America's Teens Are Choosing YouTube Over Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-31/america-s-teens-are-choosing-youtube-over-facebook <comment><USER2> There isn't anything to do on facebook for the young/youth.

The games are more for the middle aged player.

They have no list of long lost people they wish to connect with. Everyone is a friend or friend of a friend.

You can follow brands but the youth want to follow a band or an actor not a toothbrush company.

Things like poking or using a fake name or having permissions connected to school or orgs created social group that you would share related photos. Now you have to manage a list or share with everyone.

Facebook was a good way for college kids to connect with everyone from there school. They could create a new persona with fun photos/videos and show everyone how popular they are. Now you hide your friend list, avoid saying anything that you wouldn't say in front of your mother and secretly worry that anything you post will be purchased by a potential future employer enabling them to filter out your resume in record time.

<comment><USER3> The sole reason I'm still on Facebook is because events are organized on Facebook. I know I'd still get invited if I deleted Facebook, but I don't really want to be the person, that everyone always have to text message for rsvp, planning, changes and so on.

This only happens in Facebook because everyone in my social circle is on Facebook though. Young people aren't faced with this platform lock in and I absolutely agree with you, why would they ever join?

Facebook is basically the yellow pages at this point, and how many millennials ever used a phone book?

<comment><USER4> Is there really no good "just the events" app or site?

Personally I hear about the things I want to attend anyway, but I have the same feeling of not knowing nonetheless.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.facebook.com/local/](https://www.facebook.com/local/)

That could be a killer app if Facebook gives it love.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Alright, I'll post this as top-level:

> The sole reason I'm still on Facebook is because events are organized on > Facebook. (eksemplar)

I study Music Management at the conservatory (university), and spend most of my time on events and festivals. It is my impression that few in the tech business understands the magnitude of this market, and how Facebook entirely owns it. The entire concert-format is under enormous pressure from the booming festival and club scene, making services like Songkick irrelevant. ResidentAdvisor is good, but too editorial, too little tech.

Facebook democratised event-making in a great way. You can trust that a good portion of the people attending an event is actually going. You can make events private, which is good for pirate-parties and other underground events (Lead Users). And importantly, it gives event makers insight into who is coming, how many, how the growth curve is etc. Artists can link to their _personalised_ profile, that people will actually follow for updates. This is hugely important for creators.

If you start a competitor, it'd be natural to focus on music, but then you'll still leave all the people interested mostly in art-exhibitions on Facebook. Facebook is content-neutral, which is a huge advantage. Further, they have an entire business-suite platform (groups) on top of this, meaning I can discuss our events, plan them, while linking to relevant artists, venues etc on Facebook. I can book artists, book a venue and market the event _entirely_ on the FB-platform. That is an important advantage in the space of social media.

Facebook is, without comparison, the best tool for events.

<comment><USER7> It also baffles me why there is no good (open?) solution for showing, finding and managing events I might want to attend in my town. Music venues, cinemas, theatres, ... all have their own separate listings, and in most places, it is impossible to see them all in one place, let alone to import them to your own calendar, or to get personalised recommendations.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.facebook.com/events/](https://www.facebook.com/events/) provides precisely that and is one of the things which makes Facebook such a great platform for events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A few days ago I decided I was done with Facebook for good. It just makes me depressed nowadays. I listened to a talk given by Chamath Palihapitiya and another given by Sean Parker and they both used a phrase that kinda freaked me out. They both separately talked about how they specifically designed "dopamine driven feedback loops" to take advantage of user psychology. To get them hooked.

And then I just started realizing how creepy it is that they don't even allow somebody to outright delete their profile unless they have died and their legacy admin proves they have died and deletes it for them.

How creepy is that? They are like a manipulative partner in a relationship, who thinks they have their hooks in you so deep that they act all compassionately when you say you want to break up, but deep inside they are saying to themselves, "You'll be back bitch. You know you need daddy."

It used to be a good thing. I mean i've sparked a few relationships using facebook. But nowadays it's just political banter, pictures of single mother's babies (i lost my baby son 5 years ago so this makes me uncomfortable when im bombarded by everybody else's little bundles of joy), memes memes memes memes, stories about dead/missing people, non stop selfies, and nothing of real substance.

Aren't we supposed to like not know so much about other people so that when we get together we have something to discover about each other? It's like we have gotten to the point where we NEED to know everything about people we actually don't really know that well in real life.

And everybody is competing for points on who can be the most self obsessed and nosey at the same time. I'd rather watch Youtube videos because at least that is art in a way. People taking time to make sure what they say is presented in the best format possible.

<comment><USER10> _A few days ago I decided I was done with Facebook for good. It just makes me depressed nowadays. I listened to a talk given by Chamath Palihapitiya and another given by Sean Parker and they both used a phrase that kinda freaked me out_

About 2 weeks after I stopped, I no longer even wanted to use it and actually thought it was a little weird how I ever wanted to. But in 2007, it was cool and fun.

<comment><USER11> I get facebook and was a user (on and off as I almost annually deleted my account) but then I found it a massive waste of time so gave up entirely just after Christmas.

I did join back up again for one specific facebook group. however I wasn't getting much out of it and on top of that, the Cambridge Analytica debacle just left a bad taste in my mouth and I've dropped facebook entirely, again.

It's been about 3 months now and I really have no desire to sign up again - occasionally I've browsed the group as an anonymous user and nothing has inspired me to join.

I've also dropped Twitter and other social media sits - I feel that until they get their shit together as far as privacy concerns, I'm just not interested in being part of any of that.

So it's HN and a couple of subject specific forums for me, and that will do for my "social media" needs. I've considered joining reddit but the jury is still out on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Teen dad checking in here. YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat seem to be the mainstream among teens right now. I'd argue it is less a reflection on Facebook and more about what they admire and desire. YouTube and Instagram enable them to follow the people and activities that interest them, and entice them to be future "internet stars" too.

<comment><USER13> Youtube fulfills the desire to broadcast your life in a way Facebook really can't. I think the subscribers vs friends distinction is important here. Twitter followers work the same way. I don't get excited about random people adding me on Facebook, but if a bunch of people follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my channel, it's a different story.

And Instagram + Snapchat are more about looking at what your friends are up to, and offer way more intimate experiences than Facebook. I have never seen a link to a news website or political ad on either platform, but Facebook is littered with them, and it crowds out the content I want to see: pictures of my friends doing cool stuff. If I want astroturfing and news, I go to reddit and HN :P

So Facebook occupies the awkward middle ground, and most people I know use it to collect acquaintances and to exchange Instagram/Snapchat handles.

Source: am teen

<comment><USER14> As a 29 year old, I've just found YouTube much more interesting and actionable recently. Almost every topic is covered and the best content rises to the top.

The recommendation engine is really good now. I've added more to my watch later list in the last 6 months than I have in the last 6 years combined.

As an SEO I'm surprised to admit, but I find it better to search directly in YouTube than actual Google search for certain searches.

Google was playing the loooong game on YouTube and it seems to be paying off.

<comment><USER15> Yup. I'm 33 and stopped using Facebook a year ago. YouTube is what I'm all about. I use it to listen to ML lectures mostly, and I share videos of my robots. Facebook seems like it's for old people now or something, and I'm disgusted with how creepy that site became.

<comment><USER16> Off-topic slightly, but is there a way to change my YT username? In other words, changing [https://www.youtube.com/user/[mycurrentusername]](https://www.youtube.com/user/\[mycurrentusername\]) to [newusername] ?

<comment><USER17> [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2657968?hl=es](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2657968?hl=es)

You need +100 subs

<comment><USER18> What a bizarre requirement. Why should someone need 100 subscribers to do a simple action like changing their account name?

Why not limit how often you can change it, or make some other kind of limitation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> FB has always had a MSN.com or Yahoo.com vibe, but with the latest "see other posts across facebook" update, it's gone completely Taboola.

that's not even half as entertaining as instagram or snapchat right now. i feel like snapchat should really be a little bit ahead, because the social experience is a lot more interesting than instagram's, but instagram's larger user base means more interesting pictures and videos right now, even if these videos are a little bit "detached" from the user's social experience.

facebook's social experience has totally lost the plot when they started trimming the social feed in favour of links to websites outside of facebook.

really the crux of these social websites is that they need to have a social experience. if i wanted gossip news or political reading i'd go to a gossip website or a political journal.

<comment><USER20> I agree with the Yahoo vibe. You know the left wall of navigation items on the desktop browser version of Facebook? That shows eg: Events, Marketplace, Groups, Pages, Friends List, On This Day, Find Friends, Photos, and other similar junk.

It looks just like a portal straight out of 1999. It comes across as generic, soulless - a product trying to be everything that ends up being nothing in particular.

Here's the most recent Yahoo version of that left strip of be-everything-and- nothing portalism icons (archive.org stray example from 2014):

[https://web.archive.org/web/20140420105343/https://www.yahoo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140420105343/https://www.yahoo.com/)

I consume a lot of content from YouTube. It's fun, mostly enjoyable (can easily ignore the trash comments). Facebook is an extremely mediocre product by comparison, it's not much fun at all. I use YouTube regularly to watch video that might include everything from news, movie trailers, documentaries, vblogs, entertainment show clips, sports clips, speaker forums, and so on. Facebook by contrast, I consume with a bare minimum type approach: I use it as little as necessary.

The only two complaints I have about YouTube's product, is the quality of the comments, and there are still too many fake automated junk videos on there (or otherwise the: you won't believe what happened next junk). Most video search results require a bit of filtering through that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there anyone in HN legitimately using Facebook anymore? I deleted my account more than a year ago and initially I missed events, but more and more, my conversations and invites are moving to WhatsApp, Discord (surprisingly awesome), Instagram, Signal, etc.

Events are really the only thing I miss from FB. Startup idea for anyone who wants to try to address it: independent Events app that connects with everything under the sun (FB, Google, etc.)

<comment><USER22> Yes, obviously lol.

It is the primary communication tool for everyone I know in the bay area, excluding professionals that I email or teammates at code for SF that I message on slack.

<comment><USER21> Oh yeah I forgot Messenger. Discord and WhatsApp replaced that for me.

<comment><USER23> I would love to switch away from Messenger but all my friends are still using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a friend who has 2 teenage boys. The other day we're talking about stuff on the Internet, and he says something along the lines of "I wish I could monitor what they're watching on the Internet!".

And I was like, I think there's some porn blockers around.

And he replied, "I wish they'd watch porn! They're watching YT, getting crazy ideas from others and doing stupid things!"

</comment><comment><USER25> Going past the whole "X is better than Y".

Isn't it just a symptom that the next generation doesn't want the same thing as their parents?

e.g. I don't want to live in my childhood home, I don't want to wear my dad's clothes and I don't want to drive his car.

So every largely successful social media platform is doomed to only be `the one` for 1 generation?

<comment><USER26> Isn't that mostly because his car, clothes, and house are probably behind the times? A social media platform can grow & evolve, a house built sixty years ago can't much.

The things my father owned that are still current are pretty special to me, actually.

<comment><USER27> Social media platforms can adapt with the times, but they often don't - Facebook was built in an atmosphere of "move fast and break things", but you can't do that when you're a multi-billion dollar company with shareholders who don't like it when you break things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a parent of two teenage boys who's had this conversation with many parents of teenagers: a) this has been the trend for several years b) they are choosing Youtube over TV, Netflix, etc c) teens go where their parents aren't (Discord, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc).

As I heard a teenager say a couple years ago "why would I create a Facebook account, its for old moms."

<comment><USER29> > teens go where their parents aren't

> As I heard a teenager say a couple years ago "why would I create a Facebook > account, its for old moms."

Precisely. Apart from the illusion of becoming an internet star, kids simply cater to the places where is most unlikely that their parents and older relatives can find them.

Why post the latest slumber party photos on FB, if your aunt could somehow see and comment on those? (yes yes I know, privacy settings, custom lists, private groups, yada yada... )

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I talked to my niece who is 19yo. Her take is that everyone is all about

Instagram (basically personal brand/image management, checking out latest styles from other people, styles she can actually afford)

Snapchat (personal circle of friends, unedited content)

YouTube (lifestyle bloggers)

Facebook is dying in their demographic.. pretty fast, except for Facebook pages for things she's interested in

<comment><USER31> "unedited content" is a euphemism for sharing nudity.

<comment> nv-vn No, it's really not. I mean sure there is some of that, but you're wrong if you think that's all people use Snapchat for. People share things on Snapchat to their close group of friends which means you're willing to say things you wouldn't say in public about people, say things you wouldn't want your mom to hear, pass secrets around, or just talk in a more "anonymous" way. It's the difference between somebody taking 45 minutes to pose for and edit their next Instagram post vs. sending 45 snaps in a minute without even looking at the picture you take. It's almost like Casey Neistat's Beme--Snapchat encourages you not to care about what you send because it will be gone in 3-10 seconds.

<comment><USER31> The op was referring to a teenager... Unedited content absolutely is nudity. It's actually the reason Snapchat was invented.

<comment><USER32> It's the reason sc was invented but definitely not what it has evolved into. I'm aware there's porn accounts but the majority usecase is simply a low- friction 0 commitment method of sending pictures/thoughts/happenings

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> YouTube is the world's greatest repository of culture. And shitty comments. But mostly the culture thing. And Facebook is a bulletin board. No competition.

</comment><comment><USER34> My 13 year old uses mostly YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Twitch, and Reddit, no FB.

I have nieces and nephews on FB, but they never post much, they hide most of their real content on anonymous Instagram accounts.

</comment><comment><USER35> My teens don't even have accounts.

They used to talk about when there would be more dead people on facebook than alive. I think they were mistaken about the alive people still on facebook part.

Facebook is going to be a small, odd, digital graveyard from the early 'net.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm curious what these kids who start out on Facebook as sonogram pics are going to think of Facebook when they become cognizant.

<comment><USER37> The first of those may be teenagers this year.

<comment><USER36> Eventually this sad crowd will get their own generational letter designation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Disclaimer: I work on a large high school social app.

High school kids hate facebook. It is what their parents use and they view it as a historical ledger of their actions. They view facebook more like a 'yearbook' not as a day to day hangout.

</comment><comment><USER39> Although this might not add any value to the general discussion, i feel the urge to break my lurker-silence and share my latest epiphany: end-twenties german compsci-student here. in retrospective, my act of leaving facebook and (obviously in contrast to a lot of other users here) not replacing it with any substitute "social media" account might have had a bigger impact on my life as i would have guessed. Since years, i have been using Telegram, signal, SMS, the gold old phonecalls, email and IRC (my jabber contacts also moved to signal, etc.) and i can guarantee you to have a pretty reduced social life. In a more active phase of my life (a couple of years ago) i still went frequently to concerts with 2-3 friends who would send me routinely emails containing facebook-screenshots etc. ... Nowadays i lead a life most separated from the rest of the "social" world. Of course i still have friends and visit Them from time to time, etc. ... But on facebook i realized my self-consuming habit of constantly checking what other ppl i rarely knew thought or did or "liked". I have to admit that despite this time consuming social media habits i could really lead a reflected and productive life, but to be honest i still put feel time into passively(!) surfing the net, reading and watching a lot of news, journals, trivia, etc. Through other eyes this comment might seem bitter, but i actually enjoy my life without this burden of social media platforms on myself. Are here some other 'conscientious objectors'?

</comment><comment><USER40> For me HN is more valuable than FB. Value of HN has stayed the same for me over the years while the value/utility of FB has gradually eroded and I hardly ever use Facebook now.

</comment><comment><USER41> This seems like a strange comparison. Teens have eschewed FB in favor of Instagram and Snapchat for years. My feeling is that YouTube is simply becoming more popular and Facebook is becoming less. This is like saying that "America's Teens are Choosing Buzzfeed Over Facebook." They aren't even in the same category. The writing is on the wall for FB as a web property.

</comment><comment> oh-kumudo I am wrapping my head to think about what Facebook could do that I can't live without. Essentially, it is a contact book. But it is so much more complex than just that. It has a bit of everything: Photo sharing, Event organization and opinion advocating.

But as it all adds up, Facebook is becoming less and less social overtime: people posted stuff, but they don't really expect interactions, they only want reactions, and the ones they expected. Unlike chatting, unexpected conversation could happen, and could genuinely help discovery of new perspectives. Facebook, in its current form, is just a static wall of trophies, a decorated personality about what you want people to think you are. It is tiring and indeed requires high maintenance.

It will not be surprising to me, that Facebook's downfall is just the beginning, they might keep buying other social apps, but it does little to keep their current audience from going away.

</comment><comment><USER42> Let's back up for a second...

This article only refers to usage as 'visit(ing)' the sites, but nothing about interaction. Are we to assume that teens are actively consuming and producing content on YouTube?

There's a huge difference here. When I still had Facebook I would have never said I spent most of my time there. It's very easy to say YouTube consumes more of your time considering how easy it is to go down the rabbit-hole of related videos, how-tos, etc.

Even my dad always tells me to 'get on the YouTube' to look up videos on how to do things when he isn't here to show me because it has videos 'on everything'.

What I'm really getting at is there are completely different uses for each site. For advertisers it's important to know where the majority of time is spent but I don't think that means Facebook is becoming irrelevant.

<comment><USER43> I see Facebook and YouTube as completely different and I think a lot of people would agree. For most people YouTube is all about consuming. Sure some people make videos, but most go nowhere. Most people are just using it to fill their day, or for background noise while they do other stuff, just like people have been doing with TV for years.(why do you think YouTube made autoplay a thing). Facebook is more about connecting with people and expressing yourself than it is about consuming things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Youtube is seriously addictive. Cognitive load of watching videos is much lesser than reading.

I spen hours on YouTube watching America's Funniest Home videos.

Trying hard to get out of that addiction.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm pretty surprised Twitch isn't mentioned in that list. I'm curious where it would stack up.

<comment><USER46> I'm a "millennial", so I think I speak millennial pretty well. Twitch is a very niche product: THE go-to place for the gaming community, it's also trying to break into mainstream live-streaming but that's Instagram's territory.

<comment><USER47> Which is _super_ interesting because twitch was justin.tv's pivot FROM mainstream live-streaming into the niche game streaming market

<comment><USER46> Yeah, I know ! Thing is, I think Justin is ahead of his time (he did it with Justin.tv and Whale).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I am a few years away from 30. I have disabled FB and Instagram recently so I can free myself from some stress. I use YouTube a lot because I enjoy watching game plays (e.g. H2ODelirious, VanossGaming, etc.) YouTube is a good alternative to TV shows and Netflix.

<comment><USER49> I never much cared for any of the social media platforms because they all seem to be just gamified crap, a great example of technology making people's lives worse instead of better.

But Youtube and Twitch I like. It's kinda what cable public-access was trying to do, only way better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Dad with two pre-teen kids here. The order of apps by most time spent is the following: YouTube (by far), Netflix and then for my older one, Snapchat, Music.ly with some random Instagram. As they get older, I see usage of Snapchat and Instagram increasing. Neither of my kids have Facebook accounts or want FB accounts (yay!)

Activities on YT: Slime videos, Minecraft videos, and lots of "pretty young girls doing stuff" (crafting, lifehacks etc.) They don't comment, and despite my repeated encouragement, don't really publish their own videos.

</comment><comment><USER51> I think teens nowadays are much more guarded (given how long social networks have been around now). They've grown up with the knowledge of how social media, when misused, can come back to haunt them. Most of my nephews and nieces have multiple throwaway accounts -- some of which they share with their parents and other accounts that they use as their main one.

Decreased FB usage is likely a reflection that they're wary of how FB utilizes their data, and realizing it's better to be choosy where they post info about themselves.

<comment><USER52> You give kids way too much credit. If all their friends were on Facebook, they'd be on Facebook.

Facebook failed to market effectively to up and coming teenagers, and as a result they have grown up into people who have chosen alternative networks that looked fun and cool, not boring and corporate blue.

No one gives a shit about data.

<comment><USER53> People care about their data when it can tangibly affect them. Teens know that their parents or other parents can see their data on Facebook. They are pushed to use their real names and in general the context creep is what drives them away. They may not care about the abstract notion of data in terms of data mining etc but they do care about having what they share being seen by people they don't want it to be seen by.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> For a 25 years old student from a middle european country that I am, everything happens on facebook. I don't post or see posts of others. I simply hid that feature with a browser extension long time ago. But I use groups extensively for discussions and help in any field i'm interested in. There are groups where you can only sell things, that's also very useful. I use messenger to connect to literally anyone I know, my family, friends, my colleagues. I receive events there too. Some of the places I go to only have a facebook page. Last time a good confectionery posted that they close in a week. How else would I know if I didn't use facebook? It's pretty much perfect for me because I can't think of anything else that I would need. Another interesting thing is a group where almost all of the country is represented and they have varying quiality posts on everything that happened to them. If someone keyed your car, you ask for witnesses there, if you lost your wallet on a tram, you ask for help there. Currently the admins share abortion stories to keep the sources' anonimity. So that's a nice group with all it's quirks.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's amazing how much Periscope got right in its design. I'm guessing scaling mobile video broadcasts was the limiting factor. If you're Arianna Grande going live just before she steps on stage, or BTS landing in the US for the first time or basically any rapper dragging Drake right now. There is no other experience that is simpler to use, more immediate, or more real for interacting with your followers than Instagram Live. Given 200M+ daily story users, the stream quality is technically remarkable.

Monetization for users with under 10K followers is much easier on Twitch.tv right now. Than on any other platform, including YouTube. The Fortnite cultural phenomenon is just beginning. And the ancillary revenue services such as Streamlabs involve direct sponsorship. As opposed to negotiating third party brand deals. Twitch popularity is creating the feedback loop that informs game design. Looking across the Pacific at Tencent and its 500M mobile gamers. Just can't help but think there is still phenomenal upside here ;)

</comment><comment><USER56> VIOLATORS!!!!

2.3 You may not use the Service and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with YouTube, or (b) you are a person who is either barred or otherwise legally prohibited from receiving or using the Service under the laws of the country in which you are resident or from which you access or use the Service.

</comment><comment><USER57> Google+ was ahead of its time, apparently?

<comment><USER58> The idea of circles in Google+ is pure genius.

It was shoddily implemented though. IIRC even the academic that had the circle idea ranted about how badly plus had implemented it.

On one hand, I would rather have somebody else than Google handling the next social network, on the other, plus had some great idea and shined for a time in some areas like photography.

I used to frequent it a couple of times a week several years ago.

Nowadays, each time I open it by mistake I am taken aback by how extremist lunatics are everywhere in my feed (ymmv)

<comment><USER13> Nowadays, people manually emulate circles using multiple accounts--a rinsta [0] for the curated public circle, and a finsta [1] for close friends to post personal experiences and funny photos. Some people I know have _multiple_ finstas with varying levels of specificity.

[0] "real insta"

[1] "fake insta"

<comment><USER59> Weird, those definitions seems backwards to me. The one for close friends seems like it should be the 'real' account.

<comment><USER60> In this context, the "real insta" account is the curated one to build a personal brand; only highly-filtered/vetted content gets posted there. Due to all the time put into curating it, the account is intended to persist forever.

The posts to the "fake insta" has less of a filter, and the account will be dropped/rotated as soon as it gets too much baggage or some content goes negatively viral. Someone bothering the user on their "fake insta"? But the user can't/won't block them for social/cultural reasons? Just stop using that account and create a brand new one, and then only tell your close friends about the new one. Everyone else is still following the old "fake" one which you no longer use hence its fake-ness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I didn't realize this is new news. I mean when I see some obviously teen- centric piece of content with a gazillion views I'm not presuming working full time adults are the ones driving the views figure.

This tends to be the top videos. Or at least consistently seems to be.

</comment><comment><USER62> The sites aside, I also appreciated the comparison of device, though I really wish they had split that up further by device. At the very least separate Desktop and Laptop. I'd be curious to see what % of people still have a desktop computer at home.

<comment><USER63> How would you separate desktops and laptops? (Honest question, I'm not sure how you would do that)

I assume the stats are based on usage not a survey.

<comment><USER60> There isn't one. As a proxy, one could do a bunch of data gymnastics based off of the number of times a machine+account uses a single IP address and display resolution + OS. It's a pretty bad approximation though.

<comment><USER64> Is there a way to detect webcam model? That's the one unique thing I can think of.. A lot of desktops don't have them and if they do its like logitech whatever model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> YouTube has become my primary TV viewing destination, above anything else.

I watch it on the TV via my PS4.

</comment><comment><USER66> wonder why the market isn't pricing in the FB misery.look at 3 month on FB. back in march it was on ~190, then the cambridge shit dragged it straight down to ~150, now 3 months later we are back to ~190, exactly where we left off.

<comment><USER2> Because middle age people make better targets for ads. The old adage that you need to sell only to youth because preferences are set at a younger age doesn't make sense when people will switch brands more rapidly than in the past.

<comment><USER67> No, it has to do with disposable income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Just came back from SE Asia (4 countries) and everyone I met or saw in public was using FB and WhatsApp, and YouTube for almost everything. Telecoms also offered 'Facebook package' or YouTube specific promotions.

<comment><USER69> Also living in SE Asia on my case and I confirm that Facebook is much much bigger than in Europe there.

Facebook is clearly having a slow death in Europe, the real cut-off seems to be around the age of 30, the youngest, the less they are on Facebook. I wound not be surprised if the teens nowadays would not have any account at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Perhaps because emotions are easier to express and read this way rater than in text form.

But it still feels to me like watching 99% videos is mostly a boring waste of time compared to quick-read text&picture scrollable feed posts. I'm just not comfortable with the slow pace and low concentration of the information flow in videos (and books).

Is the "Twitter generation" that prefers to consume information quickly in small high-concentration portions passing away?

<comment><USER71> For me, YouTube is less about browsing low quality content quickly and more about identifying videographers who I really like, and enjoying 10m that someone really put effort into.

<comment><USER70> Aren't such harder to find as video content is not searchable?

<comment><USER71> Yes very hard. It seems to take years to build up a good list of subscriptions. Reminds me of early Twitter in that sense.

I sometimes come across an account and discover it's a part of a whole community of accounts. I pick through and subscribe to some. Sometimes my feed takes a turn for the repetitive and then I prune accounts.

The homepage is OK but the subscription feed is the only thing you can get to a worthwhile state but it takes some tending to it. Similar to RSS too in that sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> As an 18 year old the only things Facebook is used for in my circle is:

1\. Facebook Events for invites 2\. Facebook Marketplace 3\. Facebook Groups of interests 4\. The occasional profile update or "on this day" post

With the news of the new Facebook dating service, it seems that Facebook is moving away from users reading a single feed and having separate parts for all functions. For sure, it is not used to share or read anything meaningful in my circle.

<comment><USER73> What social media do you use?

What are the most common things you do on the internet?

<comment> Harvey-Specter My brother is 19, he basically only uses Instagram and Snapchat. He even uses Snapchat as his primary messaging app, which is infuriating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> It's clear that Facebook.com is yesterday's news but it seems like the alternatives may be as damaging to the individual and to his or her society.

</comment><comment><USER75> In Brazil top youtubers are outperforming television stars and traditional entertainers in the celebrity game. Books featuring these people are always in the best-seller lists and live appearances draw rock star-level crowds.

Most interesting: these people are appealing mostly to the sub-14 crowd. Children find about youtubers by word of mouth but also by fumbling with tablets and cell phones.

</comment><comment><USER76> Is it just teens dropping Facebook? My wife and I are GenXers and we've both mostly stopped using it. I removed the apps from all but one device and deleted the bookmarks from all browsers. I check it once a week or so, mostly for events and photos from my parents.

I'm half tempted to disable/delete my account and see if I miss it at all.

</comment><comment><USER77> I use YouTube(red) more then Netflix and Direct TV Now(comes free with my ATT plan). I'd rather just watch 10 to 20 minutes of professional content (favorite TV shows or clips of them) along with all the rando discovery that's tailored to my likes then long format stuff or annoying commercial TV.

Im a few decades older then a teenager.

</comment><comment><USER78> FB was cool to teens when it was limited to college students. Scarcity is gone and coolness left with it.

</comment><comment><USER79> Facebook is literally brimming with bad vibes, since the prevailing winds of perception are that the idea of anonymity is a flimsy wet paper bag, in the face of what technology really has going on.

This sort of hopelessness is bringing about varying degrees of abandon, nevermind the negative examples of adults and celebrities that shed light on the total lack of any positive role model. They know that the only winning move is not to play, and sometimes even that isn't an option.

No one knows what they're doing. No one knows what comes next. And many, many people have a sinking feeling about what's already happened, and whether it's all far too late.

Instagram is an envy club. The vapidity of food, vacation, beaches. But generally lower on the spectacle, as a matter of trend more than anything else.

Snapchat is for trading nudes, and general subterfuge, such as spreading rumors about eachother, with selectively memory-holed messaging.

So even youtube, with the limited veracity of generally public video as a forum will fall too. It's only so much of a salve for truthiness.

<comment><USER80> > Facebook is literally brimming with bad vibes, since the prevailing winds of > perception...

I'm pretty sure the real reason why teenagers are leaving FB is because their parents are joining.

<comment><USER81> > I'm pretty sure the real reason why teenagers are leaving FB is because > their parents are joining.

This doesn't make sense as a reason in 2018, does it? Everyone's parents and grandparents joined a decade ago - they're not joining now in significant numbers in the West.

<comment><USER82> You're right. Better to say they never joined because there parents were on there. School is insular and the first group to have their parents begin reviewing their social interactions, I'd guess around 2012, 'taught' the younger grades that FB wasn't worthwhile compared to alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> This aligns extremely well with what I have seen with my teenagers and their friends.

Recently I was at an event where a teenager was giving a speech in which he mentioned Snapchat or Instagram and said, as an aside, "That's like Facebook for you old people".

</comment><comment><USER84> The key factor many would miss is gaming videos and gaming-related livestreams, that are really popular with younger demographics. Many of them don't even play games, they just watch it on Youtube(or Twitch), like sports fans.

</comment><comment><USER85> Then youtube should have a better age-based filtering mechanism for all its videos.

<comment><USER80> It seems like all content would be fine for them, what would you filter out for _teenagers_?

<comment><USER81> > what would you filter out for teenagers?

Most societies have an expectation that some content isn't shown to, for example a 13 year old person. In the US you have content ratings like NC-17, don't you? In the UK we have 15 and 18 rated content. So I guess content like that, some people would filter for teenagers.

<comment><USER86> I think Youtube already filters that content.

There are very few videos with age restriction and most of them have to do with sexually suggestive content, which doesn't make much sense because teenagers (at least male teens) consume porn anyways.

What kind of unrestricted videos are inappropiate for teens?

<comment><USER87> Age restriction is sort of a self imposed thing. But on youtube you only have "18+" or "all".

Youtube expects you to rate your videos yourself, or you can get reported and they will do it for you. Basically content that contains one of the following is supposed to be 18+ [1]:

* Vulgar language

* Violence and disturbing imagery

* Nudity and sexually suggestive content

* Portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities

Personally I put restriction when I upload game videos with graphic violence as that is not really suited for non adults imho. I'm less likely to put restriction on nudity and vulgar language although I don't swear myself in my videos.

[1] [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> My 11 y/o cousin says Facebook is "instagram for old people"

</comment><comment><USER89> Google is missing the opportunity to use youtube as the basis for a social network.

Zuckerberg is not one to stay still, he'll copy youtube and use it to keep Facebook relevant. It's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER50> Facebook already has been trying to "copy" YouTube for several years now. I remember a couple years back FB touting videos and how much time was spent on FB watching video. This news, seems to indicate they have not succeeded in denting YT's market share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> I'm over 40 and I totally get it, youtube is guaranteed to have something entertaining on it that I can find in seconds. Facebook, not so much.

</comment><comment><USER91> Last time I checked you needed to be 18 or older to have a Facebook account, most likely to protect Facebook themselves.

</comment><comment><USER92> This is one big "duh" for literally anyone around teens and pre-teens.

</comment><comment><USER93> My prime use is messenger and groups. There isn't alternative for groups.

</comment><comment><USER94> Minecraft videos.

<comment><USER50> This. My 9 year old has basically stopped playing Minecraft and now only watches Minecraft players on YT.

This seems to be her favorite: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1hvCOA0eQXwSAsW3jKs8IQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1hvCOA0eQXwSAsW3jKs8IQ)

I've tried to counteract this by purchasing the PC version (for her and her cousins), helping her with mods, encouraging her to "cast" her own gaming sessions, gaming with her (this works the best) - nothing has really worked. I'm not going to lose sleep over it but I'm also not giving up with trying to encourage her to be a "creator" and not just a consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> > America's Teens Are Choosing YouTube Over Facebook

Wow, that's like saying America's teens are choosing Jenkem over marijuana.

</comment><comment><USER96> how are the two even comparable?

<comment><USER97> people spending time on one or the other

<comment><USER50> This, combined with Facebook's previous motivations to "get into video" are probably worrisome to FB execs.

<comment><USER97> yes! didn't facebook plan to create a netflix competitor?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Also think Reddit as it passed FB to be #3 most popular site on the internet.

<comment><USER99> On Alexa, which is not necessarily a reliable source.

Plus it doesn't count app usage, making it a fairly useless indicator.

<comment><USER50> Reliable is probably not the best adjective. Alexa ratings are very reliable if you measure them against previous Alexa rankings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> YouTube and Google has better regulations against cyberbullying compared to Facebook.

~ Khayri R.R. Woulfe

</comment><comment><USER101> That I understand</comment>


Why should I get started with Node.js? - <AUTHOR> http://therain.posterous.com/why-should-i-get-started-with-nodejs

<comment> far-I moularity is a good reason.</comment>


ZEN-RRNN – On Meditation and Machines - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@samim/zen-rrnn-on-meditation-machines-bbeb92aa62d3

<comment><USER2> Meditation: Using selective attention to tune parameters of a neural network, aiming at optimizing.</comment>


Announcing AWS Athena: Query S3 with SQL - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/AWSreInvent/status/804003764612927488 <comment><USER3> Be careful when you google for this or it might get NSFWish: Top result "Amazon Athena" is a page on their shopping site - I clicked a bit too quickly, and it was a listing of women's lingerie. :-|

</comment><comment><USER4> Details: [https://aws.amazon.com/athena/faqs/](https://aws.amazon.com/athena/faqs/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very similar to Google Big Query. Hosted Presto with lambda alike pricing ($5 / TB scanned).

Great for ad-hoc, crazy expensive if you do it 24/7.

<comment><USER6> Very similar but even more crazy expensive than BigQuery, despite the pricing parity between the two services.

BigQuery automatically optimizes the data stored during ingress - <USER2> it's original format, it's converted to a columnar store, compressed, and (iirc) automatically optimized based on workload.

If you load an uncompressed CSV file into BigQuery and query a single column, it'll cost you the amount it takes to scan that single column in compressed form. If you have that CSV file in S3 and query it with Athena, it'll cost you the entire, uncompressed size of scanning every single column in that CSV file, even if your query only references one column. It'll be cheaper if the CSV file is Gzipped. And even cheaper if the data is partitioned into several CSV files (and the partitioning is known to Athena).

But all of those would still be even more expensive than BigQuery, because it's still processing unnecessary columns to get to the column you want. Unless you convert that CSV to a supported columnar format like Parquet, _then_ it starts to approach the cost of an equivalent BigQuery query.

It's still incredibly nifty, and I'm chomping at the bit to use it. But even with the same pricing as BigQuery, your queries will end up costing far more to run on Athena unless you _also_ invest continual resources into tuning the physical structure of your data to both Athena's processing structure and your query load, which BigQuery does for free in the background.</comment></comment>


Would a Google car sacrifice you for the sake of the many? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dweinberger/e9d6abcf6fed?

<comment><USER2> I think the cars should protect their own occupants at all costs when it comes to car vs car carnage. It's my car, it's my money that placed it in my possession, it's my life, that car is to protect me and my passengers above any other car.

That said, car vs pedestrian the car should choose the pedestrian every time. Pedestrians are not designed to get into an accident whereas our cars are.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to buy .ly domains? - <AUTHOR>

Where one buys .ly domains? I did a quick search and none of the choices that nic.ly offers does look legit. <comment><USER2> I have used <http://libyanspider.com/> in the past and have been totally satisfied.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used <http://www.libyanspider.com/> for my .ly purchases.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone!</comment>


Raising the Dead (Processes) - <AUTHOR> http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/01/raising-dead.html <comment><USER2> Very impressive. I didn't know tokens referenced their session by ID instead of handle; this seems like the most serious of the architectural errors here. I wonder if it can be fixed.</comment>


Ask HN: Quick tips to get more performance out of your server - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure you all have your box of tricks that you've found over the years on what helps to optimize a web server for high volume.<p>Would you mind sharing ? <comment><USER2> Re-check code for better efficiency.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Mount your filesystems with noatime.</comment>


Go the Fuck Home: Engineering Work/Life Balance - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBoS-svKdgs

<comment><USER2> I have a unpopular opinion, goes against the main theme of this thread.

I find the "go the fuck home" strategy works for projects where output can be correlated with time spent. I'm in a situation where we're in new terrain, we're hitting problems that haven't been encountered before in our space. To fix them properly, I need to do a deep dive and fix the root cause, this takes time, time which seems to never exist.

Its quite insulting when someone says, "You can't get done this between 9-5, so you're incapable of doing this job."

Have you guys been in this type of a grind? I'm not sure how to deal with this right now other than fixing the core issues and moving on, which basically means working even more.

<comment><USER3> This just sounds like "context switching" is your problem (I have the same problem where I work), instead of the number of hours you work. That's a well know productivity killer for programmers. If your job is flexible about the hours you work I think that's a separate issue than what's discussed here. Work late and come in late the next day or come in early and leave early. Maybe there's a few core support hours in the middle of the day where you need to be reachable for meetings or something.

I'm thinking about trying to implement a "quiet time," an hour or a few hour window everyday where you can expect some radio-silence. Even if it's once or twice a week I think it'd help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hear this is the case in other countries. If you stay late you're seen as incapable of completing your work in a responsible amount of time. I like this and try to encourage others not to work extra hours without compensation.

I really wish I stashed this article I read a year or so ago. I've tried to find it a few times and haven't. It was a college professor talking about how normal work hours are filled with procedure; boring stuff necessary for the job. Time cards, meetings, etc. This really encroaches on productive time. Most of us chose our line of work because it's something that interests us.

In that same vein, there are things your management finds worth spending time on and things you feel are more important. Your normal work hours are beholden to your supervisor since they pay the bills. After hours, you can choose what to work on. Glaring problems will be around for years and only get addressed if someone takes the time to address time. They're never "significant" enough to get scheduled.

I don't think the answer is to work extra hours unpaid. But I don't think talks like this address the reason people do it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have the following issue: Sometimes work tasks appear before I come to work or after I leave (before 9 am or after 6 pm) and someone else (working more hours than me) does the tasks and my manager gets complaints about me that I'm not around. I can certainly handle the workload, and the tasks usually can wait, but there are people staying 12 hours at workplace ready to do them or complain that I'm not present.

So far my manager was on my side because I wasn't informed about these tasks beforehand, but this still causes a lot of stress for me.</comment>


Some Thoughts On Email After Dealing With 500 Emails - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/11/some-thoughts-on-email-after-dealing-with-500-emails.html <comment><USER2> I'm reposting my comment from Fred's blog here:

I've always wondered if a "tweetdeck interface for email" would make sense. Basic column for white listed important people, add columns for filters (search terms, groups of people,etc.) and other parameters. People can write longer emails, but the form factor enforces things to be shorter when they can. Integrate in some simple plugins for media sharing (pictures, video, large doc attachments). It would also know when notifications came in from facebook,twitter,etc. since each service usually uses a certain email address. This is my killer email app. If someone builds it, name your price, and ill be your first customer.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Gmail knows who these people are and I can't for the life of me understand why they don't build a tool to source up all of those emails automatically. Please build that feature google."

I think PB said they had built it, but they never released it because they couldn't figure out the right UI.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, he just referenced it this weekend in his Wave review: [http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009/11/so-i-finally- tried-...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2009/11/so-i-finally-tried- wave.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        8) Gmail is life changing. Thank you google.

I am also a gmail fan-boy. It makes me crazy to see otherwise intelligent and tech-savvy people use yahoo mail or hotmail. You know who you are. It's almost as painful to me as seeing somebody use IE instead of FF.

I'm transitioning my sister, by allowing her to pop3 it into her MS Outlook, which is how I got started. Then the day came when I just quit firing up Outlook.

<comment><USER6> It's not that easy to switch email providers when you have 10+ years of history. I have Yahooo and Gmail accounts, but all my old friends keep sending emails to Yahoo.

<comment><USER7> Gmail has an feature where it will pull over the contacts and mails from your Yahoo account, and tag them with a label:

[http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=m...](http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=117173)

<comment><USER6> Migrating contacts isn't the problem. The problem is people keep emailing me at my Yahoo address even when I give them my Gmail address.

<comment><USER8> No problem, you can let gmail fetch emails of any pop3 or imap account. This is what I do with my university email account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like how he says that brevity != disinterest. I wish this understanding was the norm instead of having to be pointed out.

</comment><comment><USER10> _I let the rest build up in my inbox and try to get to it on the weekends._

seems to directly conflict with

 _4) I like to have conversations via email._

this would be like trying to converse with someone over postal mail, except it might even be faster to mail this guy a letter than wait for him to reply next weekend to your email.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think this plays into the theme that there is a lot of room for people to be more concise in all forms of communication - especially email.</comment>


How sky-high housing costs make California the poorest state - <AUTHOR> http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/28/how-sky-high-housing-costs-make-california-the-poorest-state-2/ <comment><USER2> This is so fascinating to me, and it seems like a problem we really need to be focusing on. Are there any other solutions besides building new homes?</comment>


The New Masters of the Universe: From Silicon Valley, a New Elite Is Coming - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/the-new-masters-of-the-universe <comment><USER2> This article has some interesting things to say, and paints a useful picture of California's politics.

But, I think one of its flaws is that it lumps Tech and Entertainment/Media into the same category. These industries are somewhat different.

For example, tech employment can be relatively robust for people in San Francisco and the Valley at the same time as Southern California's entertainment production workers are losing their jobs to other US states which offer relatively large tax incentives to production companies and studios.

And, I think, as a point of comparison, it's interesting that, in recent years, the California legislature handed the entertainment industry a large boost in tax credits for productions it kept in state (as opposed to competitors like Louisiana and Georgia).

And that's an important difference. I haven't seen the legislature giving, say, Yahoo, a special tax holiday if it can just get its act together and stop laying off people. And the state government's reaction to Uber has not been particularly friendly either. I see some antagonism to Tech in state and local government. And the Tech industry is still viewed as a monstrously fat tax cow by the government.

Still, the article's portrait of California as a "bifurcated" economy has some truth. The state contains a huge number of poor and middle class people who do not directly benefit from "Software Valley's" jobs machine. (The main thing they receive from it is some government services paid for by taxes on that machine's workers.)

<comment><USER3> >And, I think, as a point of comparison, it's interesting that, in recent years, the California legislature handed the entertainment industry a large boost in tax credits for productions it kept in state (as opposed to competitors like Louisiana and Georgia).

What I always wonder is how Silicon Valley can have such an utterly monstrous cost of living problem, exacerbated by public policies that explicitly favor landowners and incumbent residents over scrappy young arrivals with new ideas and small budgets, _and the tech industry doesn 't just move somewhere cheaper out of sheer self-interest._

<comment><USER4> The land owners and incumbents are the ones that provide the funding and expertise

<comment><USER5> generation ago they were the "scrappy young arrivals with new ideas and small budgets". And the generation before them... My former manager who bought house in Los Altos in 1981 still remembers how tough it was back then even with 2 high-tech salaries...

Generation after generation the thing is working - may be something in the air? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Then again, it's possible that a new paradigm is right around the corner and will fundamentally disrupt everyone including the Silicon Valley elite.

Of course, most of us have no idea what it will be -- some radical advance in biotech such as CRISPR[1], huge advances in 3-D printing, virtual reality workplaces, cold fusion, discovering and harnessing gravitons, virtually- sentient robotic devices, teleportation of physical objects....

When this happens--and given the rate of acceleration of new discoveries in our hyper-connected, 24x7 world, it's definitely "when" and not "if"\--we will experience massive economic disruption that will be exploited by a new generation of visionaries. Those visionaries won't necessarily be the same people who are really good with javascript. It will be yet another class, and the javascript folks will become the elders, like Gates and Ellison.

Should be an interesting time; hope I'm around to see it and take part in it!

1\. [http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-the- disruptor-1.17673](http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-the-disruptor-1.17673)

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this just a rehash of the "economic civil war" article from a few weeks ago?

<comment><USER8> Link?

<comment><USER9> Probably this [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714292)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Aside from the somewhat out-of-place right wing tone, this is all basically true.

About 5-6 years ago, it occurred to me that:

        - information is the new oil
        - politics is the exchange of power

which implies:

        - in 2030 or so, we will have someone with a tech background as president.

Why did we have George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as presidents? Because they developed immense wealth through controlling the flow of oil around the globe. They went to Saudi Arabia and brought back oil.

Then they exchanged this power for political power.

Information is like oil in that _everybody_ needs it. You can't build a house, open a restaurant, import shoes, etc. without energy, and you can't do any of it without information either. Whereas you can open a restaurant without building a house. These two things are special and fundamental.

Now we have the flow of information concentrated in the hands of the very few. We rent our devices from Apple and Google, and they exercise control over what apps you run on it, and what content is surfaced through searches. Things that happen on Facebook can change the course of your life.

In the near future, there will be undoubtedly be someone who exchanges this immense power for political power, just as the Bushes did. I'm not saying this is good or bad -- it's just a fact, in an almost mathematical sense.

<comment><USER11> >We rent our devices from Apple and Google, and they exercise control over what apps you run on it,

From my understanding, Apple is a little different in that as far as I can tell, they make money off of, you know, _you_ \- selling you things directly, not off of selling your information to third parties. I mean, they do control what you can and can't install on your device, but they do so not in service of collecting more data on you, but in service of getting you to buy more stuff from them. Because their money ultimately comes from you rather than from advertisers, they ultimately have different aims.

(if this is wrong, please correct me.)

This is relevant because Your whole thesis rests on the idea that the currently-popular business model of "give consumers free stuff in exchange for personal data" will remain stable, that the "advertising based" model will win over the apple model.

And maybe it will. I don't know. But right now? it looks like the apple model has won the high end, while the "give you stuff in exchange for your personal information" dominates the low end. Now, personally, I wouldn't bet money that the current situation is stable; in part _because_ of this huge economic inequality, and _because_ the people you really want as customers are paying for the services with money rather than with personal information. There is an argument to be made that a lot of this personal data collected by the cellphone companies who make their money through collecting data is mostly personal data of the poor, because wealthier people use the cellphone company who charges you money.

I mean, you could be right, certainly, but my point is just that things haven't settled out yet. We're still in the part of the economic cycle where we simply don't know what will stick after the "dumb money" leaves the system.

<comment><USER10> They are different, but Apple still exercises a high degree of control over what's in the App Store. There's no porn. They restrict the programming languages you can use, and AFAIK you can't make certain types of programming environments.

You could argue that they are nibbling around the edges, and "most stuff you want" is in the App Store. But I still see it as a huge amount of control.

They also seem to auto-complete what's typed into the Safari address bar, which heavily influences the sites you visit. And they choose the default search provider. Defaults matter.

My thesis doesn't really rest on profit from advertising vs. devices. I agree that they are different, but I'm just saying that these companies have a lot of power in the abstract sense. True, some of that power could be more exchangeable for political power. Maybe Facebook and Google are more powerful politically than Apple, just because they deal more directly with information.

<comment><USER11> >You could argue that they are nibbling around the edges, and "most stuff you want" is in the App Store. But I still see it as a huge amount of control.

Apple has control, sure, like Microsoft did in the '90s. More, really, because it was harder for Microsoft to lock competing application developers out than it is for apple. And yeah, the perception I had was that Microsoft was all about control... but it was about control over your desktop, like Apple has over your phone, not about control over personal data that it can use to better sell stuff. Microsoft used that control to make programs that you didn't pay them for work less well (and Apple does the same) - You can make a good argument that it's a bad and maybe even scary thing, but it's straightforward and very different from someone who wants control in exchange for your personal data.

I would _very much_ compare apple to microsoft in the '90s, only with less market share (and I think it's really interesting that Apple asserts control in ways that Microsoft would have loved to in the '90s, and Apple does it without anything close to a monopoly)

>They also seem to auto-complete what's typed into the Safari address bar, which heavily influences the sites you visit. And they choose the default search provider. Defaults matter.

This is an example of how that sort of power could get scary, and raising concerns about this makes a lot of sense.

But that really has nothing to do with my point.

But my point was just that apple presents a counterargument to this idea that information will be the new oil. The Apple counterargument is that it's possible that collecting a bunch of data on users in order to sell advertising is... less valuable than we think. Less valuable than simply charging people for premium (both in quality and margin) goods and services. I mean, sure, personal data for targeted advertising is clearly worth _something_ \- but right now, we seem to think that it's worth more than the rest of the advertising-supported media industry put together, and... it's possible that we are wrong, and that using user data to sell advertising just isn't as huge of a deal as we think it is. Maybe instead of the new oil, that sort of information is the new, say, wood pulp. That sounds a lot more reasonable to me.

The idea is that Apple, like Microsoft in the '90s, sure, could use their power over your desktop for evil... but gaining power over your desktop isn't why they write programs. Companies that release free softare in exchange for user tracking have a very different model; their goal is to collect user data, in part because they really do think that 'information is the new oil' \- which, like, I said, may very well turn out to be the case, but is not a settled thing yet, not by a long shot.

For you to understand my point, you also need to understand that I was also assuming that by "information" you meant "personal data" in the sense of personal data that is used to convince advertisers that they should pay more for ads because they are better targeted - which may or may not be what you meant, but it was what I was responding to. If you meant something different by 'information' of course, none of what I wrote makes any sense.

<comment><USER10> I didn't necessarily mean personal data, although it's worth thinking about the distinction between personal data and information in general, and how that relates to exchanging power. There is some amount of power that flows from just making tons of money, as Apple/Facebook/Google all do, and some amount of power that flows from having information and exploiting it (above the money that you made from that information).

A good example of the latter is using social graphs for very targeted campaigns to sway voters, which only appeared in the 2008 and 2012 elections. [1]

Apple does have all that personal data too -- your device usage patterns, location, app installs, browsing habits, e-mail, calendar, etc. It just seems like they use it less (for the time being). They have the potential to capitalize on that, but haven't done it to a great extent.

Your point is taken -- Apple has a more lucrative business in selling devices than Google or Facebook have in pure information. Although, I don't necessarily think this is fundamental, and it could easily change in the next 5-10 years. I expect information to continue to become more important and more lucrative.

I don't think the fact that Apple makes more money from devices necessarily refutes the idea that information is the new oil. I guess you could say that computer hardware is fundamental too, in that basically everybody needs it, but I don't really think it is as fundamental as information or oil.

I guess what happened with both information and oil is that a small group of companies monopolized them. If you choose not to use Facebook, there is not a great alternative, because your friends aren't there. Similarly, there are few alternatives to many of Google's services. In the case of oil, control was through mechanisms like OPEC and Western military power.

Apple has had tremendous success with computer hardware, but they don't have a monopoly. I don't think the computer hardware business is as prone to monopolies as software and information.

[1] Not sure if these are the best articles, but voter targeting as a new and advancing technology is pretty well documented:

[http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/obama-2012-the-most- mi...](http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/obama-2012-the-most-micro- targeted-campaign-in-history)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-obama- campai...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-obama-campaign-won- the-race-for-voter- data/2013/07/28/ad32c7b4-ee4e-11e2-a1f9-ea873b7e0424_story.html)

Also see : [http://www.dailydot.com/politics/search-engine- manipulation-...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/search-engine-manipulation- effect-election/)

<comment><USER11> the fundamental disagreement here is:

>I expect information to continue to become more important and more lucrative.

whereas I am arguing for the opposite. I certainly don't know that I'm right or not, but I _do_ think that the valuations of the companies that give away services in exchange for personal data are betting that you are right and I am wrong. Apple... I _believe_ apple is betting my way. I _believe_ (and certainly don't know for sure) that apple is being much more cautious about user's data because they know that, well, this is part of why they are getting my money, and I assume the same can be said for a fairly large group of consumers.

>Apple has had tremendous success with computer hardware, but they don't have a monopoly. I don't think the computer hardware business is as prone to monopolies as software and information.

I believe that apple is best thought of as a software company, like Microsoft. Apple gets involved in hardware because by controlling the hardware, they can make their software better, and charge more for it.

Modern Apple hardware isn't particularly amazing or innovative compared to the competition. I mean, it's not terrible (except the keyboards, but that's just a matter of taste.) - it's not behind the curve in terms of hardware, but it's not really ahead of the curve, either, unless we're talking about fashion (and personally, I think it goes both ways. You'd be embarrassed to use an apple in the '90s because they were kind of terrible. it's possible that they are cool now because they actually work pretty well. It's a "smart" thing to use - It's possible that fashion is following function here.)

It's interesting, because before last year, I had not owned or even seriously used an apple device in the 30+ years I've used computers. I really want to control my own software. I had a n900 for a long time, then one of the keyboarded android phones... and I worked _so hard_ to install my own android build and control my own software for so long, but because the phone hardware market is so fractured, doing so on a phone is way harder than doing so on a laptop, so while I run linux or bsd on all my servers, desktops and laptops (aside from the one game machine) - I have an apple phone, because I have decided that I don't have the time to sysadmin my phone, and apple sysadmins my phone in ways that aren't annoying and offensive.

But yeah... things haven't settled out yet, so it's possible apple will go the 'mine user data route' \- but the thing is, I don't think they can do that without significantly hurting the customer experience that their products provide.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I have an idea but can't code. - <AUTHOR> I've spent a few hours looking at previous questions like this here. There's a camp that says GO LEARN, another that says GO LEARN A LITTLE, AT LEAST, then find a technical co-founder. A few say other.
I would love to learn, and have dabbled (albeit slightly) in it. I mean, I've done very basic stuff. Very foundational stuff, but nothing close to even close to sufficient. I'll still keep going.
Here's the thing. I'm going to law school. I start in a few months. There's literally no way I'm going to have the time to learn anything of value while in law school. I don't think having the idea itself is worthless but I understand offering my idea to the company isn't good enough, and isn't good enough to have staying power, either. I could have something of value to offer as a lawyer, but I'm not there yet and won't be for 3 years.
I don't want to sit on this idea for too long, it's pretty simple by nature, convenient but easy for big, already established companies to replicate it in a heartbeat, especially with the man power, smarts, and data that they have.
What should I do?!
I'll add that because of the caliber of law school I'm attending (and the institution's business and other associated schools), I'll meet some entrepreneurial/coding/etc. individuals, with connections, I'm just not sure I 1. actually will  2. If this even makes sense to bank on? 3. Is this my best bet at this point? Finding a classmate/colleague?
Any other suggestions appreciated. <comment><USER2> I searched the whole page and I don't see the word "validate" anywhere. Is there no-one to tell this poor guy to throw up a landing page and buy ads to see if anyone cares?

Blastoffering - don't quit law school, don't invest, don't get a cofounder. Your only job right now is to validate your idea.

You believe in it - that's dangerous. You could be wrong. Building it and then discovering that is ludicrous. Imagine you dropped out of school, convinced your parents to invest 300k, convinced a coder to quit his job at google and lose $x00k of options, only to discover after building it that nobody gives a shit!. Instead, try to validate your idea in the cheapest way you possibly can.

Your inspiration should be Arram Sabeti, CEO and founder of ZeroCater. The dude had 500 customers before they wrote any code. He scaled it up to 500k ARR while running it off a spreadsheet!

There's this pervasive myth that once you get an idea you need to go find a technical cofounder. Bullshit. The last thing you want to do when you have an idea is code. You need to validate the idea as cheaply as possible.

Code isn't cheap for you. That advice about just building it - that's for engineers, where a few years ago building something was a cheap way to validate. Today, for you, it'll be cheaper to buy ads, pre-sell it to potential customers, or even do the cliche talking-to-strangers-in-a-starbucks things. All of those options are better than writing code at this stage.

Email me, I'll set you straight and help you turn the idea into practical steps which will allow you validate the idea without writing any code: firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER3> This is good advise ( mainly coming from Founder of a service which helps developers to ship better code ) .

On a side note, it will be better if OP includes what he really wants to achieve.

Do you just want to some how see the app/website built ?

Do you want to create a profitable business ?

Or are you doing it for fun ?

etc..

<comment><AUTHOR> I do want to turn this into something profitable. I wouldn't say it's "for fun" but I like it because it's something I've always felt I needed at various points, and would be useful to me. Knowing this, it'll even be more useful to the regular, everyday individual because they'll likely use it more than I would. So, I would love to see it built, but I'd love to be one of the people building it more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ideas are almost worthless, but getting people to believe in ideas is not. Go prove it to yourself and get a developer to believe in your potential company.

If you believe in it truly, go and borrow and pay a top notch developer and have full ownership.

If you only think you truly believe in it, but on second look you are concerned about borrowing money to invest in it, then try to find a developer. Speak with conviction and maybe you will get them to quit their $100,000 job and invest their time for a huge amount of equity - maybe you keep 20% if it's a great idea or less if it's not.

The real truth is if it's ---

"easy for big, already established companies to replicate it in a heartbeat"..

You really don't have a chance if you can't program.

You need more than code. You need a whole infrastructure of people to scale and without being a programmer yourself, you will have difficulty getting talent to work for you and maybe even difficulty recognizing who is actually good.

<comment><USER5> It's important to note that you can often "go prove it to yourself and get a developer to believe in your potential company" without coding a thing. For example, a non-technical friend that I'd worked with a few times came to me last year with an idea. I wasn't looking to jump ship from my current gig, but I was happy to advise him as he ramped up. We took his idea and boiled it down to some minimal questions that needed to be answered.

From there, he manually simulated the product: he manually gathered data from publicly available sources, manually dumped them into the tech he intended to use for some analysis, manually evaluated the results, etc. The result? In less than two weeks' time, we figured out that he actually had a decent idea going. Over beers, I sketched for him a general outline of how I'd automate the process -- nothing too detailed, nothing getting into the weeds, but I was able to give him an outline and say "here is where you've got some risk" or "this part's easy."

He shopped that around to a few folks, some of whom I was able to recommend to him, and ended up finding a technical cofounder. That guy threw everything I'd suggested away and went with another stack, but that's not the important part. What matters is that my buddy a) had proof that the thing _could_ work, and b) had clearly done some due diligence in figuring out the initial development needs. That made him more attractive to technical people and led to his landing that technical cofounder.

So I'd advise you to:

1\. Think hard about how much what you're doing needs any code at all.

2\. Anything you can do manually, you should go ahead and do just to prove things out to yourself and, later, to potential cofounders.

3\. Find a friend or a friendly face at a local meetup who'd be willing to advise -- don't ask for anything more.

4\. Use the outputs of these processes to either a) decide not to go forward with it, because that's what you may learn, or b) pitch technical people.

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let it go.

Your idea is worth sh!t anyway, whatever it is.

Plus this sucks: "I want someone else to design, build, deploy and manage a technical project for me (and maybe market and sell it too). They'll of course get (insert equity slice and post-revenue comp plan here), so how awesome is that."

You and everyone else.

Have you talked to a potential customer yet? Start there.

If you can't figure out how to get to a minimal proof of viability from where you're at, just drop it. Getting it built is not the hard part, with or without (insert classmate/colleague).

<comment><AUTHOR> lmao, relax man.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, technical people get weekly offers to build some cool new idea (80% of the work), for 20% or less equity.

Not saying this is you and you sound totally different, but be aware of this reaction as it will be common. Ways to stop it are to be properly validated and bring more to the table than an idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Finish law school, that's the best way to make a certain investment in your future.

I don't want to be too negative but ideas have a way of distorting the mind..... they look amazing to you, but in reality it's probably a flawed idea. Don't give up real world stability for a delusion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's the thing. I don't doubt there are holes in my idea. I do think it's good, but I'm sure there is work to be done. I honestly don't plan on dropping law school. It's just too risky for me. Not because, again, I don't think it's good, but this is my future and life. So yeah, I guess I'll have to figure something out at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _it 's pretty simple by nature, convenient but easy for big, already established companies to replicate it in a heartbeat, especially with the man power, smarts, and data that they have._

Sounds like you have a pretty good reason not to pursue it?

<comment><USER10> I Disagree. Whether the idea is trivial or not, it's the execution that determines the outcome.

<comment><USER7> But you cant execute it alone right? So you are relying on someone you get to work on the cheap to out execute a big corp? I wouldn't invest in that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You have two options: 1. Drop law school and do it. 2. Finish law school and do it.

You will always have another idea. You will make important connections even without law school. You will always be able to learn new things.

Let go of the idea of who you might become in 3 years.

Pick the option you think will make you feel the most alive, follow your stomach and intuition.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you don't have time to learn to code, then you almost certainly don't have time to be a co-founder etc.

It's unfortunate, but there's only so much we can do at once. It comes down to priorities.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think, at least from my perspective, there's a stark difference between using my time as a co-founder vs. learning basic code. My capacity to function as a co-fonder far surpasses that of building my idea from a strictly coding standpoint. Not to say I'll be some savant at co-founding, but when compared to my coding ability, it's not even close. I'm essentially still learning my ABC's at coding.

Though I do have the same amount of X hours allocated to the idea, I don't think they're worth the same as a co-founder/learning the law vs. starting to code from scratch, if you see where I'm coming from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've known people who would look at a piece of art and say, "Meh, I could do that." And I think they miss the point: the artist did and the bush-league critic didn't. The reason that the artist did and the bush-leaguer didn't is because the artist cared about making it happen enough to invest the effort required to make it happen.

Over time, I've come to give some credence to the idea that not implementing some spark of imagination is a good indicator that I don't really care that much about the idea and that the ideas that I implement are probably things I really care about.

Just from the high level description, it seems to me that you care about going to law school enough to make it happen and don't care about the idea enough to implement it. More importantly your analysis indicates a damn good reasons not to implement it: the skills to make it happen are absent, a professional network containing people with those skills who are close enough to step onboard is absent; and the underlying business model is easy to replicate.

As for specific advice, I like this essay: [https://sivers.org/multiply](https://sivers.org/multiply)

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. I don't really think me not dropping law school as a whole is a good indicator of how much I care about the idea. I just think it means I'm not delusional.

There are a ton of reasons my idea may/may not work, and it wouldn't have anything to do with how good the idea actually is. It's just that since this isn't a video game, I actually have to proceed in way that actually makes sense, balancing both realistic possibilities and my current outlook.

I think hesitating, or wanting more info to properly tackle this, makes to most sense for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I never felt the "meh I could do that" sentiment or alluded that it's easy. I agree, wholeheartedly, that it's an incredibly important part of the whole thing.

<comment><USER13> I apologize. I did not mean to imply that that was your attitude. My intent was to convey the idea that not feeling compelled to do whatever it takes to make it happen seems to be a useful filter of ideas...at least to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Software devs usually have no shortage of their own ideas. They have no need for external ideas. People rarely get passionate about other people's ideas. If you want a technical co-founder, you have to bring a lot of value to the table, such as deep domain knowledge, customers, investors, and/or your own money.

The market for lawyers isn't looking good and you haven't started law school yet. Is it too late to switch to CompSci?

</comment><comment><USER15> You're going to law school, so whats easier? learning to code or designing a legally-plausible system for work barter that provides any product in a collaborative way without involving money on the front end, but includes equity when its sold or funded? Use your core competency as a lawyer since you chose that and channel it into a system that gets your product created. That's my suggestion.

</comment><comment><USER16> You'll be super busy with law school, focus on that, make sure that's a priority, do your best and finish top of your class.

That said lots of people build their idea with full time jobs, while going to school and even with a family.

So make the most of your spare time, weekends, summers.

Whether you learn to code or are a co-founder it's going to be work.

This will be interesting for you: [http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/archives](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/archives)

And I love @DHH's advice here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

Good luck, make the most of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response! I'm not scared of the work. I'm just looking to be as efficient as possible. and learning one part of the business, though extremely important, might not be the best use of time. And could hurt on two-fronts (the idea itself + law school). I'm ready to work, but I'm just trying to get a feel for what makes sense at the moment in terms of proceeding. I'll check out those links! Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions." \--- [https://sivers.org/multiply](https://sivers.org/multiply)

</comment><comment><USER18> Ideas by themselves are not worth as much as you'd think, whether you can code or not. There are a limited number of ways to make money off of software. You can sell or rent the software to consumers as-is, you can sell or rent the software to businesses as-is, or you can rent the software to businesses including support and/or customization (Software as a Service).

Even a simple app direct to consumers requires developer time and resources over a number of years just to keep it current. The overhead in that case can be very low, but the odds of it turning more than a modest amount of money back is also very low. And if its easily replicable, as you suggest, then it's much more likely to just be done by an established company.

If you're interested in getting involved in startups or other software businesses in the future, you should look at it like any other potential career path in law. Keep an eye on the field, take the time in your 3L to look for internships or other opportunities to learn about this area of law, and try and look for meetups and other developer groups in the area and learn how it works from the dev perspective.

Ideas are only one part of what makes a successful business in software or elsewhere. If you want to have a successful career, you are better off learning as much as you can about the field, especially from people already in it, than following up on an idea. There's always another idea to follow up on in this field, but knowing how the field works and gaining contacts in your area will allow you to follow up on them long-term.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have idea, but as something with any idea from internet you should use your own brain to figure if it has merit.

Write everything down about your idea in a paper. Then store it somewhere safe. Let it go for a while, and concentrate on law school first year. Check if you can bring second year courses, to your first year. Check if you can study in the next summer also. Then if you can graduate in 17-22 months do it. If you can't do that, but can move workload from later years to first year then do that and be able to work on your idea in later years of your school more freely. Design your law school experience to get back to your idea in either 17-22 months from now as graduated lawyer, or 10-22 months from now part time because you have more free time in your school scheduler. This way your idea is motivator for you to work harder in your law school, instead of distraction. Your goal is to get as soon as possible able to work on your idea full time or with serious amount of time instead of splitting your attention between two.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it too late to skip law school?

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the- jobs...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-jobs-crisis- at-our-best-law-schools-is-much-much-worse-than-you-think/274795/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol Yup. Too late. I think I'm in probably as good of a position I can be in with respect to your article, though. Tough market, but reputation is real value in the legal field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The chances your idea is both unique and useful are essentially nil.

It's probably not new. Just enjoy the thought "won't it be cool when somebody starts a company that does X" and realize that you are not that person (skill / life stage mismatch).

But you could also develop the idea quietly on the side while in school. If not the tech, then the legal aspects and some market and competitive research. Then if the opportunity is still not taken by others in a couple years, do more.

Also you should read some lists of business/tech ideas others have already had. There are plenty of such lists out on the interwebs. For example pet sitter for after you die, ok, whatever. If you find your idea on these lists, that tells you something... maybe there are better ideas. But if you don't, the converse is not necessarily true (it doesn't mean your idea is good).

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe not unique, but useful (I think). Nothing's really that new under the sun. I, personally, think it's hiding in plain sight. All besides the point. It's an idea, and I'm just looking at the best possible angle to tackle execution. You've probably met many people who have said they have "The next Facebook/Google" [insert mega company]... I'm by no means saying that, so there's no reason to put so much effort into trying to convince me my idea is horrible and/or has been done, thought of, etc. Maybe my idea is absolute garbage, I won't even know for sure until it actually flops, though.

I also never said it was unique in the sense that it's a brand new concept. It's not. It's simple, and there are derivatives out there (kinda, ish, but not exactly), but i think there's an opportunity here for something (sorta) new.

<comment><USER21> "my idea" there's the problem. You are elevating it to a higher status than it deserves. It's "an idea" not your idea. One of many you'll have if you stay open minded. Don't fixate on it, that's all. There are billions, trillions, maybe more, ideas, many of them great. Just focus on preparing yourself to execute on any idea. I'm speaking as someone who has had many ideas, and time and ability to execute very, very few of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> What the hell are you even talking about? "There" is not the problem. Nowhere did I say anything close to what you're alluding to. That I'm closing off potential future ideas? You've run off on a series of tangents since your original post, none of which, of course, addressed anything I had been saying or asking.

Saying "my idea" is "the problem"? That's the position you want to stand by?

and using those words doesn't (by ANY measure) indicate I'm elevating it to a "higher level than it deserves." 1\. You don't know what level it "deserves to be." 2\. It is in fact, an idea that I have come up with, independent of anyone else. This is not to say that the idea isn't out there or original in and of itself, but it is okay for me to say it's "my idea." It also happens to be "an idea", as well. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm fixating on my (or an, if you prefer) idea to the extent it's the one I have and want to execute on at the moment. Yes, I have had (and will have) more ideas. That means nothing.

<comment><USER21> Whoa OK yeah maybe I laid it on a little heavy. I wish you the best with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing you said was heavy. You just didn't say anything [or much] that seemed to be on track to my (or apparently your original) point. Thanks, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'll sign an NDA and tell you if I can make it or not or maybe give you insight as to whether you'd get crushed or not. I seriously couldn't care less about your lawyerly endeavors but if it's worth it to you we can figure out either equity or payment. My email is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER23> I believe you should try to prepare a proto before the actual coding. Try validating your Idea first then make a proto; you can do it without knowing anything about coding. Use online tools it helps allot

</comment><comment><USER24> Your best shot imho is to learn Python (the easiest and most expendable language for startups: full stack web development, machine learning, security etc.) at your own pace as a side aspect of your cv, while you are in law school. After law school, you could end up with a law-related startup idea and be your own technical cofounder with the comfort of a nicer landing in the case it fails. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER25> Your contribution even if you do not code it could still be pretty big. Look at Peter Thiel, he went to law school, but was still a co-founder of Paypal.

Network at your school and find some tech guys that can execute the idea in code. There will still be many aspects outside of coding that you can contribute to.

</comment><comment><USER26> I applaud you for the humility you exhibit in asking this question, as it seems like you are an extremely sharp individual and capable to be your own engineer.

You need to be creative: Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to hustle and get creative with the skills you do have. You need to think like an entrepreneur, take ownership of your situation, and act pragmatically as a "ceo" would. Right now, you are the ceo of your idea.

I'll issue you a challenge that might serves the dual purposes of giving you a concrete next step / goal to aim at.. and (hopefully) provides value in moving your idea forward - and that doesn't require coding.

First, There are numerous lean startup-y approaches to vetting your ideas iteratively and sans-coding. See Steve Blank on google. Or Business Model Canvas. Or Lean Startup. And many others....

Second, once that is done, or in parallel to it, or if you know there is a market: Do as much as you can in building and testing the core concepts without actually coding it. From wordpress to scanning in a sketch + hotspots, to using MailChimp, to Google Docs as backend, to Powerpoint... and many others.... there is a LOT you can do without writing a line of code. If you read about many entrepreneurs, they start off that way. Numerous examples out there... I'd apportion your time learning what those tools are (e.g. what you can do with mailchimp in building a community).

Once you sense things are clicking in terms of market demand (however small) and product hypothesis direction, you will have no trouble attracting the resources you need (human and financial). Bootstrap.

Of course, in parallel, if you do have a desire to continue to learn programming, then you can continue to do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice! and got it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can find people here on HN looking for app ideas for their GitHub portfolio, like here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9526282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9526282)

Ask them whether they would like to work with you on your idea.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks If you can break down the project into small enough chunks to manage it properly, you can break it down into small enough chunks to learn coding on the fly. But coding ability is not the barrier here.

</comment><comment><USER15> Once you create the system for your product as a test, make it work for ANYTHING and get with venture capitalists to take the mature products. That's my expound on the suggestion.

</comment><comment><USER28> Should i validate my idea even if it is already making money? Thanks

</comment><comment><USER29> Maybe look into a hackathon like a startup weekend: [http://startupweekend.org/](http://startupweekend.org/)

It's specifically made for it to be quick and easy to share your idea and connect with devs/designers/biz devs.

<comment><USER21> Ugh, no. Developers already have their own ideas. People who bring only ideas to the table at a hackathon are often regarded as a nuisance.

<comment><USER30> That's a shame. There must be some developers who just like building stuff and don't have something in mind. I did that a few times at Hackathons, paired with a designer or idea person and built their idea.</comment></comment></comment>