Command line tools for web developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.coderholic.com/invaluable-command-line-tools-for-web-developers/ <comment><USER2> Ever wanted to know the progress of a long running operation? Copying a file, importing a mysql db, etc. Pipe Viewer (pv) is what you need: <http://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml>.

It lets you monitor the progress of any piped command and gives you time elapsed, speed, time left, and a progress bar (wget style).

Copy a file:

      pv sourcefile > destfile

Import mysql db:

      pv dump.sql| mysql -uroot -p db

More tricks: <http://blog.urfix.com/9-tricks-pv-pipe-viewer/>

edit: To install on OS X just do

      brew install pv

<comment><USER3> Pipe Viewer dramatically increased my productivity for large scale data processing. In particular, it lets you quickly know whether something will take 5 minutes, or 2 hours, so you can plan accordingly. It's painful watching people try to do this without pv.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me the most invaluable command line tool that I have ever used is S3 Tools:

<http://s3tools.org/s3tools>

It provides a great suite of tools for interacting with S3, and is best used on an EC2 instance you are connected to via SSH. It is also ridiculously fast, much faster than trying to interact with S3 from a local FTP browser, or even from Amazon's own S3 dashboard. For example on my computer using Amazon's own web facing dashboard it will take about 30-45 minutes to make 14000 files on S3 public, versus via the command line tool downloaded and running on one of my EC2 instances it can make those files public within minutes.

I assume this is because it is local network traffic. Anyway, if you are ever in a bind and need to move a bunch of files to S3, I highly recommend S3 Tools. It has saved me many times.

Along those lines wget is the most powerful command line tool I've ever used, with so much capability. It is simply incredible when combined with S3 tools, allowing you to easily grab gigabytes of images off of a personal server or staging location and upload them to S3 very quickly.

And if you need to do more than move files around you can manage even more aspects of AWS including EC2 instances from the command line using this powerful command line tool:

<http://www.timkay.com/aws/>

Its great for writing automated bash scripts to manage your instances via cron jobs.

<comment><USER5> My main complaint with s3cmd is you can't easily throttle it, and on a busy machine its fast speeds can cause issues.

<comment><USER6> Have you tried trickle[1]? It can limit the bandwidth of most programs I've tried it on.

      trickle -u 10 -d 20 ncftp

This runs ncftp capped at 10 KB/s up, 20 KB/s down.

[1] <http://monkey.org/~marius/pages/?page=trickle>

<comment><USER5> No -- but I will -- thx! I've tried nice, ionice, cpulimit and cstream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I prefer curl'ing icanhazip.com, and I make it a quick alias in my .bashrc:

        alias myip="curl icanhazip.com"

Apachebench (ab) is a decent alternative to siege, and knowing how to use tcpdump and netcat comes in handy for debugging. Other than that, my new favorite command line tool over the past several months has to be vagrant, which lets you script and streamline VM creation and builds from the command line. If I need to completely reproduce my production environment on a test box, it's my utility of choice.

<comment><USER8> That only returned my IPv6 address so I can't get my IPv4 address with that.

<comment><USER9> Try ipv4.icanhazip.com and ipv6.icanhazip.com .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My most used cli tool outside of the default nuts and bolts is dtrx, the best and easiest file extractor for *nix. No more fiddling with flags or looking up, handles issues with putting lots of things in different directories or the wrong permissions on files. It has saved me a ton of time over the years.

<http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/>

<comment><USER11> Wow! Just wow! Bookmarked! A mere upvote is not enough for this! Thank you!!!

Questions:

\- Is there a site pointing out amazing command line tools like this? (their existence as opposed to usage examples like at <http://www.commandlinefu.com/>)

\- Is there a site listing the OS X equivalents for Linux command line tools? (e.g. what's the OS X equivalent for dos2unix / flip?)

(edit: merge 2 comments into 1)

<comment><USER10> Yep, check out <http://onethingwell.org> which is exactly that. Software (incl cli) that do one thing well, as according to the UNIX philosophy. It's nicely tagged as well, so you can click the 'osx' tag and get tools just for OS X and so forth.

I actually found dtrx on hacker news though a few years ago, but it's also on onethingwell I believe.

<comment><USER12> Amazing, cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> lftp is a practical SFTP, FTPS and FTP transfer program, including automatic upload/download resumption and synchronization (mirror) mode. Good for both interactive use and scripting.

<comment><USER14> lftp can also continue downloads and run multiple concurrent download threads, acting as a download accelerator.

for eg.

      lftp :~> pget -c -n 10 http://warez.com/large_file.mp4

will start 10 concurrent download processes (n) and continue (c). lftp is full of hidden gems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> curl -I and wget -S are particularly helpful when debugging redirects.

Sometimes I migrate URL schemes, and set up permanent redirects in my .htaccess files. Testing them in a browser is a real pain, because browsers cache the redirect (which is the point of having a permanent redirect), so even if you change the .htaccess, you still get the old response. And pressing the refresh button is no help, because that reloads the destination page, not the source of the redirect.

That's when a non-caching command line client saves your day.

</comment><comment><USER16> <http://freshmeat.net/projects/apachetop/>

I find it amazingly useful.

</comment><comment><USER17> screen is another tool I use a lot, specially when connecting to remote servers over ssh.

<comment><USER18> screen is one of those things that's been on my todo list for way too long, along with its alternatives(?), tmux and byobu. Anyone that uses/used all three and can offer a comparison?

<comment><USER19> Consider the more lightweight dtach and dvtm. Following a well-known tradition, they each do one thing only, and do it well ;-).

<comment><USER20> dtach is very tempting. Is there a nice way to keep all the scrollback history?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's been mentioned on Hacker News a few times before, but my project PageKite (and showoff.io and localtunnel) is designed to help out with quick web demos and collaboration.

Getting started is now two lines:

      curl http://pagekite.net/pk/pagekite-0.4.py >pagekite.py

      python pagekite.py 80 SOMENAME.pagekite.me

... answer a few questions and whatever is running on port 80 will be visible as <https://SOMENAME.pagekite.me/> within moments, almost no matter what kind of network connection you have. :-)

There are also .deb and .rpm packages available for heavier users.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh-my-zsh with git and git flow plugins work well so far. <https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh>

</comment><comment><USER23> Are there any graphical interfaces for load testing, in lieu of siege?

<comment><USER24> You might want to have a look at JMeter (<http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> `curl ifconfig.me` is pretty awesome

But I didn't find anything else to be interesting.

<comment><USER26> ngrep was news to me. I think I've heard of it once before, recently, but didn't really realize what it was. Having not tried it, it sounds like a really nice option when something like Wireshark or Ethereal would be overkill or just too much effort to bother with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Coderholic.com is Timing out, Anyone else having issues?

<comment><USER28> Perhaps everyone is trying out siege.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Note: ngrep can also be installed using brew on OS X.

<comment><USER30> Also available via MacPorts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This was worth it for me for the reminder about siege alone, as 'ab' seems to have some serious issues in Lion.

</comment><comment><USER32> also useful:

wget post-file.it --post-file /path/to/file

</comment><comment><USER33> iMacros firefox addon for web automation via command line (when curl is not enough): [http://wiki.imacros.net/iMacros_for_Firefox#Command_Line_Sup...](http://wiki.imacros.net/iMacros_for_Firefox#Command_Line_Support)

</comment><comment><USER34> siege is a very useful tool for benchmarking. I use it a lot.

<comment><USER19> How come sending concurrent requests, as explained in the article, doesn't flag you as a DoS offender?

<comment><USER35> I was surprised that he ran siege against www.google.co.uk without some kind of "don't do this" disclaimer to new users. Running it against other people's websites is pretty poor form.

<comment><USER36> Google has rate limiting protection from a single IP. If you make too many requests, they send you to a captcha page.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Moving on from Picasa - <AUTHOR> http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2016/02/moving-on-from-picasa.html <comment><USER2> Huge pet peeve of Google... Develop a great little application/product that pulls you in and develops a decent user base only to have it disappear. I get that in a normal company, the finances might in fact dictate that the company can no longer support the user base with the revenue collected. With Google.. these free services seem to disappear with little warning. (to be fair: 4 years of not updating the official Blog was a big clue...)

All that said... just as I was getting used to Wave... poof

Just as I was getting used to GOOG-411... poof

Google Talk...

Don't mind the innovation, but it seems that rather than releasing new versions of existing products to introduce new features and help folks migrate, you get an entire new product to learn/adopt. I can't believe I'm saying this but... I prefer Microsoft's approach to improving their product lines. (sigh)

<comment><USER3> Your comment about the blog prompted me to go check the Google Voice blog...nothing since May 2013. Crap. I've been using, loving, and recommending GV since I started using it in 2010 when I got my first smartphone...one day they're just gonna up and shut down GV and not only will I lose a service I'm extremely fond of but I also won't get, you know, phone calls, because that's the number I've handed out for the last five years.

<comment><USER4> I ported my number out of Google Voice a couple of years ago. Some things to keep in mind with GV:

* Your only form of "support", even when paying to port out a number, is a forum staffed entirely with volunteers. If you're actually using GV it's useful to read through here to see the trainwreck: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/voice](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/voice)

* As the parent mentioned, the GV Blog is barren.

* You're better off porting out your number now given this support situation.

<comment><USER5> Which consumer Google product has a kind of support different than a volunteer forum?

Try to get help for Google Music, or Google+, or an Android software.

They should at least sponsor and monitor some tags in the stack exchange forums like Microsoft does.

<comment><USER6> The best support (the only real support) I've ever gotten for Google products were

(a) firstname.lastname@example.com (support for youtube partners, monetized, back in the days, German),

(b) This very website. Start an angry thread, get it to the front page – or post a comment on a frontpage thread about a dev topic – and suddenly some Google dev ends up fixing it, and in the same moment, your comment on here disappears.

Support methods I have also tried:

(c) Buying Google Apps for Business (the 30 day free month), then calling their support, after the support call was successful, cancelling it again (doesn't work, Google doesn't answer Google Apps for Business calls, someone takes your call, you say hi, in the same second they hang up on you)

Support methods I have not tried yet, but plan to, in case the previous ones don't work anymore:

(d) Just arriving in person at their nearest Google office, getting entrance somehow, and then directly providing my complaints to the next manager (at risk of getting sued for entering their office illegally)

<comment><USER7> I received some excellent support from the GCS (Google Cloud Storage) team while I was working on my last project. There was only an email address listed in the API docs. I didn't have high hopes when I first contacted them with an issue, but I got a response in less than 24 hours, and a similarly quick response to my following response. That first problem was due to my own misunderstanding of the API, which the person in question patiently helped me better understand.

The last time I was in contact with them was a few months ago. I got another reasonably-timed response, and this was an issue on their end (something to do with an occasionally missed automated notification when files were uploaded). It took a couple weeks or so to fix the problem, but they contacted me after each upgrade (rather than waiting for me to contact them) to follow-up and see if my issue had been resolved. After a couple rounds, it was fixed.

I'm not sure I've ever received personal support from Google prior to that, but in my experience, the GCS support team was/is absolutely top notch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, the fun (irony here). Before user-end computing can regain a semblance of sensibility we will need to move towards guaranteed secure sandbox environments for apps that allow historical re-use of earlier versions.

What is happening at the moment is that IMMENSE quantities of skill development and time is continually flushed away everytime Google/Microsoft/Take-your-pick-software-company decides to retire or dramatically rewrite an app. The situation is even wilder in the closed gardens (Android/IOS) and cloud/web-only where perfectly fine software disappears overnight and then.. that's it. Wake up, we're throwing our mental resources down the drain on a completely unprecedented scale because no systemic solution to this issue exists!!

<comment><USER9> That's what Free Software was supposed to protect users from.

<comment><USER10> It's unfortunately hard to make money on your software if it's free. (Assuming your primary interest is making software, not providing support.)

Personally, I'm going to try open-sourcing my retail software a) once sales goals have been met, and b) without the art assets. Maybe that would be a good compromise.

<comment><USER11> I haven't really seen this done but couldn't Google pour money in to developing very high quality GPL'd libraries for say.. C++ or Python - becoming the defacto standard libraries. If other's want to use them in their closed source projects they'd have to pay licenses to Google, however internally they can use them in their closed source code since they own the rights to it.

The trick would be get that critical mass where competing libraries aren't used as much. Google definitely seems to have the talent and workforce to do it

<comment><USER12> Why would they do that? Google isn't a charity.

Anything that makes it easier to develop native software (which 'won't-suddenly-disappear' software has to be) is in direct conflict with Google's strategic interests (Chrome, ChromeOS) and their bottom line.

<comment><USER11> What? Businesses that try to to use the libraries they create would have to pay royalties... how is that charity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Alternatives for desktop picasa?

Desktop Picasa is also going away and it is what I use for organizing my photos. I understand the backend of Picasa Web is replaced by Google Photos, no problem.

My problem is with the desktop organization. Desktop Picasa allows for one feature no other alternative I have seen allows ... tagging of multiple photos.

Does anyone have a web or desktop alternative that supports tagging on individual and multiple photos? Google seems to have forgotten about this feature in Google Photos.

Thanks!

<comment><USER14> Try DigiKam - it's open source and its photo management features work very well.

> Does anyone have a web or desktop alternative that supports tagging on > individual and multiple photos?

DigiKam!

<comment><USER15> Fantastic feature set, but on Windows importing from USB cameras doesn't seem to work and it also isn't stable, so a deal breaker. As Picasa hasn't had any love in years, it's future demise was obvious, and my hope is that this creates a whole lot more attention for DigiKam on Windows as it seems to work well on Linux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was a Picasa user for several years and I really liked it, but after Google Photos was announced and I saw the handwriting on the wall and completely switched (with much consternation) to Google Photos and have had a great experience. I uploaded over 17,000 to the Google-free tier and applaud all the automation they have built around auto-panorama-stitching, auto-animations, auto-face-tagging, auto-object, and auto-location. I've found that I share my photos much more now, and I also really enjoy having a single stream for my DLSR and smartphone photos (my workflow is to backup uncompressed DSLR photos then upload to Google.)

Picasa served me well, but I've moved on as well.

<comment><USER17> A big +1

Having an "AI" organize, edit and tag my photos frees up a lot of time. Part of the transition is learning to let go of the way I used to manage photos.

I still want the right to take all my stuff with me - but I think Google has done a reasonable job of ensuring that happens.

<comment><USER16> You're right: export exists but couldn't definitely use some work. I also wish there was a better way to manage captions/descriptions.

How do you manage photos now? Do you still keep an offline copy? With any folder structure?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Man this is annoying. I've used Picasa desktop for probably 10 years now. It's not perfect but for keeping my family photos organized and doing quick edits before printing them or uploading them to our family blog it's great. That Google would suggest the Photos desktop uploader is an adequate substitute is a joke.

FWIW I also use Lightroom for more advanced editing but for regular people LR is overkill and complex.

I'd be perfectly willing to pay for an easy-to-use photo organizer but megacorps like Google & FB are killing off the market for paid software by using free software & services as a trojan horse to lure users to upload their data to the cloud where it can be mined for all its worth.

</comment><comment><USER19> Every time this happens, people act surprised. Every single time. It happens like clockwork, every 3 months.

People should realize by now that Google is a company that makes money through surveillance advertising, and _every single other thing they do_ is basically part of a PR campaign.

If you don't want this to happen to you, don't use Google. Use something that you have control over.

<comment><USER20> The shocking thing is that even companies like Microsoft are no better today. The user and his data are the product with their recent products like Win10, Office365. Adobe and Autodesk are on the same bandwagon with their subscription software, but not as mean and dirty as MSFT.

Only Apple is still 1990s-style (traditional) and at least let's you deactivate their cloud stuff with a few simple options. We definitely need more good companies that respect the consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Picasa desktop app for Windows had one of the nicest image viewers -- it was my default until I wiped my Windows 7 box. Thanks to the Picasa team for a great service over so many these years!

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a question. I'm wondering why big companies buy smaller companies but don't keep their branding. For instance, if Google bought Picaza, why not just make Picaza the de-facto image storage app? They'd replace their Photos app with Picaza, and call it a day. Something similar happened recently with Songza.

Is there any reason in particular why small companies are bought out by big companies and their brands are dissolved rather than building on top of their initial branding?

<comment><USER23> Big companies are already big brands. Most acquisitions take place for talent, IP, or users/customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hate how google just changes things on a whim. It took me a few years to educate my parents how to use picasa to manage their pictures efficiently.

They used to access all online albums by going to plus.google.com then clicking on the panel on the left then pictures. Until one day...it was just gone. No indication where to go now. Unless of course you follow tech news and know that you have to go to photos.google.com now.

Now they are retiring picasa in favour of Google Photos which are an absolute nightmare to navigate interface wise. What is the difference between albums, collections and shared collections? When uploading photos I can choose any of those and I have no idea what the difference is. I also learned the hard way that deleting something from your album does not delete it from your photos like it did in Picasa.

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone knows a good desktop app to organize photo like Picasa that works for Windows/Linux/OSX?

Specifically there are a few things I like from Picasa:

1\. Import files to folder based on picture dates

e.g.: c:\pictures\2016-02-12\P0221314.jpg

2\. Import videos from mobile devices and display in the right orientation

for example: I have mobile devices and I take movies in different orientation: vertical or horizontal, while the actual file's metadata is left unchanged, Picasa knows the _right_ orientation and will adjust the playback accordingly.

3\. Handles upload from different devices

I have a Lumix GF1 and iPod. Importing pictures to Picasa is super easy without any 3rd-party integration/interruption (e.g.: doesn't have to copy from device to a temporary folder first but instead import directly from the device to the dated folder).

<comment><USER26> I have some scripts on github I use to organize photos on my hdd. It doesn't fix orientation, but it does a decent job of putting things in the right directories.

[https://github.com/jonathankoren/photo- autorganize](https://github.com/jonathankoren/photo-autorganize)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So now we only have Lightroom? I ask myself if I'm the only one who recognized that Picasa is way faster than Lightroom in indexing and face recognition? It feels way faster for viewing and managing. Actually Picasa is very optimized for desktop usage. I don't understand why to throw a good product away... it should go open source or it should be supported by another company for the future.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's kind of ironic seeing all the people on 'hacker news' wanting someone else to provide a service. Why not hack the good hack and make your own system to do what you need from Picasa?

</comment><comment><USER29> A lot of people who used Google Blogger hosted images for the blog in Picasa. If the URL's break a lot of old blogs will lose content.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, but maybe Blogger is next in line!

<comment><USER31> The only thing keeping Blogger alive is probably that Google uses it for their own blogs.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, I thought the same, but they would move to Google+ Pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Google Photos is OK so I don't mind Picasa going away (I hadn't used the desktop app in years).

While having services cancelled is troublesome, for photos I have my smartphone backup up everything to Google Photos, Microsoft Azure, and Dropbox. Copy the eggs and store in three different baskets.

</comment><comment><USER33> Google Photos is still missing a lot of functionality of Picasa. For year I've been uploading pictures to an album named with the current year. My parents and in-laws can check the pictures of the kids when they like. The Photos upload activity on Android doesn't have a selector for the album like the Picasa upload did.

There still doesn't seem to be a way to interact with Google Photos through scripts. Search for "google photos api" and the first link is still the Picasa Web Albums Data API...

<comment><USER34> Yeah, If Google continues to not provide an API, I will write my own Selenium scripts to provide functionality, and we all now how will that end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Open Source Picasa Google, release it instead of letting him die instead of forcing poor users into your identity crysis.

<comment><USER36> If they do no one will migrate to photos. That's why they are killing it instead. Reader was killed because google plus feed was being competed by, and so on.

<comment><USER35> Then they're digging their own grave. They rose because they gave no brainer value. Mail that wasn't sluggish with comfortable storage capacity and free. Easy to use map service, so on and so forth. Now they're playing funny games, just like any average company. Laughable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm tired of these shutter-downers! They broke a gazillion URLs! At the same time they penalize you if you do similarly!

<comment><USER37> The old URLs redirect as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER30> Are you sure? This is great news then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Time to move on.

I mainly used Picasa Web Albums because of its seamless integration with the Picasa Desktop Application. I guess the integration will not work with Photos.

Photos is mobile-oriented to the point that is almost useless on desktop. My photos were moved, but I have no idea if the permissions were kept. All the albums moved to "collections" have a "shared" label in the list, but then when I go to the specific collection and press "Sharing options" the "anyone with the link" is not selected; does this means they made all my photos public? Also, I have no idea how to give somebody a link to my "Photos" page (all collections).

Also seems that having the link to the "shared" collection empowers anyone to download the full photos at the uploaded resolution. This was available in Picasa only as a per-album option (and the user needed to have the Picasa browser extension to do so).

Well, this means I don't have to pay Google for storage anymore. Also that I have to find a new place for my photos and a way to integrate it with (a) desktop application.

<comment><USER39> The whole Google Photo infrastructure has other weirdnesses. Photos/images that I share with Hangouts don't show up in Google Photos. Previously I could remove them with Google+ Photos, but since that was shut down, I used Picasa web albums to remove Hangouts images.

Another interesting thing that I noticed is that some photos are not added to Google Drive if you upload them to Google Photos and have the Google Drive functionality enabled. Turns out it's exactly the photos that I already shared with Hangouts.

Their whole photo story is a mess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can't view or create "specific content", such as tags, captions or comments in Google Photos. If you find them important for your photo organization, all your work to date will be lost.

Hope they will allow 3rd party apps to upload to Google Photos.

Hope they will someday publish an uploader for Linux desktops. Even Google Music has one.

</comment><comment><USER40> I had assumed Google Photos was the Picassa code rebranded. Since Picassa was the engine for photos in G+, and then G+ photos moved to Google Photos, it never dawned on me that Picassa was still running as its own separate thing. I wonder why they felt compelled to redo photos?

</comment><comment><USER41> I stopped using Google photos the moment it decided that it was time to start duplicating all my photos and then storing the duplicates in my iPhone library where they will be pushed to iCloud and from there to all my other machines.

I know that syncing is hard and I can totally see that it's probably unwise to let both apple and Google have a go at the same time, but I would have hoped for this not to happen. Google Photos sharing features, search and their automated trip album builder are much better than apple's, but apples sync keeps the pictures synced natively between all my devices which is a very useful thing to have.

</comment><comment><USER42> The biggest reason I don't use Google Photos is the lack of a slideshow functionality. Think about it. It's a photo app and doesn't have fullscreen functionality, which is a requirement basically.

I'll continue to use Picasa.

</comment><comment><USER43> Google photos is really quite cool (sometimes almost magic), with one exception. You can't put a caption on a photo. (to my knowledge) That's ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER44> A good time to dig up an old article of mine: [https://rocketeer.be/blog/2015/05/google- photos/](https://rocketeer.be/blog/2015/05/google-photos/) (Google Photos - Can I get out?)

My biggest complaint still stands: no true API (which is what made flickr great).

Love Google Photos, add a real API and it'll be even better.

</comment><comment><USER45> An interesting comparison, Microsoft generally bends over backwards to keep things compatible and running.

Google seems to turn things off with regularity.

</comment><comment><USER46> like Google Reader, this was probably not a core part of their business.

<comment><USER30> And what's their core part? Self-driving cars?

<comment><USER47> I would put it this way. Google Photos blows away Picasa Web Albums and Imgur is a better host. It was dead as Flickr will be in the next year or so sadly.

<comment><USER30> I understand that, but they broke the web by killing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> At least it allows the competition to exist,provide and focus on a specific service Google isn't capable of providing since "not the core business".

I wonder when Gmail will be deemed as "not the core business" too. It will allow paid alternative to be a viable option, just like Rss Readers and now Photo management apps.

</comment><comment><USER49> My wife and I take a lot of pictures on our smartphones. What service can I pay for that will:

\- Automatically upload our pictures from our smartphone

\- Keep them private, viewable only to use, or family members.

\- Nice gallery feature.

\- Easy to export all data in one go.

I will pay cold hard cash for this. My wife will decapitate me if I lose our backup pictures of our kids when they were babies.

<comment><USER50> Why doesn't Google Photos work for you ? It does provide all the features you mention (depending on definition of "Nice gallery feature" of course), and on top of it really awesome search features.

Full disclosure: I work at Google (not on the Photos product though). All opinions expressed are purely mine, and not of my employer.

<comment><USER51> I agree with sergiotapia about Google Photos falling short in the area of sharing pictures among family members. If we do trust Google not to kill off Google Photos...

Without grahamburger's hack of creating an independent, shared account (which I wonder whether is strictly allowed by account usage terms), how can a family share all of their photos? I'm not talking about sharing an album. My wife and I would like all photos taken from either of our phones be automatically uploaded and shared between us. We've not found a way to do that using Google Photos without making everything public, which is unacceptable.

<comment><USER52> Private links, like Google Drive has, is probably an upcoming feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is there an open source project for a Picasa/Lightroom Windows desktop photo organizer? Otherwise let's start one. Reaching very basic organizer behavior with an SQLite backend should be pretty quick. Reaching Picasas level of polish will be harder but you have to start somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER54> Many years ago I became so disillusioned with the state of photo management (churn, inscalability, vendor lock-in, lack of Linux support, etc.) I built my own. Have never looked back - I will never enter metadata into a propriety system again.

Auto-tagging AI makes me a bit envious though.

</comment><comment><USER55> Mobile, Mobile, Mobile... Ok, we get it. But, please, remember of Google+. Do not try force people to do something, killing what they use now. If the other option is really better, they will migrate really soon.

</comment><comment><USER56> Can we have a new api for Google photos please. I'm choosing between Google photos and amazon cloud drive and cloud drive have a pretty good api.

</comment><comment><USER57> Never rely on a Google product that isn't used by at least 80% of their user- base. It days are numbered.

</comment><comment><USER58> Why not open source? The 3rd party dependencies can be put behind interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER59> I really hate it when Google does this and it's not the first time, as mentioned by others. Of course it's a free service and I should be grateful for even having it so far, but at least (with so much money to burn anyway), they could keep it going indefinitely.

<comment><USER60> If Google kept useless things that nobody used running indefinitely, they'd run out of money eventually and then they'd be Yahoo!

<comment><USER61> Picasa is hardly useless, and fills a spot I can't think of a direct equivalent I can use to replace it.

Google talk was perfect, light weight and pleasingly free of the cruft and crap that alternatives like skype insist on loading themselves with. Now replaced by hangouts which has an appalling visual design, and has no desktop app (No, I don't _always_ have my browser open, or want to).

Google Reader... etc.

The list is getting horribly long for killed things that are neither useless, or little used. Oh, and it seems like a little while before they run out of money. I imagine they could keep Picasa and talk supported and hosted until the heat death of the universe, and still have a few pennies in the bank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> maybe we can start some kind of petition to have them open-source it?

</comment><comment><USER63> Mobile, mobile, mobile. If only phones wouldn't be so crappy, barely usable to do anything other than scrolling some primitive "content" with finger. And you are required to buy a new phone every half a year, thanks to Google too.

</comment><comment><USER64> I think the closing down is normal in this case. If you were google, how would you motivate any SDE or ops to devote any time to it, given that a newer replacement is already in place?

</comment><comment><USER65> Open source it!!!

</comment><comment> Altay- So when is Google+ dying. That whole project is such an embarrassment...

</comment><comment><USER66> The sooner we start using IPFS or similar, the better. The current web is too ephemeral.

Just how much information is going to be lost, like tears in rain; how many blog posts, images, forums; with only the internet archive as a last resort.

</comment><comment><USER67> I feel like companies that shut a product down should release source code. Then people who still want to use it can continue development.

If the company doesn't offer it anymore, why do they need to keep the code secret?

<comment><USER68> That's like trying to move a fully locked-in AWS service to your own hardware. Probably all of its dependencies are Google cloud infrastructure and you have to rewrite the client layer to replace them with anything open.

<comment><USER67> There's a desktop Picasa client. That could be released as a standalone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I really hate this decision--and I love Google Photos and own Lightroom. Picasso has been one of my favorite products for years. It is simple and just works. But because it's not online, Google now hated it.

Once upon a time there was a company who claimed their motto was "don't be evil." I really wish they wouldn't have changed.

<comment><USER70> > Once upon a time there was a company who claimed their motto was "don't be > evil." I really wish they wouldn't have changed.

Woah, that's some intense hyperbole. Whatever else Google has done, it's not "evil" to stop providing updates to a product that helps people organise their photos.</comment></comment>


Startup Boom a "Dangerous, High-Stakes Ponzi Scheme": Chamath Palihapitiya - <AUTHOR> https://wolfstreet.com/2018/11/07/startup-boom-a-dangerous-high-stakes-ponzi-scheme-silicon-valley-investor/ <comment><USER2> Venture capital can be the driver behind the early demise of a company. Investor goals are rarely, if ever, fully aligned with founder or even company goals.

In the end, VC money seems to benefit very few startups - - and now, even fund investors.

I say this as a former wannabe who was forced to bootstrap a SaaS company because I couldn't raise a round. It's been wild to see companies in my space that did raise money and are either no longer in business, were forced to pivot to a business investors liked better, or forced to sell (acquihire) because the pressure from the money they took on.

</comment><comment><USER3> We've exhausted growth via globalization, professionalization, and IT. Most of the arbitrage is gone. What's left is an innovative edge. Take Monsanto which bought Climate for $1b when it had $30m in revenue. People thought it was crazy at the time but along comes Bayer (and Monsanto's digital assets and the optionality and future proofing this brings) command a $5b - $10b premium. Companies are no longer able to (or unwilling to) do internal innovation and so you need to outsource that — and those R&D budgets represent hundreds of billions of dollars, but even better you only pay for the winners. We're going to look back in 10 years and realize we could have been investing a lot more in venture capital. Yes, the asset class has lagged but there's a whole universe of offline companies that are just now coming into the market. Every company will need to be a tech company and companies just don't have the DNA to do it themselves. As long as CAC << NPV(LTV) then yes you should spend.

<comment><USER4> 'Companies are no longer able to (or unwilling to) do internal innovation and so you need to outsource that' I'm assuming you only mean huge, mature enterprises here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a great future in plastics. Think about it.

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds great. Where is it?</comment>


Our Technology Stack - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/blog/2013/06/04/tech-tuesday-our-technology-stack/

<comment><USER2> I've always been curious how these image hosting sites are able to handle all this bandwidth and still stay profitable. According to their Wiki, Imgur averages around 90 terabytes a day!

I know that Imgur has some advertisements on their site, but I doubt they can earn enough from those ads to sustain their server and bandwidth costs.

<comment><USER3> Has Imgur received any VC funding?</comment></comment>


Digg Overtakes Facebook with 1400% Growth, 22.6 Million Uniques - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/digg-overtakes-facebook-with-1400-growth-226-million-uniques

<comment><USER2> Very misleading quote. The full article features disbelief about Compete.com numbers, so it seems as much a critique of Compete.com as it does a story about Digg.

Since I ended up reading the article, I have to wonder if Compete counted Digg buttons on blogs as visits. Facebook, of course, did not even get a Share/Like button until 2.5 years later in late 2009 (<http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/facebook-share-buttons/>) It would be easy to get millions of daily uniques if popular newspapers all request your script or image in every article, and sites like Compete don't properly take social buttons into account.

(It's interesting that recent articles have debated if Facebook itself now counts the display or click of a Like button as a visit.)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a fun exercise, but we all know how reliable Compete is for quantitative traffic comparisons. For example, Compete currently claims Reddit (<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/reddit.com/>) has less traffic than Digg (<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digg.com/>).

I sincerely doubt Digg surpassed Facebook's traffic at any point in the company's lifetime.

<comment><USER4> Compete just makes numbers up. Those uniques are so far off for reddit it isn't even funny.

<comment><USER5> That's a very strong claim. What evidence do you have for it?

<comment><USER6> Probably that whole "being one of the original members of the Reddit team" thing.

But, you know, I could be wrong.

<comment><USER5> Ah, yes, thanks, that isn't obvious. No need to be snotty about it.

<comment><USER7> His HN profile immediately talks about running Reddit's servers. And he's using the same recognizable username. I don't know how more obvious it could have been.

<comment><USER8> Why would you check someone's profile?

<comment><USER9> Because in general when someone says something similar you background check their profile to see if they're for real or a crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone else hoping to read the same article in 5 years but about Facebook?

<comment><USER11> that guy using diaspora (I've heard of him, he must exist somewhere)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a crazy world out there, kids:

<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1850428>

Try not to let it bother you too much.

</comment><comment><USER13> This re-emphasizes one of my own personal rules of entrepreneurship: when someone offers you a FU money exit, and you don't already have FU money, you take it. You take it and walk. Because if you don't, you might regret it, and who knows what the future will bring. After you reach FU money, it's not like you can't go and try building another new product/service/website/gadget again -- you can, except you'll be starting from a much safer and happier place, with more resources, connections, eyeballs, etc.

<comment><USER14> I think Kevin Rose is doing OK. He has FU money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sic transit gloria lacinia felis.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't it the redesign that started the avalanche of people leaving?

Or am I mistaken? Maybe if they had just left it alone and did gradual tweaks instead...

<comment><USER17> No maybe about it. Digg lost their market by messing with their product. It's an interesting case, because you can make a direct comparison with reddit: two nearly identical products serving the same market started at the same time. Digg tried to grow too fast and failed, reddit grew at its natural pace and succeeded.

<comment><USER18> I don't know... I was part of a big migration to reddit around 2008-2009.

I remember there being tons of threads on Reddit of ex-diggers making fun of Digg around then. There were frequent posts daily about the complete degradation of quality on Digg back then.

The running joke was all the posts on Digg's current frontpage were from Reddits frontpage yesterday.

The redesign (in 2010) was the nail in the coffin.

<comment><USER17> I was on reddit for a couple years before that. The jokes about digg's quality certainly didn't begin in 2008.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> More recent data shows nosedive:

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digg.com/>

<comment><USER20> No no no...they "adjusted their conversion factors."

<comment><USER20> woops, there were errors returned from the server at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In the blink of an eye, in internet years.

</comment><comment><USER22> What a total BS blog post with no real data

</comment><comment><USER23> Really? In which parallel universe?

</comment><comment><USER24> As I see it the basic problem was one of name. Who wants to be a digger? It sounds fancy pants to be a redditor.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fascinating to see Digg coming back from the grave, so to speak. I didn't see this coming.

Er... Fascinating to see such an old article come up on Hackernews without the age of the article in parenthesis.

That's a derp.

<comment><USER26>
        Richard Macmanus, at ReadWriteWeb, on June 20th, 2007:

<comment><USER25> Or ... not!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Go ahead. Rub it in.</comment>


The Morality of Language - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/human-parts/the-morality-of-language-a333d58e99e9 <comment><USER2> The thing is, the only thing keeping us from jumping in all sort of immoral actions (the set of acts gennarilly understood as immoral in a certain social context) is the emotional response we have. Very few, in the best scenario, have rational justifications for moral evaluations of various acts. This is a very difficult thing to ask, specially to the general population. Even among philosophers, moral judgments grounding is a difficult task, and general spirit is that there is none.

Speaking in a foreign language comes with a certain inferiority complex and, I believe, that influences one's evaluation of the morality of certain actions. Specially when one feels part of a larger cultural context in which morality is less objective and much more like in the movies. So, yeah.</comment>


Lime shuts in 12 markets, lays off around 100 - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/e-scooter-startup-lime-shuts-in-12-markets-lays-off-around-100-d25d44e4-c0f1-4713-9a89-868f4da40e03.html <comment><USER5> Does anyone actually think this is a profitable market?

Electric scooters are expensive, repair and charging is expensive. It's a seasonal business. Vandalism/abuse is fairly common.

In terms of any environmental benefit, I highly suspect more gasoline is being consumed to collect and distribute scooters than the offset of a few last mile transports.

I suspect the cost to the consumer would have to double for it to maintain any profitability, and the demand already sucks.

Why did the VCs value these as billion dollar companies? Desperation?

<comment><USER6> Very simple, have you ever rode a scooter? Once I took a ride along the beach in Southern California, it was immediately obvious, and, I was hooked! It's a disruptive, perfect combination of technologies, that immediately antiquates riding a bike for short distances. The main problem is that it's too good, and people with poor balance, poor judgement, or bad luck, have been in accidents which ruined it for everyone else.

I could see scooters completely wiping out local ride-share, taxi, and bicycle shares in many places.

But again, people have been injured and because of that, along with the excessive inventory that has littered some areas, cities are cracking down and writing new regulation to curb their use. In the short term they will win and we might not enjoy their full potential for awhile.

<comment><USER7> Like three quarters of American men, I'm overweight. I'd never use an electric scooter because the absolute last thing I need in my life is an excuse to walk less. I'd wager at least a significant portion of that three quarters probably have thoughts similar to mine. Of the rest, most probably drive instead (which for the particularly obese, is probably a lot more comfortable than a scoooter.)

I see a ton more scooters on the sidewalk than I see people riding them. From my perspective these scooter companies have greatly overestimated the demand.

<comment><USER6> Have you ever used one? I get what you're saying, but as an example: my girlfriend and I have on multiple occasions, in multiple cities, used scooters to explore local geographic regions that would otherwise not have been possible in the same time constraint. We would ride across town, then get off and walk around for a bit until we decided to hop back on and ride way across town to another place and do the same thing. So it is possible to still get the exercise etc, with the benefit of being able to cover more turf than possible strictly through walking. Of course you could do the same thing with a bike, but it's more cumbersome and less agile imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This whole model is incredibly, impossibly, flawed.

9/10 times, my net displacement for the day is 0. If my net displacement is zero, I would prefer to own the medium I'm using to move. Bike, car, scooter etc. Only exception is stuff with really high capital costs, like planes and trains, in which case I pay a small fee to avoid owning a railway or airline.

For scooters, there are no high capitals costs; the cost of a scooter is laughably low. It's sold as a quicker-than-walking, less-hassle-than-a-car last mile solution, but again, 9/10 of my trips are 0 displacement, so, why not just buy the scooter outright? Cheaper, safer, faster (I know where it is, no need to walk to it, etc).

They only way Lime, Bird etc survive is by legislation. Lobby for scooter licensure, buy up all the licenses, and become the taxi industry (except for scooters, and you have to drive!)

What an ironic loop.

At this point, the only reason to fund these guys is FOMO.

<comment><USER9> The whole model of needing to own your own transportation devices is flawed.

9/10 times, I'm moving from one location with many other people in it to another location with many other people. I would prefer not needing to own any medium in order to move between them, but instead be able to use a public service to do so. Bus, tram, metro, citybike, scooter. I'd really rather not own stuff with really high capital costs, like cars.

At this point, the only reason to own anything more expensive than a bike is bad city planning and infrastructure.

<comment><USER8> Ah, but public transit is inherently the slowest option. I have no desire to make 10 stops before I get where I'm going. I also have zero desire to rent my modes, as that encourages literally rent seeking behavior.

Either we need to figure out how to drop off and pickup passengers at speed, or penalize individualized transport that is space inefficient (like cars). Good luck pursuing the latter in the US; punitive measure seem to work elsewhere.

I think the way forward is compact private transport, like bikes, scooters, walking, etc, augmented by a robust mass public transit. Unfortunately, that mix implies a expensive re-configuring of most American cities.

<comment><USER10> > Ah, but public transit is inherently the slowest option.

This isn't true if you are in a dense city with good public transit. This is currently mid day (3 PM), and it's about 30% faster (21 minutes vs 29 minutes) to go from my current location in Manhattan to a bar I enjoy hanging out in Brooklyn via public transit than car, according to Google Maps. It would be even better around rush hour.

<comment><USER11> There are maybe 2 or 3 cities in the entire United States that are dense enough with good enough public transportation. The vast majority of the population cannot relate.

<comment><USER12> GP is refuting the idea that public transit is _inherently_ the slowest mode of transportation by providing an instructive counter-example. If the vast majority of the population cannot relate, that's a product of policy choices that favor sparse development in most of the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lime has the worst bikes on the planet - they are complete garbage compared to the Uber/JUMP bikes (and probably others). The Lime bikes seemed to constantly be falling apart and were actually pretty terrifying to ride. On the other hand, the JUMP bikes feel very robust and I feel safe riding them. I would rather walk half a mile to find a JUMP bike than ride a Lime bike. No wonder they are failing.

Source: Rode both Lime and Uber JUMP bikes in Seattle (rode a JUMP bike twice last night)

<comment><USER14> In copenhagen Lime is the most robust (and albeit clunky) of the 5-6 brands present. It seems they are the same as in your town. Wonder why our experience differ so much?

<comment><USER13> Maybe because Americans treat the bikes poorly compared to the civilized folks of Denmark ;)

The JUMP bikes are just better made by a wide margin and seem to handle the abuse well - [https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/london-electric-bikes- tested...](https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/london-electric-bikes-tested-uber- jump-bikes-lime-bikes-a4155026.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Of the e-scooter startups I've tried, Lime is my favorite. In my smaller city (Indianapolis) we just have Bird and Lime, and Bird's restrictions on hours, locations, and parking make them very difficult to use (They turn themselves off if they leave their range, and many pieces of downtown are considered 'out of bounds'). Meanwhile, the Limes are better distributed around the city, easier to park, and have much more generous boundaries. Bird has the stronger brand recognition, but that's about it.

I'm surprised that it was warmer climate cities that underperformed in the US, because I would have expected those to have a much better chance for profit, as cold winter seasons dramatically reduce scooter usage. Too much competition?

<comment><USER16> Too much competition, but really the infrastructure is not there in warm cities in the U.S. They also increased the price so you are more inclined to take an uber or public transport than spend $6 on a bird ride. Riding on a pothill filled gutter while cars clip you at 35mph in LA is not ideal. If there were more bike lanes that were longer than 1 block, these things would be way more popular. Not sure why these companies aren't advocating for more bike lanes as it will help their brand.

It also doesn't help that these companies let defective equipment remain in the network. After grabbing a scooter one day that had zero brakes, discovered only when I was trying to stop at a red light and not get slaughtered in the intersection, I now do an inspection of the brake lines and the wheels before I unlock. For some consumers the state these scooters are in will put them off entirely.

<comment><USER17> As someone who spent 8 years heavily biking around LA, I'm glad I got out of there before the bike lanes became overrun with motorized drunks.

<comment><USER16> Currently far more overran with motorized uber drivers/delivery/meter maid/mailmen/police/random pricks using it as free overflow parking. The drunks prefer driving anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The VC funded scooter rental companies don't bear the most significant cost of scooters, public health. Quality studies outlining the risk and costs are scarce, but there are some:

[https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Health...](https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Health/Epidemiology/APH_Dockless_Electric_Scooter_Study_5-2-19.pdf)

Key points: 15% of scooter riders who seek medical attention have a traumatic brain injury. This doesn't include those transported by EMS. 63% of injured riders had ridden an scooter 9 or more times before.

Perhaps e-scooters are safe in some markets, but in many they are a death trap that the vendors will never have to pay for.

<comment><USER19> Cars kill 37,000 people in the United States each year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Leaves 12 markets and lays off 8 people per market?

For a company with a physical product and inventory, 8 people per city seems like somewhere in the neighborhood of sobriety, possibly verging on stingy. Not the sort of excess we so often find in a tech company that is experiencing layoffs.

<comment><USER21> They may also have "independent contractors" to do the work

<comment><USER22> The guys who retrieve the scooters for these kinds of companies are "independent contractors."

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/15/18267128/lime-electric- sc...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/15/18267128/lime-electric-scooter- charging-juicers-harvesting-business)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One factor missing from most analyses of scooter companies are the sheer cost of insuring scooters long term. Insurance rates are likely based on the assumption that scooter companies can disclaim against any user damages (injury, death, etc) but companies can't disclaim against gross negligence and there are many, many legal actions against Lime and other scooter companies (disclaimer/source: I'm a plaintiff in one of these actions).

Failure rates are known to be fairly high and accidents are common [1]. I was on a Lime that had a brake failure and I was pretty badly injured. Lime themselves have indicated that the failure rate was around .00045%, but that's still 450 brake failures per million rides [2].

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/scooter- use-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/scooter-use-is- rising-in-major-cities-so-are-trips-to-the-emergency- room/2018/09/06/53d6a8d4-abd6-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html) [2] [https://www.li.me/blog/safety-update- february-2019](https://www.li.me/blog/safety-update-february-2019)

</comment><comment><USER24> I do a lot of travel and, anecdotally, there seems to be a huge variation in popularity of rental scooters by city (even just considering the cities where one or more companies operate). Wide bike/pedestrian paths are probably one factor and weather is another. But they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious, at least to me.

<comment><USER25> _> they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious_

I think a lot of this has to do with regulation. Some cities actively encouraged scooters and bikes, some took a hands-off approach, and others banned or restricted them to the level where it was difficult to operate.

You can really see the effect of this in San Diego, which at first welcomed the bikes and scooters, then reversed course and banned them in a lot of places [1]. Several of the companies left town after that happened, and you see a lot fewer bikes and scooters around now. It's still the same city, same weather, and there are more bike lanes than there were two years ago. The only thing that changed is the regulation.

[1] [https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/story/...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/environment/story/2019-10-14/new- rules-shaping-scooter-use-in-san-diego)

<comment><USER26> I don't remember welcoming them, so much as they proliferated over the course of a few months. They were so "popular" that they were being left all over the place to the point where it was widely regarded as hazardous. Companies in this space need to take more responsibility for the impact on the community and environment - regulation didn't kill them in San Diego, the companies themselves did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can we please just make this (scooters, bikes) public transit?

Not profitable - <USER4>

Good for society - <USER4>

In need of regulation - <USER4>

<comment><USER16> I wish, but corruption and graft has lead LA's metrobikes to cost something like $2500 each and that program is quickly spiraling out of existence.

Greedy contractors and privatization aside, you need infrastructure for transit, and for these scooters and bikes that means building bike lanes. Otherwise, it's no surprise that ridership is declining as they aren't safe on roads with LA drivers who kill more pedestrians every year. The LA bike lane network is currently an embarrassment with little political support for improvement, in fact there are councilmen actively working to remove bike lanes from their neighborhoods.

<comment><USER28> >I wish, but corruption and graft has lead LA's metrobikes to cost something like $2500 each

That doesn't seem too excessive to me. What do you think would be a more reasonable price for purchasing an electric bike* with a fair degree of customization and a corresponding maintenance contract?

* IIRC the bikes have integrated NFC readers for your TAP card, built in U-locks, probably GPS, and that sweet sweet Metro paint job.

<comment><USER16> Well they are neither maintained nor electric for the most part

<comment><USER28> Only the pedal assist ones cost 2500, the non-electric ones (still have batteries, but just for internal stuff) cost like $1200 each

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is this because you can't make money off short-term scooter rentals (Because the cost of providing this service is > what customers are willing to pay), or because other startups ate their lunch?

My wife is seriously considering a scooter (Even a non-electrified one) for her commute (2-3 days a week, 5 miles) - and I can't see a world where we'd rent one on the daily, as opposed to owning.

My uninformed guess is:

A problem with the rental model is the colossal inefficiency of having to pay people with cars and vans to drive around, and collect + charge scooters at the end of the day. This is a huge waste of resources and human time. Even with VCs p</comment><comment> a firehose of money into the market, most of it ends up going to drivers, rather than customers.

<comment><USER30> 5 miles one way? Genuine question but why would you want to commute 5 miles on a scooter multiple times a week compared to a bicycle?

<comment><USER31> I think the biggest advantage scooters have over ebikes is that for a lot of people, there's a place to store a scooter at both ends of a commute (under a desk) but not necessarily secure bike storage.

<comment><USER32> Also a huge advantage is the mobility of a scooter over a bike. With a scooter you are more flexible to changes in your day. Did a friend just message you during lunch to meet up for drinks in a different part of town? No probs, just take the scooter on the tube after work. Did the weather just change drastically? No probs, can quickly change to a different way of commute and the scooter doesn't feel like a huge showstopper whereas with a bike it all becomes really really complicated.

Bicycles in big cities are too inflexible. If all you want is to commute like a sheep from home to work and back to home every day then a bicyle is a great inexpensive and green choice, in every other case it's a problem. Unless of course you are in a small village, where a possible change of plans will still result in a short ride. In London this is not possible. If I was to meet friends spontaneously outside my daily commute area then it would be impossible with a bicycle.

<comment><USER33> I no longer live in London, but these scooters seem a bit big to go on a metro train.

The smallest folding bicycles (e.g. Brompton) are fine, but scooters must either be balanced upright, exposing dirty wheels, or take up a lot of floor space. No thanks!

In the largest cities like London, if my plans changed I'd just leave the bicycle at work, and take public transport to the party, home, and to work the next day (unless my way home passes work, then I can collect the bicycle).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This has to depend so much on city size. I'm in Milwaukee and they're perfect for here, because with everything so compact in the downtown area, if I'm meeting people to get food, hang out, or even go to Bucks games, it's so easy to get a scooter to get there rather than walk, uber, or the quick rent bikes we have.

I was just in Montevideo and Buenos Aires and we took the scooters in Montevideo, but even that city was almost too big, and also the streets different from what I'm used to making using them in the roads difficult.

As for Lime scooters compared to the other brands, I just pick the closest one to me; I haven't picked a favorite.

</comment><comment><USER35> Purely anecdotal but in my mind, one of the biggest barriers would be public sentiment?

I remember when Lime launched here in New Zealand and suddenly, all of these scooters appeared on the footpaths. Over time, they would go from nice, neat rows of four to being discarded on the pavement, becoming obstacles to walk around.

Obviously, it's the customers who have left them strewn on the pavement but in my mind, I associate that untidiness with Lime. Without their business, there wouldn't be scooters freely available to be left lying around.

Anyway, personally, I'm glad to see Lime and all of the other scooter businesses go away. It felt like more of a fad that would go away but I say that not having used one either. I'd rather walk and listen to some podcasts.

On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed this talk about e-scooter security from Matthew Garrett last year:

Part 1: [https://youtu.be/wU5ghVvwfGE](https://youtu.be/wU5ghVvwfGE) Part 2: [https://youtu.be/BMQnxugfwUI](https://youtu.be/BMQnxugfwUI)

</comment><comment><USER36> wow I'm really surprised to see San Diego on the list of "underperforming" markets that was cut. seems like a huge red flag for the industry if that's true.

no city have I been to had more scooters everywhere than San Diego. and the city has been very accommodating in the sense that they created designated scooter parking areas. it's almost the perfect city for scooters: almost always warm/sunny, very flat, not great public transportation infra.

left wondering what happened.

<comment><USER37> I think that's the problem... there's a huge market for scooters, but there's so many competitors in San Diego. I love scooters, and even I'm annoyed by how hard it is to walk around SD without tripping over PILES of them.

<comment><USER36> seems like a lose lose for the industry then. there are a few cities out there that are optimized for scooters year round like San Diego, and the barrier of entry is too low, and then no one wins because there's too much competition.

<comment><USER16> It's not weather you need, it's infrastructure. Scooters clogging sidewalks is an infrastructure problem. Scooters having to deal with car traffic is an infrastructure problem.

The solution to these infrastructure problems are to get a can of paint, make a bike lane, and a scooter parking space. Let the app geofence, and voila, a functional transit network that avoids all the annoyances everyone states ad infinitum until local council bans them.

<comment><USER36> not sure what this has anything to do with my previous comment...

i observed San Diego being relatively accommodating to scooters, including created designated parking, on top of being a city is flat and usually sunny and warm - both things that are good for scooter demand, and wondered aloud why Lime still couldn't make it work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Curious how many of the scooter-haters in this thread drive cars daily. In my experience they're a huge boon to walkable, car-free or car-lite lifestyles, and all but useless in the suburban parking-minimum wastelands that characterize most of the United States' postwar built environment.

<comment><USER38> It's makes urban sidewalks look like they are strewn with litter. It's the reason why Im glad to see they are banned. They make walkable cities less walkable.

<comment><USER19> This is a myopic view. In my city's experience, when infrastructure like parking corrals are provided scooter users tend to behave properly. When there's nowhere to leave your scooter except to balance them in a 5-inch space parallel to the curb, they become disruptive. The solution is to reallocate a minimal quantity of the vast space in our cities we currently designate for the exclusive use of automobiles, not to punish those who chose not to occupy 300+sf of space with their two-ton vehicles.

<comment><USER38> It's not shortsighted but definitely an opinion formed relative to my opinion and observations. But that's what all comments are. That solution might work in your city, but each of these scooter riders did not take one car off the street so it likely will not work in most cities. I agree there is a solution but don't feel well ever find one in discussion on HN, a much to biased audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I counted seven different scooter companies in my town recently. The party had to end at one point...

<comment><USER40> It's just like 3D printers a few years ago. Dozens of companies spring up around the technology and gradually attrition down to a the handful of most successful ones.

A more direct parallel might be all of the Hoverboard clones that flooded the market a few years ago. Whenever something is new and hot and the barrier to entry isn't too high you'll get an explosion of startups trying to make their name.

<comment><USER39> Yes, I agree. The big difference is I think: all of these seven startups needed a huuuge amount of capital to start in various cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If it is impossible to run a profitable e-scooter rental service even with the current terms, imagine how much money the companies would burn if they could not externalise the costs of accidents to riders' insurance companies and taxpayers (in locales with public healthcare).

In my home town the scooters have almost exclusively been used to replace walking. They have not reduced the market share of other means of motorised transport. People walk less because of scooters. There has been a notable amount of broken bones and even a few cases of severe brain trauma suffered by riders, and taxpayers end up paying for everything.

So I could argue that all the effects on the society have been negative.

<comment><USER40> I'd expect them to cannibalize taxi/bus/subway rides to some degree. They seem like a pretty good alternative for people who want to travel some middling distance like a dozen blocks that would be a somewhat lengthy walk but a fairly short taxi ride. Plus it could definitely be faster if the traffic is congested.

<comment><USER16> Once you start getting to the 20 minute mark the scooter ride stops being so cheap, and you were probably better off getting an uber and going farther and faster for about the same price. I don't think it can replace the subways as they are used here in la. A scooter can't go from downtown to hollywood in 20 minutes; not even cars hit the 70mph the subway does in this city.

<comment><USER40> If it is taking you 20 minutes to go a dozen blocks on a motorized scooter then maybe it is the wrong tool for the job.

<comment><USER16> It definitely is. I think they should nix the unlock fee to further incentivize this, personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> > He said that projection is based in part on improvements to Lime scooters' > longevity, which in 2019 went from from six months to about 14 months.

That still seems like an incredibly short amount of time.

<comment><USER43> 14 months for the abuse these things take? I'm impressed they last more than 90 days to be honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Good riddance from Atlanta. The City had to start fining people to get the scooters off the sidewalks. When I worked in midtown I'd have to step over scooters lying on the streets.

<comment><USER29> Maybe if scooters could be parked for free on nearly any curb, like cars, you wouldn't be stepping over them.

<comment><USER44> Where on earth do you have to pay for scooter parking? Scooter parking is free. Slamming them down sideways without using a kick stand is free unless a cop sees you.

<comment><USER45> Riders don't have to pay for them, but the scooter operators sure do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Good!

These scooters are at best a novelty and at worst a potential vector of serious injury. I know at least three people who have been injured through recklessness or malfunction. They also tend to be dirty.

They're a nuisance in populated areas like San Diego (where I love). People already act as if no one else is on the road with cars and bikes. Scooters appeal to (inner) children, and they can really bring out the indifference in aggressive riders. Drunk scooting is basically a license to be a prick.

The business model was terrible from the beginning. Like should have learned from its bicycle department (as well as competition) that there simply isn't much money in this market.

<comment><USER47> I think they're great. The issue is that most places don't have the infrastructure for them. Bicycles and scooters should have a dedicated path so people don't have to ride them either on the road or the footpath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I worked in downtown San Antonio, one of the markets being pulled from. Scooters were very popular when they first arrived, but pretty much none of my coworkers used them any more. The main issues are cost and time. It takes too long to open the app and get riding and it costs too much. Downtown here is also pretty walkable, so the high costs don't make much sense when I could be getting exercise. The scooters are also fairly miserable when it's 104F in the summer and 40F in the winter, making them very seasonal. They are banned on sidewalks here, but I had no issues riding them in the slow downtown SA traffic.

</comment><comment><USER49> Until and unless these replace cars on the road, which is unlikely due to weather and other cases like grocery shopping, they will be a nuisance for everyone.

A better solution for private transport over short distances would be low speed neighborhood electric vehicles (basically, big golf carts) that can carry more people and stuff, and coexist with cars, instead of taking pedestrian and bike space. They might not be as safe as cars, but they are safer than the scooters.

</comment><comment><USER50> I use Lime scooters in SF. Too many scooters aren't fully charged in the morning near Market St - I wonder if the charging incentives are being slashed.

Separately, it makes sense that an additional cash infusion is unrealistic at this point. Post WeWork decimation, large D, E, F rounds will be increasingly difficult to close as we go through 2020. Profitability is the right move. Whether it's possible or not...

Best of luck to Lime.

</comment><comment><USER51> At a high level this will be sold as "Uber for cycles" but it's not. They own the hardware which makes it a really tough business to be in. TBH I don't why even U ee is in this space. There isn't enough volume outside of tourist heavy sites to justify it, even in tourist heavy places I don't know how attractive an option this is what not attractive to a select group.

</comment><comment><USER52> For the life of me I can't see why people wouldn't just steal them. It's literally just standing there, not chained to anything, sometimes for days on end. Sure you probably won't be able to ride it, but even as parts it's likely worth more than a day's worth of heroin, which dooms their business model right from the start.

</comment><comment><USER53> I used a Lime scooter in Brisbane Australia when I there for a wedding last year, it was a great experience. Easy to find, quick to get around, convenient and inexpensive.

Saw both tourists and locals using them and they were always placed neatly and out of the way.

The weather in Brisbane means they'd be in use pretty much year-round, such a great idea!

</comment><comment><USER54> I wonder how many startup scooters have been thrown away. Have we filled a stadium yet?

Will there someday be a museum located at a landfill which is full of these things?

I generally think that this kind of final mile solution is a good one, but I can't help but feel like a lot of these scooters are experiencing very short service lives.

<comment><USER55> Not exactly the same, but these photos are pretty mindblowing:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/china-abandoned- bi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/china-abandoned-bike-share- graveyards/566576/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Okay so how do I get a cheap e-scooter? Or will they just trash the still- working hardware?

<comment><USER57> They'll be collected and sold through an auction company for liquidation probably or redistributed to other markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Indeed why I've never signed up for these vehicle rentals. Every week there is different set of companies in my neighborhood. If they were all on a single reservation system state or nationwide I'd be a lot more interested.

</comment><comment><USER59> Surprised that the companies haven't either merged or coordinated to limit competition in each city. I expect that cities can support a limited number of scooter companies, but every single vc backed startup.

</comment><comment><USER60> After all the lobbying they did in my city to get a helmet law exemption and then to get the city to install designated scooter parking and no-go zones...

</comment><comment><USER61> $500 wholesale a scooter, $2 average revenue a ride, $5 a day to juice them. If one lasts several hundred rides it might make a profit.

</comment><comment><USER62> Does this mean there's a whole lot of cheap scooters being sold somewhere? Any idea where?

</comment><comment><USER63> unforeseen is the army of charging slaves that patrol the city at 4 AM for a few extra dollars at their own expense. E-scooters launched through shop windows and into streets after bars close.

</comment><comment><USER64> Thank $deity. I'm tired of seeing these humongous bikes taking up space on sidewalks, and threatening to fall onto unsuspecting people and animals.

Here's hoping they fail in other markets as well.

<comment><USER65> If you have a cane or a wheelchair then good luck when you come across a pile of bikes on the sidewalk. Even one of those JUMP bikes tipped over can be a problem. I used to see this all the time in Santa Monica. Bikes lined up close together would either fall like dominoes or get kicked over by hoodlums, blocking walking paths or potential parking spots. What's hilarious is the number of believers willing to say about anything to defend the the almighty bicycle, no matter how obstructive and unsightly they can be.

 _No, no!_ _A pile of fallen over bikes and scooters isn 't unsightly!_ _Cars driving on roads designed for them is what 's unsightly!_

Uh huh. (look up previous HN threads and you'll see that exact argument)

If there's one thing I'm looking forward to with the next economic recession, it's the disappearance of these bikes and scooters.

<comment><USER66> Compared to a car parking on the sidewalk and totally blocking it which happens so often?

<comment><USER65> I don't think I've ever seen that where I live. The closest I've seen is in suburban neighborhoods where people don't park their car all the way into their driveway, but even that's pretty rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> That's a blow. There's not a lot of companies employing divers in the gig economy.

<comment><USER5> Sarcasm? The vast majority of gig-jobs are driving.

Ride share and delivery make up the obvious lion's share of gig work.

<comment><USER68> divers. Like for getting bikes and scooters from lakes and rivers when the drunkards toss them over a bridge.</comment></comment></comment>