still owe the label money, that's a pretty shitty wage of $15k - $30k P/A.

<comment><USER24> Sure, but in the meantime the label made the band famous, which is worth a lot of money. They have a much larger audience at concerts, can sell merchandise and possibly have other sources of income. And, when the record contract expires, they can negotiate better terms.

<comment><USER23> No question, any band will tell you that record sales is their least significant income source, for most merch is the big earner.

What bothers me most about this situation is that musicians would exist without labels, where as labels would not exist without musicians, the balance of power is all wrong.

<comment><USER25> Some musicians would exist without the labels, others need the push / image machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, I can't imagine how any band could be stupid enough to sign a contract with a big label and expect to make money off of album sales. The money is in touring and selling merch - bands should learn to look at selling albums as a promotional expense that helps them line up tours and sell overpriced t-shirts. Or, there is always the indie fortune 500...

</comment><comment><USER26> Similar: Courtney Love does the Math: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714338>

</comment><comment><USER27> Really good article. Mentions the different fees, how they are calculated, their amounts for a typical successful album. This kind of info you normally don't come across.</comment>


Google responds to the Mocality blog post - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/115264064268941645500/posts/WfALKwfmCGJ

<comment><USER2> So Nelson Mattos ([http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/per...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=21751034&ticker=GOOG:US)) confirms that what Mocality diagnosed is correct:

\- there are people inside of Google, working for Google, that manually accessed web data of Mocality and then phoned Mocality clients making fraudulent claims about Mocality and practically trying to extort the money from the clients. Note that those in Google can't be "just some local Kenyans" as Mocality recored systematic access from Google India after access from Kenya stopped:

<http://blog.mocality.co.ke/files/2012/01/both.png>

Note also what Mocality logged:

\- "8 different user agents mostly running Chrome on Linux"

It's so cries "Google" and it can be much more than eight people doing this, as, for example, all machines where hard disks are duplicated or are simply similarly configured would have the same user agent.

Mocality also estimates that

\- "this team were calling 20-25 Mocality business per hour" ([http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were- you-t...](http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you- thinking/))

This is SOO BIG.

<comment><USER3> Is it? At the most some team inside went rampant and will probably be fired. Aren't there bound to be some black sheep in any organization with 1000s of members?

The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous.

<comment><USER4> _The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous._

For real, right? Next thing they'll tell us is that Google would assist companies in displaying illegal drug ads in the US for profit. This is Google we're talking about. Have people already forgotten their motto is "Don't be evil"? You can't have that motto and do evil stuff -- it wouldn't be consistent.

<comment><USER5> You seem to have good and evil confused. Speaking as someone who's just ordered a number of meds online, helping me find the meds I need is "good". Trying to hinder this activity and censor it for stupid damn reasons is "bad".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _"We're still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we > have all the facts, we'll be taking the appropriate action with the people > involved."_

Dear Google,

Last I checked, you have been in the business of finding other people's digital information on the web, aggregating it, and offering it up as your product for more than a decade. For the past several years, your business model has increasingly relied upon encouraging web users to add more content to the web - Google+ upon which this post appears being but the latest example.

If Mocality is correct in its claim that Google did not approach them about using their data, then it is hard to see how what has happened could be a surprise. Such naivety about the way the web works is simply not credible.

The persons responsible for this are not in Africa or India. They are the people responsible for oversight; they in the executive offices at the Googleplex - and I suspect that most of the regret is that this time you were caught in the honeypot.

<comment><USER4> I hope Google isn't that tone deaf. Jobs got a lot right, and one of them is at the VP-level you don't have excuses. The janitor can have excuses, but if this is under your watch -- it's under your watch.

I felt like Google played dumb with the drug ads thing and didn't really hold people accountable (Page was hardly rebuked) -- here they need to come down hard to show that they're serious about "Don't be evil" -- or is that just a useful motto when you're the young underdog.

<comment><USER7> The problem runs deeper. Google hired a lot of creeps during their huge hiring sprees in the mid/late 2000s. Don't forget that Google has been the #1 job choice for MBA grads since around 2006. Their semi autistic hiring process gets people with high IQs but does nothing to weed out amoral weirdos or even just plain assholes. One reason I have never responded to their recruitment efforts is that every psycho I've worked with over the past decade is now a manager at Google.

<comment><USER8> BTW the person who posted this was Nelson Mattos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He chose his words carefully. He didn't say this was done by Google employees, but "a team of people" working on a Google project.

Google is usually straight-forward when they screw up. I'm curious to see what actually happened.

<comment><USER10> I take this to mean that they were Google contractors, or other representative third party.

In any case, I feel like an apology is insufficient here - it sounds like what these guys have done has significantly harmed the reputation of Mocality, perhaps in an irreversible way. I'm not usually one to leap on the "payday from big company" bandwagon, but IMO Google needs to do more to make this right than simply apologizing and firing.

<comment><USER11> "I take this to mean that they were Google contractors, or other representative third party."

That's what he wants you to take it to mean but that's likely not accurate. If no Google employees were involved I'd expect a quote that said so and this doesn't.

I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud aspects of what occurred here but that's not the same thing as saying that this project was 100% contractors. Indications are actually the opposite, see mocality's post* and the project's website <http://www.kbo.co.ke/> ("managed by Google").

* [http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-t...](http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-thinking/)

<comment><USER2> > I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud > aspects of what occurred here

How come, when Google India was obviously involved, looking at the post that you link as well?

<comment><USER11> I just had a hard time coming to grips with the idea of a billionaire company committing outright fraud for ten dollar domain names.

The fraudsters may well have been Google employees and/or contractors. I think Willful at metafilter put it best [1]:

 _I worked at Google for a few years. My experience is that it's like any other huge multinational corporation in that there are regional teams that get more or less supervision. They're also somewhat hamstrung in that in certain regional hiring situations, they have to focus on getting someone who can speak the local language over getting someone of their normal standard of ethics and acceptable background._

 _As a result I saw people working in Google who did evil things, pure and simple, especially in the more obscure markets to reach their sales targets. When they were caught they were fired, when they didn't and succeeded as a result, they were promoted._

 _This type of thing will always happen. Thinking it won't is a bit childish. It's Google's official response and subsequent actions that defines their culture._

[1] <http://www.metafilter.com/111590/Do-Not-Much-Evil#4128023>

<comment><USER12> So presumably, Kenyans have neither normal standards of ethics nor acceptable backgrounds? Like most other posters speaking in favour of Google, Willful displays an arrogance I can't quite understand. I'd be really curious about what you'd have to say if this was some American (or other "acceptable background") startup.

<comment><USER13> If you were feeling generous you could interpret it as saying that 'is competent & is ethical & speaks english' is necessarily a bigger hiring pool than 'is competent & is ethical & speaks english & speaks the local language'. The identity of 'local language' is irrelevant, trying to find bilingual candidates always narrows the hiring pool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The above url is a Google Plus post from a VP at Google

(<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nelson-mattos/4/703/430>)

<comment><USER14> Thanks - Plus links that are talking about Google are really confusing, it's impossible to tell from the post if the person is affiliated with Google or not, but it always leaves that impression in my mind, and that impression is often wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I believe the point is that within the past month Google's "Do no evil" has jumped the shark. It no longer exists. But some people still trust them for some reason that I dont understand. Maybe because Matt Cutts seems like a nice guy or they are just hanging on to google's past. In addition to this Mocality deal, what stands out is their blatant favoritism of Google+ in their search results.

Google has been preaching for years about relevancy and unbiased search results. Even testifying in DC - [http://searchengineland.com/mr-cutts-goes- to-washington-6123...](http://searchengineland.com/mr-cutts-goes-to- washington-61234) \- Google's results are determined by an algorithm and not tweaked to get particular sites ranking well. - Yet they now have tweaked their results in order to place their Google+ brand above results that are much more relevant than theirs.

Some might argue, "hey, it is Google's website - they can do what they want." I used to think like this too, but the reality is that this behavior is bad for consumers and bad for businesses. Especially smaller businesses. This isn't just about Facebook and Twitter... there are hundreds of smaller niche content players that will be pushed aside by this. And as Google has to grow to keep shareholders happy, they will have to move into more and more content. If this still seems like a stretch see the example below.

What if there were only 2 companies that owned land in San Francisco and New York? One of them was named Google and they owned 70% of San Francisco and 90% of New York. In the beginning Google allowed anyone to rent their land for retail stores. So you had all different kind of companies providing different kinds of products in their stores. Hundreds of different businesses. Then all of the sudden Google decided to take over those retail locations and sell their own goods. They also sold other company's goods, but they were way back in the store. Hidden away. So if you were walking down the street in New York, 90% of the time a store would be owned by Google and 90% of the time you would only see marginal Google products. Now would that be good for business? Who would go into business? It would be so hard to compete. Would that be good for the consumer?

I believe in free enterprise, but only to a certain extent. There is a reason why antitrust laws exist. If they didn't, companies like Google never would have existed. We would all be working for Rockefeller.

</comment><comment><USER16> This G+ post is a PR blunder. You should never apologize for something and then say that you are still gathering the facts about it. Second, you don't offer to sacrifice other people (while not yet having the facts). You either don't or you self sacrifice. Third, telling the public about an apology to someone else seems desperate. Just apologize. If there is actual public fervor, wait a few days and, like things your dog ate, news of the apology will come out from the other end. Finally, if you're a business with lots of money that other people want, it's probably best not to say anything. Get your lawyer to say it. That is what they are paid for.

And Google is evil. they track everything you do online, where your phone goes, and what you search for and sell that information, for fuck's sake.

<comment><USER17> Damned if you do, damned you don't - had they not mentioned it people would be pissed that they're so brazen as to think they can do something like this and just get away with it. As it is I like Google's personable way of taking early responsibility, even without all the details, just to let the concerned public know that they are aware of the issue and taking it seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Uh, wasn't this fraud? And isn't that criminal? As in jail time not just being fired?

If I said I had a fake partnership with Google and started calling up their customers for my competing website, I'm pretty certain I would go to jail.

<comment><USER19> _I'm pretty certain I would go to jail._

I'll take the other side of that bet. Do you know how much money it costs to send someone to prison? Quite a lot. And that doesn't include how much it costs to keep them there.

<comment><USER20> Thing is that Google (and those like them) bring a lot of revenue to boost your GDP.

Picking up a cell-phone left in a bar shouldn't get a whole platoon of police officers mobilised either (eg [http://www.pcworld.com/article/195006/police_seize_gizmodo_e...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/195006/police_seize_gizmodo_editors_tech_gear.html)).

Aside: the downvoting of unpopular but nonetheless cogent and well put arguments here is getting rather silly; will pg step in to sort this out. IMO this has got worse and worse since comment scores were hidden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> With a large company things like this need to be addressed; a lot of time the incentives are perverse to set this up. Consider WalMart. I am 99% certain that no execs there say "make your employees work off the clock" but they definitely have incentives for managers to get more work done with the same payroll, which translates to an incentive to engage in illegal behavior.

</comment><comment><USER22> It seems Iridium Interactive was the contracted company that called Mocalitys clients:

[http://www.techmtaa.com/2012/01/13/mocality-accuses- google-o...](http://www.techmtaa.com/2012/01/13/mocality-accuses-google-of- playing-dirty-to-win-kenyan-businesses/)

"Google is said to have outsourced all jobs of getting business on KBO to India's Iridium Interactive. The calls must have been originating from Iridium both in Kenya and India. In Kenya they are located on 7th floor Pushotam place and the key local contact is listed as Juliet Gacheri while in India they also share an address with Google."

</comment><comment><USER23> A comment on the G+ post from Joshua Mwaniki:

 _Richard Champling...I couldnt hold back from commenting on your accusations that we may have ochestrated this deliberately. I head the Mocality team in Kenya...and we did not 'Ochestrate' this. Building a directory in Africa isnt as easy as just going around and knocking on doors. Our success was largely based on our ability to build and maintain a large agent network (15,000+ strong). These agents collect information that forms the bulk of our directory. However, for the agents...work isnt as simple as going around and knocking on doors. A lot of the population is still very suspicious about the internet and new technologies. People have fallen prey to scams for merely giving out their cell phone numbers...people are kidnapped etc.

Agents have the task of building trust with business owners in many cases just to extract their correct business details. Convincing them of the 'need' to be online, is not as easy as it seems. To facilitate this, the Mocality team in Kenya spends a lot of time travelling around, holding agent and business seminars and slowly turning our name and mission into something the local business person can trust. Therefore...when google launch a new product like KBO into the market, it is quite clear to us in the country, that they would have similar hurdles to climb when recruiting businesses. These hurdles are in some way a competitive advantage to us, as we've already spent tons of man hours going past them. Google would still need to build the trust...and the business owner would need to be comfortable working with them.

For Mocality, the businesses trust our agents and we use our agents to introduce products to them. Therefore, when google employees/agents call and say that we are working together, they are taking advantage of the relationship of trust we have worked so hard to build...in order to release their product easily into the market. How does this look for us? It's a domino effect... Our agents have no idea about the sites business owners call to ask them about, and their confusion makes the business owners suspicious about working with them further...the agents get upset with us for not informing them of new products or partnerships with google, as they are losing livelihoods...and we are left perplexed that a company of the stature like google is blatantly telling lies. Perhaps worse for us here are the allegations being made that we plan to charge Kshs 20,000 for some services...which is way more than an average business would be willing to spend. So...did we orchestrate this? we clearly did not. And as my CEO Stefan said in his blog...we have always been keen to form viable partnerships within Kenya, and google is a company we have looked at working with. So we dont understand why we werent asked about partnership possibilities if they really wanted to use our information. Really encouraged by the massive support we've seen online from so many people so far though. Very encouraging._

<comment><USER24> I am not sure why he even needs two paragraphs before coming to the point: Google was basically phishing by _pretending_ that they were partnered with Mocality.

Isn't that what a phishing scam is? I lie and tell hotmail customers, for example, that I am from hotmail or somehow partnered with hotmail and that I need your password(or credit card). That's almost criminal.

<comment><USER25> > Google was basically phishing by pretending that they were partnered with > Mocality.

It's a bit disingenuous to equate some Google employees from doing this with Google as a company doing it. I could be very wrong here (and would be extraordinarily disappointed in the company if so), but I doubt this was a corporate-sanctioned activity.

<comment><USER24> When an engineer at google comes up with a great idea during work hours not sanctioned by google, google still owns that idea and its success. Not the individual.

Same should apply when shit goes bad.

<comment><USER25> Taking responsibility for something stupid your employees do, sure. Equating that stupid thing with a sanctioned corporate action is ridiculous.

<comment><USER26> Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc.

Sorry it's one or the other.

I know I like to say, we're IT and if anything goes wrong it's not our fault, but if anything goes extremely well, we'll take the credit--but then I know I'm being facetious :)

<comment><USER27> > Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great > stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc.

You know, why _not_ think of Google (or Microsoft, or any other Zaibatsu- pretending-to-be-one-brand) as companies resident within a start-up incubator? Treating Google's Adsense team as the same "culture" as Google's Search team makes about as much sense as treating Sony Pictures as being the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, or Virgin Airlines as being the same company as Virgin Mobile.

So, don't say "Google did this to GMail today" or "Google's search is amazing" or "Google merged their Page Creator into Google Sites"; instead, say "The GMail team launched this today" or "I love the Google Search folks" or "Google Page Creator got _bought out by_ Google Sites."

<comment><USER28> If YCombinator funded/supported say a company that allowed your house to get trashed with no reparations or attempt to make good, then yes I'd hold that against YCombinator. Ultimately Google Inc. is where the money funnels to & is ultimately responsible for it's subcultures.

This idea that Google can't be held responsible for bad employee behavior is borderline religious. Praise Google when it does something good, let Google off the hook when it does something bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, that deserves a +1.

Kind of amazing, I thought it would turn out it was an unconnected company.

<comment><USER6> Mocality's post didn't have the hallmarks of linkbait and based on their description of their business model (patient, capitalized, appropriate to the local) and the sophistication of their honeypot strategy, there was an air of legitimacy.

It was hard to see an upside from them making a false claim - e.g. a flood of unique visitors from around the world would hardly add value to their business (probably more likely to just crash their servers).

In addition, it is hard to see much of a downside for Google, they are still partnering with the biggest bank, largest mobile provider, and the manager of Kenya's top level domain - anyway there's already one Microsoft for people to hate and how much of a hit on eyeballs is a story about screwing over a small company in Africa really going to cause?

This was a rational business decision of the sort that's made everyday by large multinational companies.

<comment><USER30> This also reminds me of what AirBnB did with CraigsList. You're right - it's done everyday. And let's face it... will anyone remember a month from now?

<comment><USER31> AznHisoka: What did AirBnB do with CraigsList?

<comment><USER32> Random link on the topic:

[http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/02/airbnb-admits-gaming- craig...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/02/airbnb-admits-gaming-craigslist/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> tl;dr (kinda skimmed, correct me if I'm wrong)

Mocality is a Kenyan business that gathers and aggregates information about the businesses in Kenya to improve the economic state of the country through information infrastructure.

Google (or, apparently, a group contracted by Google) was mining their data and in turn (effectively) selling it. They were undercutting Mocality while at the same time claiming that they had previous arrangements with Mocality to do so.

<comment><USER34> Not quite right. Kenyan businesses opt-in to listing on Mocality, for free.

The Google employees called up businesses on the list, claimed that Mocality was owned by Google, and tried to upsell some web pages.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460033>

"I'd like you to meet Douglas. On this call (first 2 minutes) you can clearly hear Douglas identify himself as Google Kenya employee, state, and then reaffirm, that GKBO is working in collaboration with Mocality, and that we are helping them with GKBO, before trying to offer the business owner a website (and upsell them a domain name). Over the 11 minutes of the whole call he repeatedly states that Mocality is with, or under (!) Google."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> What's fascinating is what wasn't said. What's wasn't said was "This is nothing to do with us, this was someone unconnected to Google".

</comment><comment><USER36> So what happens next?

Realistically I don't think there's any legal action they can take - can they?

Also, how does Google "make this right" with them?

<comment><USER37> As far as legal action, Google employees violated Mocality 's Terms & Condition so maybe legal action is possible.

<comment><USER38> And they (or whoever was making those phone calls) fraudulently misrepresented themselves, thereby committing fraud by the laws of the US. Not sure about Kenyan laws.

<comment><USER39> If so this is exactly the kind of thing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was invented for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder what the "appropriate action" will consist of.

</comment><comment><USER41> The point here is not if Google is evil or not. Obviously, the heads of Google weren't aware of this scam.

The point is that any employee of Google can access such data. And Google holds a lot of data. A real damn lot of data. Moreover, it sounds like it was much more than a lone employee scamming people. It was probably a small organized group.

It means you data, and sometimes your business isn't always safe.

Thus, Google is dangerous. It's not Google's fault. It's just what happens when you get too big or too large.

<comment><USER42> * The point is that any employee of Google can access such data.*

It sounds like they were just visiting Mocality's website. Anyone could have done that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Oh hey, let's use this bad story about google to drive some traffic to google+.

<comment><USER43> It seems <http://www.kbo.co.ke/> is more or less free (anyone with a google account can create free sites), the only cost seems to be a domain name - follow the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It seems like most of the commenters here are treating the evidence of Google's wrongdoing as conclusive. It isn't. A comment on the post by Richard Wooding demonstrated how Joe Random can make requests from a Google IP address:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy- ab&...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy- ab&hl=en&biw=1270&bih=726&source=hp&q=cache%3Awhatismyip.com&pbx=1&oq=cache%3Awhatismyip.com&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1357l8049l0l8315l22l5l0l0l0l0l331l1446l2-2.3l5l0)

<comment><USER45> I don't think that Google Cache acts as a HTTP proxy.

<comment><USER46> No, but Google Translate does.</comment></comment></comment>


UGANDA - children's HIV awareness stories need funding for animated version - <AUTHOR> http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94229 <comment><AUTHOR> Uganda has an adult HIV rate of about 6.5% (US about 0.6%); the median age is about 15 years old (US about 37 years); life expectancy about 53 (US about 78); literacy about 67% (but only 58% for women) (US about 99%).

It seems that Uganda could do with some KickStarter style innovation in HIV/AIDS funding. People think of good projects; they create a page and ask for funding; other people offer advice or ask questions; people either offer funding (with conditions?) or they look at some other project.

The amount of money that this group needs to create animated versions of their books is, probably, _tiny_.</comment>


The EU's new roaming rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/06/economist-explains-13?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/ <comment><USER3> This is awesome. Traveling in Europe right now (from USA) and bought a 5GB data only Ortel card in Italy on June 5 for 20 euro. June 11th I'm in Salzburg and it doesn't work, which is my previous experience. I go to Slovenia for a few days where it does work, possibly because of the new regulation, some carriers apparently started it up on June 1. Yesterday June 17th cross back into Austria and It Works!

It works now in Prague too, though maybe it would have anyway.

So now this one 20 euro prepaid data card has worked in Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and the Czech republic.

This was so confusing before, lots of sim cards would roam in different countries, but only for texts and sms. The data would just shut down. Sometimes one type of plan would work and another wouldn't (on the same carrier). The carriers were super confusing about what would work where, digging through their sites would yield nothing about were things would work. You had to talk to phone shop people and other travelers to figure it out.

It it so great not to have to manage this country by country or get a special carrier to do this. And Europe is tiny, there was a guy on my train commuting from Slovenia to Austria for his paramedic job. And see [http://thetruesize.com/](http://thetruesize.com/)

The news is underplaying how much better this is. It rocks.

<comment><USER4> It's more likely that it's your phone/device that is the source of the issue.

There are 10 LTE bands currently in use in Europe: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands#Deployment...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands#Deployments_by_region)

and 2 UMTS bands: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS_frequency_bands#Deploymen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS_frequency_bands#Deployments_by_region_.28UMTS- FDD.29)

Those are not necessarily the same bands that are in use in North America or Asia, or some other region and as a result there are very, very few phones that actually support all of them - even the EU variants.

Google Pixel is the only phone I'm aware of that supports every single one.

<comment><USER3> I buried the lede, the point is that it didn't work in Austria June 11, and it did on June 17th. June 15th is when the rule went into effect.

Slovenia and Czech Republic working are speculation. (But I've heard so many complaints about data roaming for prepaid that I think it's possibly better).

And so far its worked everywhere, after June 15th I _haven 't_ had issues.

But if it's relevant to anyone my iPhone 6S model (a1688) does have pretty good LTE band coverage for Europe. Namely, bands 1,3,7,20,38.

[http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple- iph...](http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple- iphone-6s-a1688-4.7-inch-global-sprint-verizon-specs.html)

"Please note that this A1688 iPhone 6s model is compatible with LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, (but not 30) in addition to TD-LTE bands 38, 39, 40, and 41 -- is intended for Sprint and Verizon as well as sold with a T-Mobile nano-SIM in the United States and a wide variety of carriers in Canada, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere worldwide."

<comment><USER4> Yeah, iPhones support quote a few bands too and each model released is doing better, but they are still releasing multiple regional variants with different bands supported:

[https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/](https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Definitely positive for everybody. An example (Slovenia) is a new package from A1(Vodafone) with 15GB everywhere in EU without limits for 20€. Previously was like 22€ for 4GB local only.

<comment><USER6> For some telcos this is a very tough deal. Countries with a lot of foreign visitors, like Spain or Italy, will have to improve network capacity to sustain the added data volume, and with no increase in revenue. A lot of carriers still operate at local country level in Europe. I guess the long-term plan is that that most telcos will end up merging into pan-european companies.

<comment><USER7> Note that the telcos don't stop charging _each other_ for roaming, they just stop charging _customers_. This might even be good news for Spanish and Italian telcos.

<comment><USER8> True, but the regulation limits how much they can charge each other so they need to make it up in volume.

Before they could charge 51.2 EUR/GB which is now lowered to 7.7 EUR/GB set to go down in steps to 2.5 EUR/GB by 2022.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulations#Prices)

<comment><USER9> 51 euros per gigabyte is absurd.

<comment><USER10> You think €51 per GB is absurd? I have a Vodafone prepaid connection from Germany. Currently traveling in Switzerland, Vodafone informed me my roaming data charges are 17ct per 50 Kb.

A little back of the envelope calculation and that puts my rate at €3.500 per GB. Now that's an absurd value!!

<comment><USER11> I'm curious if that was postpaid. My prepaid Vodafone data started working EU- wide without extra charges just over a year ago.

> Gut zu wissen: Du nutzt Deine Highspeed-MB mit Deinem CallYa-Tarif ohne > Aufpreis in der ganzen EU. Falls Du den Basispreis oder Deine Tarif-Option > nicht zahlst, kostet ein MB 5,95 Cent.

<comment><USER12> Switzerland is not in the EU

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note that if the new rules cause roaming net (roaming revenue minus roaming costs) loss of more than 3% of the operator's mobile services margin, they can apply for an exemption to add roaming surcharges (to cover expenses only).

The Finnish operators were all granted that exemption to prevent the domestic price level from increasing:

[https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/en/ficora/news/2017/fouroper...](https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/en/ficora/news/2017/fouroperatorsauthorisedtoapplyroamingsurcharges.html)

<comment><USER14> Ok, that explains my surprise today. Am in Austria with a Saunalahti (Elisa) SIM and was surprised to see there is still a 7€/Gb roaming charge. This is the SMS I got:

\--- Ulkomaan käytön normaalihinnat Itävallassa: Soitto Suomeen ja tekstiviestin lähetys kotimaan hinnoin + 0.03968 e/min tai 0.0124 e/kpl. Puhelun vastaanotto 0 e/min ja datasiirto 7.44 e/Gt. Ei koske Premium- liittymien erikoishinnoittelua. Hätänumero 112 0 e/min.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I pay £0.1 per MB when roaming. Any change from this frankly obscene price is good news.

Sadly I feel this deal won't last for long when the UK leaves the EU.

<comment><USER16> >Sadly I feel this deal won't last for long when the UK leaves the EU.

I wouldn't worry too much. The UK providers are quite good with this. e.g. The contract I signed a month ago was 16GB anywhere in EU for 19 quid. (voda). And the prepaid Three network cards can also roam with their data allowance in a sizable number of countries.

<comment><USER17> But of course they can only offer these prices because the wholesale prices for roaming are capped across the EU (this has been the case for a while now, they have now just reduced those rates further). If the UK operators wouldn't be able to benefit from the wholesale prices anymore, I doubt they could sustain this. Just look at Switzerland, where "all in" contracts with roaming in the EU will set you back around 70-90 CHF...

<comment><USER16> >But of course they can only offer these prices

They've had them for a while already. Like months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How is the network in a foreign country being picked? Here in Germany, we have (at least?) three competing networks, O2, Telekom and Vodafone. Their coverage differs, but afaik I don't get to automatically use another network if my network doesn't cover my location.

So what happens in another country? Free roaming won't be much use if no network covers my location? If on the other hand, I will be allowed any network for the price of my home network, I wonder if it would make sense to get a contract in another country, so that I can use all networks in Germany for free?

<comment><USER19> Don't German networks have agreements to route traffic for other operators if they don't have coverage somewhere? That would surprise me.

And the rules are made to make it difficult to get that contract in a different country, as you aren't allowed to roam for 12 months a year for free.

<comment><USER20> They don't. The gaps in coverage are very small at least for basic phone service. LTE is available for at least 93%/90%/80% of the area respectively for the three networks. Good coverage is also the main factor of competition.

<comment><USER21> They did, at least O2 had a inland roaming with Telekom back in its early days; after the merge between O2 and EPlus the networks are still doing inland roaming afaik.

And I'd say with O2 you don't get anywhere next to 90% LTE - not in the countryside (where Vodafone and Telekom often enough also offer EDGE at best), but also in major cities. Berlin is the worst (at Hbf and Gesundbrunnen you're lucky to have actually working HSDPA!), next comes Hamburg and Duesseldorf. Munich is fairly good, also in the subways.

The general problem with O2 is when the network gets congested - e.g. demonstrations, festivals, sometimes on Autobahns even traffic jams! - <USER2> is no Internet service at all. The phone may show a "4G" indicator but no traffic goes through. Telekom and Vodafone seem to handle sudden congestions way better, I am not sure how though.

<comment><USER20> Sorry, I edited my comment while you replied. O2 officially is at 80% LTE coverage according to the latest BNetzA report. But as far as I know they often use cells that can't handle the needed capacity.

When the networks where new, some offered roaming in some areas, I remember that as well. The E-Plus/O2 roaming was more of a technical thing when they merged, it should now be largely gone and a single network.

<comment><USER21> It's iirc their backhaul network that can't keep up, not the technology they use in their BTS. Telekom and Vodafone have large fiber networks (Telekom for DSL, Vodafone for cable-Internet) so they can use existing infrastructure (conduits, electricity lines, right-of-way for houses housing concentrators, routers etc) while O2/Eplus had to build out/rent everything.

In addition O2/Eplus historically got the cheaper but more inefficient frequency ranges which made them the "low cost" players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone pick up on this little doozy at the end? "The new law may not be all good for all consumers; it is possible that non-roamers will end up subsidising the more expensive needs of roamers, as the networks respond to the lost roaming revenue."

The argument feels a bit naive to me, and smacks of the oversimplified scenarios taught in economics-101. I'd agree with them if the increased roaming charges reflected the extra cost imposed on the network, but in reality the networks were just price-gouging a captive market.

They may be technically correct in that the networks could try to make up the lost revenue by raising prices, but the reasoning feels specious. It's not a question of one group being forced by law to subsidise another, it's a question of an unsavoury business practice being forced by law to end.

</comment><comment><USER23> The roaming rules are a bit complicated. It seems that only a fraction of the data plan can be made available under "free roaming" rules.

I suspect operators will make their money back from "I forgot to turn off roaming" to "I took too much from my roaming data".

<comment><USER24> I don't think so, carriers are quite clear about their conditions. E.g. even if you're not French you can understand on this webpage that you have 40GB/month, included in Europe, for 24,99€/month: [https://shop.sosh.fr/mobile/forfaits- mobiles](https://shop.sosh.fr/mobile/forfaits-mobiles)

<comment><USER25> Those prices are insane compared to Belgium.

It goes to show why carriers lobbied so hard to prevent European citizens to buy subscriptions from a different country considering roaming would truly create European competition between carriers.

Keeping in mind Dutch,French and Belgian carriers are sometimes one and the same entity it shows liberalism and free market is only promoted and applied when it benefits the strong (carriers), not the weak (consumers).

It's still a very good and welcomed evolution for consumers though :).

<comment><USER26> Cross country competetion would really suck because of the varying levels of wellfare across the EU.

Between Belgium France and the Netherlands, there isn't much of a problem. However, if you start comparing e.g. the Netherlands with Romania, things get weird. Those consumer markets are vastly different, Romania is much cheaper.

I'd expect that, due to differing expectations of infrastructure building a network in Romanio would also be cheaper.

<comment><USER25> Good point even though I still think I am being ripped when comparing to France.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> -BE to BE (in BE) : bundle

-BE to BE (in FR) : bundle

-BE to FR (in BE) : extra

-BE to FR (in FR) : extra

To Google & Apple Please add an easy way to allow roaming in EU but not in other countries.

<comment><USER8> The last time I had a Swedish SIM card in my iPhone there was a separate "EU Internet" option

<comment><USER28> Yep, iOS 10 added it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> OK, I get that "roaming" now costs as if you were home, but what if you're french and you go to germany and there you call a french number. Is that also as if you were calling a fellow french person, or not?

<comment><USER30> It's annoyingly a bit complex. As I now understand it, for Three in the UK the rules are pretty simple for most cases:

UK user in UK calls UK number – local country cost. UK user in Germany calls UK number - same cost as calling locally from UK. UK user in Germany calls German number – same cost as calling a UK number.

The weird edge-case is that calling a foreign number is less expensive when roaming; calling a German number from e.g. France is now cheaper than calling a German number from inside the UK, because the roaming regs affect roaming cost but _do not_ affect what providers can charge for international calls from the home country.

<comment><USER31> this is correct, international calls from home country are not affected by roaming regulation and cost more than same calls using foreign networks, they should regulate this as well, to make at least international EU calls from home country on par with roaming prices (aka domestic calls)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> While this change is very welcome, a lot of ISPs still ask for , in my opinion, unreasonable amounts of money for relatively small amounts of data ie: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited- mobile...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited-mobile-data- model-now-europe-pal-zarandy)

<comment><USER33> It seems unlikely the EU regulators will ask for fair data roaming prices, too, anytime soon, as the operators most likely told them this is a cash cow for them in the near future. However, this may be irrelevant in 5+ years, if the "Wi-Fi everywhere" program is implemented across the EU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's good for competition. In France the mobile plan I use from "Free Mobile" evolved in few months from 3GB 35 days per year to 25 GB all the time, and some others like Sosh (from Orange) or SFR evolved too.

</comment><comment><USER35> What if you're on some obscure lesser known mobile network and the EU country you're traveling to doesn't support that network? Vodafone (a non obscure network) however seems to be ubiquitous in the EU.

<comment><USER36> Doesn't matter. The networks using the same name are independent companies anyway, for example Vodafone UK and Vodafone IE have the same agreements, as your lesser known mobile network.

It may go even further - the brand name of the network you recognize may be not owned by the same company, as the rest for the networks with the same name. For example, O2 CZ and O2 SK are not owned by Telefonica (anymore), but the other O2 networks are.

<comment><USER35> So does your device automatically choose the correct network depending on what sim it has?

<comment><USER36> From the observation, yes, but I'm not sure whether it is just up to the device to choose a network with the same prefix (the ids are different), or whether there is some network intelligence.

When there's no network with the same prefix, the choice is usually random. It doesn't matter anyway, money-wise it is the same.

<comment><USER37> The SIM card has a preset of preferred roaming networks, which your home provider may or may not update. Replacing SIMs every now and then may actually help with your roaming experience.

<comment><USER8> Yep. Dumbphones often let you view or even manually edit this list as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm a happy TMobile customer and it's always nice to get iMessages after landing in another country.

<comment><USER31> what has this to do with roaming? they just lowered the fees, functionality is exactly same as before

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Was this coming anyway, or is this specifically designed to raise the pain level of Brexit? (the idea that it might go away for UK)

<comment><USER40> It has been coming a long time, and was actually phased in over a few years.</comment></comment>


See how many lines of code you've written - <AUTHOR> http://misterdu.herokuapp.com/ App shows you lines of code across each language for your public github repos <comment><USER2> Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.</comment>


Teach for America Curriculum: Advocacy on School Funding - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxWTBjApUg0-bV96NUt4X0FqZjA/view?usp=sharing <comment><AUTHOR> Although this handout mentions high school, it's a 30-page document with both high school and K-5 material, and these goals are for all levels. The top of page two says:

"Essential Student Outcome: Completing a culminating assignment in which they 'teach back' and make well-informed school funding recommendations to those in power (e.g. church, school board, legislator)."</comment>


Ask HN: International software distributors - <AUTHOR> We've been contacted by several people asking to be international distributors of our software and I wanted to know if anyone has ever done this? Any advice or things to watch out for? Why do you even need a separate distributor if you sell software? <comment><USER2> I worked for a company that was an international distributor.. basically they'd try to sell implementations of said software, and make a profit on the project. They'd also sell training, etc.

It works for stuff like ERPs or other highly customizable software.

It's also very important if you need to win government bids, etc., if your company is not registered as a supplier, then you NEED a distributor who is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there any risks or downsides to going through a distributor?

<comment><USER2> Yes, of course. Your reputation becomes tied to them, for one.

Is this your company? [https://www.fastqs.com/](https://www.fastqs.com/)

Did you get to speak with the people that want to distribute your software?

I'm not qualified enough to advice you either way, I hope you take it with a grain of salt :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your insight. Yes, I'm one of the founders of FastQS. We haven't spoken to distributors yet, but we've been contacted by several of them already. We'll explore this option but we want to make sure we're ready for this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android 4.0 Browser HTML5 Support - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.dzone.com/news/overview-html5-support-android

<comment><USER2> _"Google in its official documentation claims to have a faster browser in 4.0 with an updated V8 JavaScript engine. The new engine shows a 35-550% performance improvement on different devices and tests according to Google."_

It will be interesting to see how fast its new V8 engine is in the Sunspider test. Also, it's too bad it doesn't have WebGL, but maybe we'll get it once Chrome arrives to Android, which might be in the version that will show up at Google I/O. It would be perfect timing, too, considering Google I/O is also a Chrome event. Perhaps they are waiting for more powerful GPU's like the one in Kal-El to showcase WebGL on a tablet or smartphone.</comment>


Starlink Daily Coverage Estimates - <AUTHOR> https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html <comment><USER2> Rural area where I spend some weekends have 65% of coverage (97% for 25 degrees).

Considering that there was 0% coverage for 2G/3G/4G, I wish that Starlink begins as soon as possible to provide internet here.

It's much better than I expected!

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind, though, this is assuming there's a ground link station in that 'tile'

<comment><USER4> The inter-satellite routing is essential to providing worldwide coverage.

I read at one point they couldn't deploy the laser communication between satellites because all the components wouldn't completely burn up on re-entry. Not sure I quite buy that explanation, but I hope they are ultimately able to get it working and deployed.</comment></comment></comment>