Sears has another chance to avoid closing down - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/sears-rejects-eddie-lamperts-bid-to-save-company-will-liquidate-.html <comment><USER2> Sears had everything. Global supply chain, check. Top notch distribution operation, check. System and infrastructure to take orders and handling billing, check. Name recognition and established customer base, check.

They threw it all away, ending catalog operations in 1993 a year before Amazon.com opened in 1994. They owned part of Prodigy in 1984! Yet somehow thought it was a better move to expand into bigger box retail. Anyone remember The Great Indoors from 1997? It was going to have huge potential.

What a waste.

<comment><USER3> I thought this as well until I heard a counter-point [0] which was very convincing.

The reason Amazon is successful is not because you can shop online (from a catalog) and receive items in the mail. The reason Amazon is successful is because you can do those things and receive your items within two days. Before Prime existed, Amazon had very quick fulfillment, and after Prime two-day it became even better.

The Sears catalog ended in 1993 but the Sears Wish Book continued to exist after that. In 1999 I remember ordering something from the Wish Book required 3 weeks to receive the item. If they didn't have the desire to improve that, then they would never have become Amazon.

> If anything, Sears was the worst positioned to become Amazon. What they had > was just completely wrong and more of a burden than a benefit. Had they > tried to retool with their massive catalog it likely would have been a > disaster. Amazon had a real benefit starting small with just books which let > them learn the ropes on the cheap. [0]

I think this is especially relevant here on HN because it shows how startups are required to solve problems. For many problems, a behemoth company has no reason to improve, and a lean startup can rush to a solution faster in many cases.

[0] [https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/a6nwj7/sears_bankruptc...](https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/a6nwj7/sears_bankruptcy_court_oks_25_million_in_bonuses/ebwphf4/)

<comment><USER4> Not to be snarky, but there needs to be a name for selective amnesia when an idea that seems obvious in retrospect is ignored later on.

In this case, the thing that made Amazon so great, before Prime existed, was that it had the "Things you might also like" section.

AFAIK it was one of the first online stores that used machine learning to recommend new and related items you didn't realize you wanted and to have user ratings for each item.

It was especially powerful for books/movies/music just due to the sheer volume of different titles that makes it hard to find new content you might like.

There are a lot of retailers that had the logistics and infrastructure for online sales, but the kind of marketing that Amazon did for up-selling was wholly new and something that could only be done online. So even if Sears could do it, it wasn't obvious back then to anyone that they should do it or how to do it.

Even now, the Walmart and Target web stores recommendations are just ok compared to Amazon. Even eBay seems less comprehensive in its recommendations.

<comment><USER5> Is that really a primary growth factor? I've never once acted on an Amazon recommendation, and it's always felt almost entirely useless - "you just bought a vacuum, here's 15 more vacuums just in case you're a vacuum-obsessed lunatic"

<comment><USER6> That, and the ONLY analytics based feature I used was the "After viewing this item most people purchased" section WAS THE ABSOLUTE BEST for shoppers. It made me feel like I could look at a vacuum, but then be directed to the BEST one. It was like, I'm doing all this crazy research and stuff, but how could a billion other people's research help me here. It seems like they run experiments now where once in a blue moon you might see that section.

I know why they got rid of it - and Amazon has this problem all over the place, but some products just sit, while others, with really no difference just fly off the shelves.

<comment><USER7> This feature still shows up almost constantly for me... there are a few flavors (some of which appear contemporaneously on a single product page for me) including "after looking at this item people purchased..." and "similar items to this item..." and "people who bought this also bought..."

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't it be nice if you could just choose what information to get, unless of this dice-rolling and analytics and cookies approach?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ahh, I came to this thread far too late, but hopefully this won't be missed. In 1980 The Yankee Group (a tech consultancy) reached out to my dad to help them understand how Sears could respond to the growing tech phenomenon. For reasons too long to get into, Gates and my pops (a Canadian) knew each other and were even both covered in The Intelligent Machines Journal out of Palo Alto in the same issue during the waning days of the '70s.

So my father and these Yankees told Gates that Microsoft should meet with these clueless Sears guys, since they'd probably move a number of computers over the next couple years and it would be helpful for them to think "Computers? Microsoft." So he begrudgingly did.

In the meeting someone brought up investment and Gates said they could have 20% for $8m. You never know how all these things go. Sometimes someone you never heard of tells you something true and your relative position stops you from seeing it.

<comment><USER10> 60 minutes interview with a young Jeff Bezos, 1999

[https://youtu.be/VuI-ss5aQU8?t=629](https://youtu.be/VuI-ss5aQU8?t=629)

"how do you view that phenomenon [laugh] that Amazon is worth more than Sears!? [condescending laugh]"

"a couple of geeks [laugh laugh], who sketched out some software, could destroy Sears Roebuck [laugh]"

same 60 minutes "expert", telling young Bezos, Amazon stock was wildly expensive

[https://youtu.be/dTxuzW9RAO8?t=20](https://youtu.be/dTxuzW9RAO8?t=20)

"Amazon is worth more than a major industrial company, like Texaco ... that didn't blow your mind?"

<comment><USER11> In 1999, AMZN peaked ar $80.

Two years later it was trading at $10, and didn't recover until 2007.

The interviewer was right; Amazon was over valued.

<comment><USER12> Or was it radically undervalued in 2001?

<comment><USER13> I'd say it wasn't, because AWS didn't exist to be undervalued as a business factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sears died because of Lampert, that's the beginning and end of the story. While they were far from perfect, post-Kmart "acquisition" both the service and stores became garbage and he used Sears as a personal slush fund.

<comment><USER15> So instead of investing in actually making Sears better (like Target and Walmart did), he thought it was a good idea to spent nearly all of Sears' cash reserves buying back its shares (at prices as high as $170)? Now shares are $0.33. Is he just an incompetent buffoon, or did this strategy line his pockets? For example, was he buying shares owned by ESL with Sears' money? If so, that's highly unethical. Seems par for the course with Wall Street.

<comment><USER16> I wonder if any company in a similar position has just done a total liquidation and turned over all cash as a one time super dividend. That seems like the honest and fair way of doing it. Though it's probably less lucrative than a debt-fueled stock buyback and dump strategy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lampert might have "saved" AutoZone, which AFAICT was the feather in his cap to make him "the next Warren Buffert", but if you asked me I'd be hard-pressed to tell you how the shopping experience changed. I speak from ignorance, and the laziness that prevents me from researching deeper, but I assume he did some accounting tricks, sold a few inefficient assets, etc. But as the owner of some old vehicles and a frequent shopper of auto parts stores, I couldn't tell you when Lampert took over AutoZone based on any changes to the shopping experience. So when it comes time for a new WhatsIt for the '81 VW, I'd just as soon go to the local NAPA because they'll probably actually have the damned thing.

This brings me to Sears: did he ever shop at his own stores, or was he busy pouring over the books and figuring out new ways to implement corporate versions of _The Hunger Games_? Because the shopping experience at Sears was never great, IMO, and it only got more depressing when Lampert took over. Tool quality went to shit, appliance quality went to shit, and the shopping experience sucks. You can juggle books all you want, but that won't get customers in the door. And if I do make it in the door, the lack of service and the dingy store will ensure that I never return.

So in summary, I argue that Lampert either got lucky with AutoZone, or what worked there did most certainly not work for Sears because at the end of the day customers ask themselves, "do I want to shop there?" And Sears in recent years gave customers very little reason to say, "Yes".

As a sidenote, WTH is he willing to throw good money after bad with his $4.4 billion bid? I'm stumped as to what rabbit he thinks he can pull out of that hat.

<comment><USER18> Ah, good ole' NAPA, where you pay twice as much for half the quality (in their house brand anyway). At least, that's why I avoided them like the plague a quarter century ago when I was building muscle cars. Also, they always seemed to prioritize their garage delivery service over their walk-in customers. Although,that _was_ a long time ago, and perhaps they've gotten better over time.

<comment><USER19> >Ah, good ole' NAPA, where you pay twice as much for half the quality

It's all about knowing who makes the part that goes in the branded box. At present their "blue boot" ball joints are the only way to get Spicer ball joints.

>Also, they always seemed to prioritize their garage delivery service over their walk-in customers.

Varies by location. It's a franchise model after all. Napa uses probably the longest leash of all the chain parts store franchises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My first online shopping experience was with Sears over Prodigy in 1991.

You could browse online, or order from the paper catalog (which is more likely what you'd do because NAPLPS graphics didn't lend themselves well, or at all, to product depictions). Then they'd ship to you, or you could go to the order pickup area at your local Sears store.

They had a touchscreen kiosk there where you'd punch in your order number, and be directed to a cubby where your stuff was waiting for you.

They had today's "buy online, pick up in store" thing, but nearly three decades ago.

<comment><USER21> Being too early is as bad as being wrong.

<comment><USER22> The point isn't that they were too early, it's that they gave up too quickly. Buying online and picking up from a store really isn't that advanced of a concept.

<comment><USER23> _Buying online and picking up from a store really isn 't that advanced of a concept._

You're right. Service Merchandise build an empire around it, just by mail or phone instead of computer. Other stores did it, too. JCPenny comes to mind. Even some local and regional chains.

Amazon and others think they've invented something. But once again, it's just SV re-inventing something that worked last century.

<comment><USER24> Amazon introduced the ability to seamlessly and automatically blend counterfeit goods into their supply chain, from sellers that you never heard of before, and may never encounter again.~

But recall that Amazon started with books. The catalog for books is the size of the card catalog that used to be at your library. A row of cabinets, filled with rank and file of drawers, each filled with index cards. One could not ship out paper catalogs, listing every book, to every book-buying home. But delivering the catalog via the internet--and taking orders via web form rather than mail, fax, or phone--made that mail-order business viable. And starting from books, adding other items to the system was just scaling. If you can handle all the ISBN numbers in existence, adding every other consumer product isn't that much more.

Amazon made a system that allows customers to order every item from every product catalog, from the same interface accessible form every couch, and-- most importantly--captured their market share early.

But now that omnibus e-commerce exists, competitors are going to chip away until their early-mover advantage is gone, and all they have left is their innovation since then. Aliexpress and Wal-Mart are going to hammer them from the price side, and individual stores that can actually keep the counterfeits, barely-suitable, and white-label garbage out of their catalog will hit them from the quality side.

Amazon's innovation was _bigger catalogs, easier ordering_. And their early patents are expiring now. They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while they had the protection--like searching and filtering; honest, scam-resistant ratings; and advertising and recommendations. So they have this huge catalog that presents as a giant wall of useless crap that _might_ have the thing you actually want _somewhere_ in it, and not necessarily at the best price. Unlike Sears, they still have enough money in the bank to turn it around before it's too late. Probably not the leadership, though.

<comment><USER25> Agree wholeheartedly with everything you said except:

> They didn't build the other pieces they needed for a 120-year business while > they had the protection

I would argue they did with things like AWS.

<comment><USER20> Similarly (or more importantly, even) is they've now built out a proprietary fulfillment and last mile delivery infrastructure that runs parallel to USPS/UPS/etc.

Any new entrant is going to have to compete with Amazon on shipping cost/time. Yet Amazon can do it using their own distribution and sorting hubs, from which gig workers use their own cars to do the deliveries.

<comment><USER26> Based on my own experience with Amazon's own AMZL delivery service, it's a big advantage for their competitors who don't subject customers to this experience.

<comment><USER27> The only real positive side to this infrastructure are the Amazon Lockers that are paid for as part of the shipping service and actually at good locations most of the time. (While later movers like UPS and FedEx have stuck their lockers at SUPER ANNOYING locations).

It's really too bad the post office can't just setup something like this at the actual post-offices and be open for any carrier for a small fee. That'd solve a ton of last mile problems.

<comment><USER28> I don't understand why Amazon hasn't offered lockers to be installed at your home, for a fee. Maybe the cost would have to be too high, but there are savings in getting rid of redelivery costs and "it never arrived" reorders that Amazon eats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Once, I believe it was in the late 90's, my wife showed me the cover of a business mag. It showed the CEO of Sears, and also a young guy with a messenger bag and a Misfits pin. "Sears", with an arrow pointing to the CEO. "Sears.com" with an arrow pointing to the youngster.

The thing is, she knew that youngster, and he really did work at Sears, for their webstore. He wasn't the only guy, but it was apparently pretty close. Other than getting on the cover of that magazine, my understanding is he got rather little access to top management, and he certainly didn't get to set strategy on things like pricing and shipping. Sears, like a lot of other incumbents, could neither understand the New Thing, nor turn over enough control to the people who did (in part because the people they hired were too young and inexperienced in retail to trust with t hat), and that is why they failed, when as a catalog company they should have been well positioned for the comeback of ordering things delivered to your home.

<comment><USER30> > Once, I believe it was in the late 90's, my wife showed me the cover of a > business mag. It showed the CEO of Sears, and also a young guy with a > messenger bag and a Misfits pin. "Sears", with an arrow pointing to the CEO. > "Sears.com" with an arrow pointing to the youngster.

It was from Fortune in November 1999. Here's an image of the cover:

[https://twitter.com/opinion_joe/status/998689983757209607](https://twitter.com/opinion_joe/status/998689983757209607)

Better quality: [https://backissues.com/cgi- bin/backissues.cgi?full/FU1999110...](https://backissues.com/cgi- bin/backissues.cgi?full/FU19991108.JPG)

<comment><USER29> Thanks! Your google-fu is better than mine, I admit it.

<comment><USER31> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYqZJrGV_tc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYqZJrGV_tc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Neil Saunders wrote a good Twitter thread last week about how mid-scale US department stores don't execute the basics of retail very well: [https://twitter.com/NeilRetail/status/1079785924966445058](https://twitter.com/NeilRetail/status/1079785924966445058)

Others have pointed out that Target seems to do a much better job with organization, presentation, and flow. Not coincidentally, it seems to be performing much better than legacy department stores that historically targeted the same class of shopper, like JCPenney and Sears.

Brick and mortar isn't as dead as commentators sometimes present it, but the increased competition is certainly weeding out dead wood that managed to persist for decades based on natural local monopolies and oligopolies.

<comment><USER33> Good thread, found it really interesting!

I am processing some research on DICK's Sporting Goods, 750 stores and 90% are their core brand. I knew the reality was something along these lines but just didn't expect the % to be so small: "The Company's eCommerce sales penetration to total net sales has increased from 2.8% in fiscal 2010 to 10.3% in fiscal 2015."[1]

It's certainly growing every year for them, easy to see since it's a public company, but not at a tremendous rate like my news bubble or profession would have me believe. It furthers your point that brick & mortar are certainly not dead, or even dying, since many people still shop in-store.

Of note, a good portion of their 10k was devoted to omni-channel experience, which is the thinking that customers are customers and not defined by online or offline alone--they use both. Omni-channel strategies seem pretty basic at this point but also well worth their investment.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1089063/000108906316...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1089063/000108906316000107/dks-10k_20160130.htm)

<comment><USER34> Sport gear is very hands-on, so it makes sense to go into the store to choose your next running shoe / tennis racket / hunting rifle... instead of buying the wrong one online and having to return it.

<comment><USER33> Absolutely. And since they stock different brands, it's even more important to get the sizing right. I remember reading shoes and apparel made up a high portion of their gross sales.

In general, my experience is that the higher the price, the longer and more intense the buying cycle is. It's not ground-breaking to think that but I also think it will indicate the last retail stores to bend at the will of online demand: cars, boats, engagement rings, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sears is a macro-example of the phrase, "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Seems like this company has been walking dead for years.

When the October news hit that Sears was going out of business, my wife and I used up all our Sears points (kind of like airline miles) to get tons of free food from Kmart. Then Sears kept just giving her points so we kept getting free stuff. How on earth did Sears stay in the game so long, and what game were they even playing? Sometimes I wonder if we inadvertently triggered some backdoor left by an employee to get as much free stuff as possible. Part of me assumes the bonanza will now intensify.

<comment><USER36> I had a friend who worked at Kmart during the Sears transition and stayed until it closed a few years ago (or so). He worked there for maybe 12 years total, and maybe 7 of that as a manager.

The first week after he started there, he started to wonder how they could stay in business. He said most of his time (in the 12 years) was spent walking around, cleaning, organizing or just watching TV just because there wasn't anything else to do, and no one coming in.

For years, it was a ghosttown in there. I would go after work (5-6pm), and still not see a single other customer. I know it was a smaller Kmart, but they still had some new items show up, and always had some employees around. Must have made enough to cover most of it's expenses, or been too small for Sears to notice.

/just looked it up. That Kmart closed in Jan of 2017.

<comment><USER37> My local K-Mart was never packed, but it was never empty either. And there was always a line at the registers, mostly because they had the slowest checkout system on planet Earth. Some parts of the store looked like a Mad Max set like the tools area, but other parts managed to alright like the clothing section.

It was still my backup shopping choice if Target didn't have something I needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How much of Sears's demise was due to Walmart? It's not like retail completely died.

The home improvement chains hurt them too, once they started selling tools and appliances.

We bought everything at Sears in the 80's. Electronics (including computers), appliances, toys, clothes, tools, lawn and garden...

Was Sears too 'friendly' with their suppliers? When I worked at Sears at the end of the 1990's (the store was a ghost town then), many of the long-time employees were making pretty decent money. Way more than people at Best Buy, Target or Walmart made. Plus actual benefits. The must have had huge legacy costs, especially at the higher levels.

<comment><USER39> It's a good example to those that claim companies should pay employees liberally. Unless you're in a niche that people are willing to pay a margin for or serve upscale customers who also don't mind paying margins (Costco, Whole Foods, Nordstroms, Apple, etc), then you're going to lose business to competitors offering lower prices.

In this situation, the only way to improve the well being of those whose labor isn't as valuable is to restrict their supply, either by educating them to give them other valuable skills or providing paid leaves so they can go on vacations and forcing employers to hire more people. All of this extra wealth for those at the bottom would, of course, have to come from the margins those at the top are earning.

<comment><USER40> Costco is an upscale place to shop? I've never seen them lumped together with Whole Foods or even Apple.

Edit: Wow I didn't realize Costco's profit margin was higher than Whole Foods, Wal Mart and almost a full percent above Kroger's.

<comment><USER41> They are. You need to have a good amount of extra money to afford the membership and the cost of buying 6 months of toilet paper in advance. Those are cheap items that you will need, if you are not poor you probably don't even think about it. However when you are poor it doesn't matter if it is cheaper or not to buy in bulk because you don't have the cash to afford it. (you also are unlikely to have the storage space for all of that)

Costco serves the upper class.

<comment><USER42> Membership at Costco is like 60 dollars a year. Not saying it's doable for everyone but its hardly something 'you need to have a good amount of extra money' to afford.

<comment><USER43> > Membership at Costco is like 60 dollars a year. Not saying it's doable for > everyone but its hardly something 'you need to have a good amount of extra > money' to afford

If you are poor to the point of relying on public assistance to meet basic needs, an extra $60 up front even if it will pay off over a year means foregoing other essential expenses now.

But the bigger cost in many parts of the country is the space needed for inventory to maximize the benefit of bulk purchasing. Sure it works well for my family, but we live in a decent sized suburban home with an second refrigerator, and a storage closet converted for additional pantry space.

<comment><USER42> Why do you think I was talking about people who are poor to the point that they are relying on public assistance? Did you gloss over the part where I said 'not saying it is doable for everyone'? You even quoted it. This thread was debating whether or not Costco is an 'upscale' place that only the well to do can afford, not whether or not Costco is an option for people on public assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> My parents were young, and broke, and opened a Sears "charge card" to buy their wedding rings. "Craftsman, so it'll last forever!"

I mean, intellectually, I get why Sears is going away, but it still kinda tugs at the ol' heartstrings a little, you know?

<comment><USER45> This makes me wonder... what happens if you open a Sears card (yesterday) and max it out with all kinds of fun stuff and then Sears goes out of business? Does someone come after you for money?

<comment><USER41> Yes, debt collection is big business and someone will happily buy your balance for the privilege of getting you to pay it to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The headline has changed, presumably because the story has changed, so we've updated the title above. Originally it was "Sears plans to shutter after 126 years in business".

<comment><USER47> Media manipulation is likely at hand.

<comment><USER48> Or there was a last minute reprieve after the article was posted.

Not everything is malicious, friend.

<comment><USER12> The URL is old headline - strange not to post a new story with some sort of addendum on the old one. I've added spaces below to prevent the URL shortening.

https: //www.cnbc.com /2019/01/06/ sears-rejects-eddie-lamperts-bid-to-save- company-will-liquidate-. html

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Sears was my go-to place for tools for years. Then, at some stage, the quality noticeably changed and it started to feel like a cheap knock-off, like what happened to Stanley Tools ages ago.

But I did very much appreciate their return-tool policy. I used that a few times. It was a great customer loyalty tactic.

<comment><USER38> At some point, cheaper Chinese tools became good enough. When I was a kid I remember my dad would curse cheap imported wrenches and tools. Now, he buys 75% of his stuff at Harbor Freight.

Sears ended up going down in quality while trying to keep their brand names and higher prices. Surprising it didn't work out.

<comment><USER21> At least at Harbor Freight you know what you're getting and it's priced accordingly. Craftsman tools were expensive, at one time deservedly so but by the end the were just riding on the name to put a high price on cheap imported tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think this is now incorrect: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/business/sears- future-bankrup...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/business/sears-future- bankruptcy-delay/index.html)

yup: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858494)

<comment><USER51> I wish I could upvote this more than once. Not sure if changing the link would be appropriate, maybe a mod could put a sticky at the top of the thread?

Edit: No need to change the link, the article has been updated to reflect the changing situation. Can a mod please change the title to match? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The huge Sears campus anchored a community on the west side of Chicago for nearly 70 years, and then they built an HQ2 with a fancy downtown tower (the world's tallest building) in the early 1970s. Having two campuses really cost them a lot of mojo, and by the early 1990s they reconsolidated into a new campus in the far-flung exurbs. It didn't save them and shall now be their final resting place.

It's a good thing other large companies have learned from this and will not be repeating their mistake.

<comment><USER53> It seems like a really weak correlation to say that location, quantity, or style of office campuses has anything to do with company success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Evolution and Death

"The most important component of evolution is death. Or, said another way, it's easier to create a new organism than to change an existing one. Most organisms are highly resistant to change, but when they die it becomes possible for new and improved organisms to take their place.

This rule applies to social structures such as corporations as well as biological organisms: very few companies are capable of making significant changes in their culture or business model, so it is good for companies eventually to go out of business, thereby opening space for better companies in the future."

— John Ousterhout, Stanford professor

</comment><comment><USER55> This is really a shame. They made missteps in the mid-late 90's, but might have remained viable had they not had a CEO these past years that was engaged in a process of self-dealing to his other personal financial interests at the expense of Sears [0][1][2]

[0][https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own- ce...](https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own-ceo)

[1][https://www.businessinsider.com/sears-ceo-will- pay-40-millio...](https://www.businessinsider.com/sears-ceo-will- pay-40-million-to-settle-shareholder-lawsuit-2017-2)

[2][https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/04/24/sears- holdin...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/04/24/sears-holdings-ceo- eddie-lampert-ethical/542284002/)

</comment><comment><USER56> "The most important component of evolution is death. Or, said another way, it's easier to create a new organism than to change an existing one. Most organisms are highly resistant to change, but when they die it becomes possible for new and improved organisms to take their place.

This rule applies to social structures such as corporations as well as biological organisms: very few companies are capable of making significant changes in their culture or business model, so it is good for companies eventually to go out of business, thereby opening space for better companies in the future."

— John Ousterhout, Stanford professor

</comment><comment><USER57> I last went to Sears a couple years ago for some vacuum cleaner bags. I hadn't been to Sears in years, but something was telling me that Sears was the place to go for vacuum cleaner bags. The vacuum cleaner salesman looked like he belonged in the waiting room in Beetlejuice, but he was very helpful, and he sold me an 8 pack of vacuum cleaner bags. He knew what type of vaccuum cleaner bag I needed before I had a chance to describe to him my vacuum cleaner. In 2 years I'll need another 8 pack of vacuum cleaner bags, and with Sears out of the picture, I don't know what to do.

<comment><USER29> Well that sucks.

[hahaha! get it? "sucks"? like vacuum sucks? hahaha]

[ahem]

<comment><USER29> I so knew I was getting downvoted for that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is sad for such a well-known brand. I have such fond memories of their Wishbook catalog that came out around the holidays every year. I would flip to the toys section and dream. My grandparents even had a years old Wishbook in our toy box at their house that me and my cousins would look at every time we went over there, Christmas or not.

But everything dies. It must. It has to in order to clear the way for something else that will advance the species. That's one of the many reasons why "Too Big To Fail" is such a bad idea. Sure, letting all the banks fail at once was probably not the best course of action. But we needed to take a good look at how to structure them so that their inevitable death wouldn't take out the whole system.

Sears dying, thankfully, won't do that at least. And if anybody has a mid-1970's Wishbook they want to part with, hit me up.

<comment><USER59> I go back a bit earlier, remembering the Christmas catalogs in the 60s and the huge number of pages of toys. I still remember drooling over a James Bond Goldfinger kit with the Aston-Martin with ejection seat and rotating license plates and the laser table intended to cut Bond in half. My parents didn't get it for me, knowing I'd probably be bored with it in a few weeks.

So, it is true we boomers didn't always get everything we wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Meanwhile, in an alternate universe...Sears saw the coming of the Internet, put revived their dormant catalog business and put it on the web gaining a first to market mover advantage over nascent on-line bookstore Amazon. Fast- forward to alternate 2019 and Sears is one of the largest internet companies on the planet after a painful early 2000s where they shed 70% of their brick and mortar retail presence in favor of a distribution center model to service their still growing on-line retail operations....

Sears Airlines, once just a rapid cargo mover for the company starting offering bottom rate global flights for passengers...which gives them another venue to push their catalog...in flight sales.

Sears Shows, ready to launch in Q3 2019 is expected to be the second largest on-line Television and Movie delivery network on the planet with many shows featuring Sears exclusive brands in them.

Sears Craftman brand, already the largest 3d Printer manufacturer, starts offering educational discounts to middle and high school students.

SearsNet, once a staple of 80s and early 90s era stores, revived like the catalog and rebranded from the Prodigy online service, starts to finally offer a new service called "Computers in a Cloud" where consumers can rent computers over the internet and run arbitrary programs on them. This is leveraging spare capacity in Sears' service oriented computing investments, often housed in old Sears warehouses and properties that were no longer useful as retail spaces, but could be reconfigured as compute hosting centers.

Highly anticipated, next year's unveiling of the Sears Car, built using Craftsman tools and easy to drive. It promises to combine the latest in electrical vehicle technology with the comfort of corinthian leather.

</comment><comment><USER61> BREAKING

The bankrupcy judge says if ESL can deposit 120 million by tomorrow, then it can compete in the auction against other liquidators, and keep the company open.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/chairman-eddie-lampert-to- ge...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/chairman-eddie-lampert-to-get-another- chance-to-save-sears-sources-say.html)

</comment><comment><USER62> I wonder if this will impact the small Sears Home Town stores. These are great and I'd hate to lose them.

       http://www.searshometownstores.com/

<comment><USER63> Those aren't impacted. A separate company.

[https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/01/biz-buzz-amid-sears- ba...](https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/01/biz-buzz-amid-sears-bankruptcy- some-local-stores-will-remain-open/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Many such businesses have sunk into oblivion in the past century. They were started by hungry go-getters; their well-oiled machinery was handed to much- less hungry people who made poor choices in the face of heavier competition.

The story of Sears vs. Ward ("By the end of the 1930s, Montgomery Ward had become the country's largest retailer") is full of insights. (I was surprised to learn today that 'Wards' is still an online retailer. [https://www.wards.com/](https://www.wards.com/) )

<comment><USER65> Got this hilarious text when accessing it from Tunisia :

Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward is based in the State of Wisconsin in the United States of America and operates solely in the United States. We do not market, sell, or deliver products outside the United States. This Website is for use only by persons located in the United States.

Montgomery Ward makes no claims that the Website or any of its content is accessible or appropriate outside of the United States. Access to the Website may not be legal by certain persons or in certain countries.

If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service at 1-888-777-6333.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> While I've read the various arguments over the last year or so about how Sears _really_ wasn't terribly mismanaged by Eddie Lambert, the dingus who bought it and K-Mart in the mid-2000s, I continue to believe that he bears a huge share of responsibility for the company's collapse.

Yes, brick-and-mortar retail is in trouble. Yes, all department stores are in various stages of decline. But Sears fell very hard and very fast, and made uniquely terrible decisions like "we don't need to invest in infrastructure and upkeep because we have a great loyalty program" and "our various departments will do better if we make them fight one another for ever- decreasing resources" and "hey, we'll make some quick short-term profit if we sell off our world-famous captive brands like Kenmore, Craftsman, and Diehard that have literally brought people into our stores for decades."

Sears should really be in at _least_ as good shape as competitors like Dillard's, Nordstrom's, Best Buy, or even Macy's -- the latter of which is arguably _not_ in good shape, but for all their faults, they haven't been doing the corporate equivalent of bashing themselves in the face with a big rock for ten years.

</comment><comment><USER67> Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools. Maybe the appliance quality suffered recently. I don't know because our 30 year old washer and dryer still work. Appliances were also built to be repaired, and there was a full catalog of parts you could order through Sears. Craftsman tools were near-professional quality. I'm sure lots of "pros" actually had some in their toolboxes.

I see the Craftsman brand has been controlled by Stanley Black & Decker for almost 2 years [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_(tools)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craftsman_\(tools\))

Kenmore is controlled by a subsidiary of Sears...wonder what will happen. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenmore_(brand)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenmore_\(brand\))

</comment><comment><USER68> When the local Sears was about to close up shop, the kids they hired to help with the closing were playing Marco Polo over the store intercom. Eventually the person in charge came over the intercom and told them to cut it out. Was the only thing I enjoyed while in that store at the time.

</comment><comment><USER69> Brick and Mortar retail has to adapt and change with the technology and the times. Sears COULD have integrated retail with online shopping IF they remembered to focus on what ONLINE couldn't deliver. Brick and Mortar retail isn't going away for those who understand it's real value. It has to focus on what the online business can't do... customization of products, personal service and relationship building. If their salespeople became consultants and the products they sold were better suited for customization, they would have built a LOYAL customer base that needed their expertise.

</comment><comment><USER70> I had some involvement with sears holding back in 2006-2008, and I remember thinking why were they selling all these clothes? Who the F buys clothes at sears?? It's going to die of irrelevance. Cut it down to the Kenmore / craftsman brands that actually are unmatched by anything at target, Walmart, or Amazon, and build an awesome services biz supporting.

My biggest surprise is they managed to survive this long. At some point I realized it was a money grab by the CEO, lose money today, get valuable real estate for years to come.

</comment><comment><USER71> I heard on a podcast this morning an ad stating 'Buy Craftsman tools at Lowes' and was like "Wow. Just wow." and yesterday I saw where Macy's is closing a store here in Indy and K-mart is also continuing to close stores.

I remember when malls had pet stores and arcades and Service Merchandise (oh man, entering stuff you wanted to buy into those terminals haha) now you buy everything from Walmart and from the comfort of your couch on Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER72> The article has been updated and the current title is 'Court allows Chairman Eddie Lampert another chance to buy Sears, pushing off decision to shut stores'.

</comment><comment><USER73> I thought Sears went out of business like 5+ years ago

</comment><comment><USER74> Even without the physical locations, the Sears brand will likely persist through the Kenmore brand and Sears home services.

<comment><USER21> What is the point of Kenmore now? They were never their own product, just a re-badged Amana, Whirlpool, or GE (variously) appliances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I truly don't understand what's in this for Lampert. Why does he keep trying to resuscitate the company he hastened to its deathbed?

How does him offering $4.4B benefit him personally? That seems like pride/hubris/denial to think he could ever recoup that money or pull Sears out of the condition he put it in.

<comment><USER76> The scuttlebutt is that as the primary creditor, he's likely to get the lions share of Sears' real estate portfolio when the company defaults.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/lampert-to-bid-for-sears- real-e...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/lampert-to-bid-for-sears-real-estate- if-rescue-attempt-fails-11546452228)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Another Kodak moment!

But seriously, whilst it's fair to critique the amount that CEO's are paid, when the alternative might be complete failure the cost is justified. Sears is a failure of the C levels and ultimately a failure of the board. Remember that next time we all balk at the $xx million paycheck of a F500.

</comment><comment><USER78> When Sears, the Facebook of its era, launched its IPO in 1906 the catalog was the Internet of the day [https://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-per-flash-sears- ipo-0513-2...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-per-flash-sears- ipo-0513-20120513-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER79> I worked for a part of Emerson Electric that made Craftman tools for Sears. They were made in the USA and then in 1995 Sears cut the budget and gave the contract to some other company. I was downsized as a result.

They got Rigid tools at Home Depot that EE makes now. Should be just as good as the old Craftsman series.

</comment><comment><USER80> Sears was intionally gutted, flipped to make a few people money. This is not news. [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-eddie-lampert-set- sears-u...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-eddie-lampert-set-sears-up-to- fail-2017-5)

</comment><comment><USER81> Still would go there occasionally for clothes. Brick and mortar has been mostly replaced for me except for groceries (I'm aware there are services but I'm in a pretty rural area right now) and clothing where I still appreciate the benefit of trying them on before buying.

</comment><comment><USER82> In the early 2000s, my business classes were breaking down the inefficiencies of large scale brick and mortar businesses and forecasting their digital takeover.

The big surprise for me was how long so many of them have held on. It seems to be a slow die off rather than a mass extinction.

</comment><comment><USER83> Sears is a company with a CEO and board that do not care. Their skin is fine if company goes bust.

<comment><USER84> In concept yes, but I dont think this deal will work out for the CEO's hedge fund

He tried to take an activist position to create a market for the bonds he bought, and it failed.

Everything related to a nostalgic middle america mall space that also employed people is just irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Not dead yet: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/business/sears-future- bankrup...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/business/sears-future-bankruptcy- delay/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER86> I wonder what will happen to all those "lifetime" tool warranties once Sears closes?

<comment><USER87> They sold off craftsman a few years ago; the warranties are still honored by new retailers, including Ace Hardware, Lowes, Blains, and Atwoods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> my house was built in 1924 - one of my older neighbors said that very good chance it was a "Sears Kit Home" ..looking up "Sears Kit Home circa 1924" on google image search provides some pretty spot on plans.

I think sears was the original amazon :)

</comment><comment><USER89> Every time I think of sears I think of this story [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHIktR-3Ci4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHIktR-3Ci4) where they stole someone's wrench design

</comment><comment><USER90> Sears, K-Mart & Toys R US have all faced the same fate!

Layoff data for these retailers here, if someone's interested in it.

[https://6figr.com/layoff/Sears](https://6figr.com/layoff/Sears)

</comment><comment><USER91> I wonder what's going to happen to the Guam Kmart? It's insane how busy it is.

</comment><comment><USER92> I'm sad. Sears brought the Atari micro computers into the Heartland of America and spurred my imagination. They were a bit pricey, but all computers were. I remember almost $300 for 32K of extra memory.

<comment><USER43> The Sears that did that died a long time ago; it was buried when Kmart bought them in 2004.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I think the reasons are basically the same as why companies like Kodak and Polaroid could not capitalize on digital photography. covered in the book "the innovator's dilemma"

</comment><comment><USER94> Where is the SEC investigation into the CEO's looting and plundering of the company? Why have they allowed the CEO to also be the company's biggest creditor? Too busy with Elon's tweets?

<comment><USER43> > Where is the SEC investigation into the CEO's looting and plundering of the > company?

Is that even a violation of anything within the SECs purview, if all the reporting is in order so that the stockholders have the information about what is going on?

<comment><USER94> If it's done to manipulate stock price, yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Huh ... 126 years. I wonder if our children will ever see Facebook, Samsung, Amazon, Wal-Mart or Google fold one day.

Sears is/was the Amazon of the 1920/20s. All things must pass eventually.

</comment><comment><USER96> I don't get the nostalgia for this business. It's just another middleman for stuff made in China. Liquidate it and stop with the stories about this guy's hedge fund.

</comment><comment><USER97> The fish rots from the head.

Someone needs to analyze Sears' management behavior for the last few decades.

I am pretty sure some interesting patterns of ignorance and incompetence will emerge.

</comment><comment><USER98> Sometimes it is ok to acknowledge a great run instead of trying to figure out how to stop the disruption. I am not sure why a company has to exist forever.

</comment><comment><USER99> Sad day for me. Honestly, I'm more scared of the negative economic impact of Amazon than Google. I am big fan of brick and mortar businesses.

</comment><comment><USER100> Regarding Sears vs Amazon. Clayton Christensen wrote an entire book, now a classic, on why the incumbent is not the leader in the next go around.

</comment><comment><USER101> I hope business schools teach about the failures made by Sears executives. Especially about not adapting to change and investing in technology.

</comment><comment><USER102> I'd love to see the trend lines for Sears that compares performance with the percent of employee owned stock vs outside capital.

</comment><comment><USER103> for german speakers: the best told and most comprehensive story about the rise and fall of sears: [https://www.republik.ch/2018/12/25/sears-eine- kapitalistisch...](https://www.republik.ch/2018/12/25/sears-eine- kapitalistische-weihnachtsgeschichte)

disclaimer: I work for Republik.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is anyone reading the updated article?

> Court allows Chairman Eddie Lampert another chance to buy Sears, pushing off > decision to shut stores

</comment><comment><USER104> I will miss the $2 credit for every Uber ride :/. I think I got $400 in free stuff from Sears/Kmart last year.

</comment><comment><USER105> Sears was always a crummy store since I can remember. This shutdown has been a long time coming.

</comment><comment><USER106> CEO Lampart is a huge fan of Ayn Rand and promised to turn the company around using her philosophy. So I suppose we now finally have one large scale case study.

</comment><comment><USER107> So, can we finally get rid of that Kmart on Lake Street and retake Nicollet?

Minneapolis dwellers know.

</comment><comment><USER108> This headline is a bit like 'Man plans to crash after falling 126 stories'

</comment><comment><USER109> My two cents...

As I like to group things in threes, my explanation for Amazon's success is that they had better leadership principles, better execution ability, and a better theory about the future (all business strategies make an implicit or explicit claim about what the future will look like) than any direct or indirect competitor. Could at least some competitor have been better than them at one of those? Perhaps. I don't think any competitor matched them along all three of those dimensions.

Amazon's '97 letter to shareholders gives you a taste as to their theory of the future. Everyone already knows about their ability to execute. Most already know their leadership principles. From an anthropological perspective, I find it relatively insightful to revist them from time to time. Here they are:

(1) Customer obsession. (2) Ownership. (3) Invent and simplify. (4) Leaders are right, a lot. (5) Learn and be curious. (6) Hire and develop the best. (7) Insist on the highest standards. (8) Think big. (9) Bias for action. (10) Frugality. (11) Earn trust. (12) Dive deep. (13) Have backbone; disagree and commit. (14) Deliver results.

\</comment><comment>-

To speculate even further... suppose someone were to ask me, "Distill the insights Bezos & Co. made into a single element so that I can understand what Amazon is. What is that one thing or what is Amazon really all about?" What would I say?

Benedict Evans would talk about a machine that makes more of itself.

Scott Galloway would talk about storytelling and its relation to cheap capital.

Ben Thompson would talk about an entity with multiple moats that takes a cut of all economic activity (or maybe just describe some version of an aggregator).

Many others would talk about the virtuous cycle of lower prices --> more customers --> etc.

I would say:

"Warren Buffet had a breakthrough insight - the competitive moat - in the 60's that ended up dominating business thinking up to the present (and will continue to be important/fundamental into the future). Bezos & Co. made an insight of similar importance. Namely, the actual value of an asset truly does outstrip your present understanding of its value, and outstrips your present understanding in a very significant way.

No breakthrough insight is sui generis, as it is constructed using already existing conceptual elements. Buffet's moat was there in the financial statements, and already intuited in a vague way by successful investors and managers before the 60's. The same can be said about Bezos & Co. It's a truism of managerial economics that the point of business is to move under-valued assets into higher-valued uses. Amazon both took this to heart (they internalized it) and they recognized that the true extent to which an assets value outstrips your present perception of said assets value, was an order of magnitude greater than anyone thought before."

</comment><comment> mark-r I honestly thought they were gone already.

</comment><comment><USER110> I wondered whatever happened to Sears.

</comment><comment><USER111> All companies will eventually end, but it's crazy how big Sears was and how far they fell in a short time. At one point they were selling mail-order DIY houses!

</comment><comment><USER112> Congratulations on driving a company into the ground! Have a golden parachute!

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sears-bankruptcy-court- oks-25-m...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sears-bankruptcy-court- oks-25-million-in-bonuses-for-top-execs/)

<comment><USER113> I'll never, ever be able to comprehend this. It sickens me to the core.

<comment><USER114> So the whole mechanism to these bonuses is for the banks/investors to keep the executives around long enough to not lose the institutional knowledge and to keep the company heading in a general direction during the bankruptcy chartering.

<comment><USER115> That is only valid when the plan of bankruptcy was to avoid liquidation. This buyout became a veiled liquidation in the late 00s early 10s[1]. They need to prop up Sears and K-Mart stores long enough to pay leases to support Seritage Growth Properties property conversions to be prepared to bring in new tenants[2][3]. I guess you need to pay those out to fool a bankruptcy court into selling you the assets in for less than they are worth to liquidators. Which you can then continue to liquidate in secret under the guise of improving efficiency.

Its nice to see bankruptcy courts wising up to these schemes, but I'm not sure this isn't something lawmakers or regulators need to adjust to avoid more of.

[1] [https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-sears- lampert...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-sears-lampert-esl- proposal-store-sales-0928-story.html)

From the linked article: "In 2015, Sears sold 235 stores, along with its stake in joint ventures involving 31 more properties, to real estate investment trust spinoff Seritage Growth Properties. Lampert is both a stakeholder in Seritage and its chairman."

[2] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/01/heres-why- seritage...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/01/heres-why-seritage- growth-properties-stock-is-soar.aspx) [3] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/11/06/with-sears-on- the-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/11/06/with-sears-on-the-ropes- seritage-growth-properties.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> Whaat? How could this be? Did anyone see this coming? Nuts. Guess I'll have to shop at Service Merchandise from now on.

Serious note: Sad to see it go, but it failed to adapt.

</comment><comment><USER117> That's not a good thing, e-commerce only pushes garbage quality with top tier marketing goods.</comment>


Why Reddit moderators are "censoring" Glenn Greenwald's latest - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2014/02/28/why_reddit_moderators_are_censoring_glenn_greenwalds_latest_bombshell_partner/ <comment><USER2> Highly relevant here would be the GCHQ/NSA slides on the topic of how they've infiltrated positions of power (i.e. moderation) in online communities - reddit is specifically cited. It's all about FUD, discrediting, and censorship on fallacious grounds. It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. It would also not surprise me to learn that he's a pedantic basement- dweller, but I don't think, given what we've learned, it's conspiratorial or paranoid to suppose that this is governmental control. It's perfectly feasible.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Controlling the gatekeepers of public conversation is a measure that is squarely in the court of totalitarianism-- this leak was the evidence needed to begin calling the USA a right wing authoritarian/totalitarian state. I really wish the mainstream media had picked up this story, because it'd be an easy way to convince the public that the government is targeting them as an enemy. It's blatant evidence that the government is interested in controlling thought regardless of involvement with terrorism or national security.

It's foolish to think that they wouldn't try to gain positions of power in bastions of alternative thought and activism. Admittedly, reddit is extremely mainstream-- but it's still a place for citizens to communicate with each other and discuss happenings. It'd be invaluable control-wise to be able to influence conversations there.

<comment><USER4> really wish you had dropped the "right wing"... its a false dichotomy which we really need to stop perpetuating.

<comment><USER5> When short-haired, god-fearing and country-loving patriots are the good guys (no cops bust up a tea party rally), while the long-haired hippies are the bad guys (see COINTELPRO, police treatment of occupy or the WTO protests), what else you want to call it?

Yes, there are more dimensions to politics than 'left' and 'right', but it does indeed seem that the security services are always worried about a certain type.

<comment><USER6> Well on the extreme end of things you have ruby ridge and waco. Then you've got the addition of militia groups to Domestic terror lists.

And then you have the IRS specifically targeting right wing non-profits.

<comment><USER7> The IRS never specifically targeted right wing non-profits. The list of keywords they used included both right wing indicators like "tea party" and left wing indicators like "progressive".

The tax categorization these organizations were applying for is meant to exclude political activism, so flagging organizations with explicitly political names was a reasonable approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end. Banning the article _was_ censorship. It should not have been banned. The article states that "... these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself."

Is that opinion? No, unfortunately.

The documents reveal the above is only part of what the agencies are trying to do. They also speak of "ruining businesses", "leaking confidential information", etc. It instructs how to damage someone's reputation and even their psyche on the Internet. This is the worst of human deceptive behavior.

This is a public relations disaster for GCHQ/NSA. Very, very bad stuff.

<comment><USER9> > Banning the article _was_ censorship.

The entire idea of "subreddits" is community-specific curation. If you post a leftist screed to /r/libertarian, they might choose to leave it, they might delete it, who knows. It's up to each subreddit to decide what kind of content they want to see, through a mixture of up/downvoting and moderator action. Some communities want the Greenwald article, some don't. Some have very little moderator action, others have a lot, and those differences are part of what defines them (e.g. /r/AskHistorians is known for its aggressive moderation). That's not censorship, any more than HN deleting some stuff is censorship.

<comment><USER10> But when a subreddit is part of the default selection of subreddits (for non- logged in users), that has a fairly large impact for the userbase of Reddit in general. And if it is part of the default, then the normal user (someone that doesn't mess with their subreddit selection much) would also be impacted.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that even _more_ of a reason to remove the article?

It was posted to more than 1 default subreddit, including /r/worldnews which is larger than /r/news. That means you're going to have multiple submissions of the same article on the front page. Duplicate content on the front page doesn't give a good first impression, it looks messy or even spammy. It also takes up valuable space for people who may not care about the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reddit moderation is generally terrible as for larger traffic areas require full time moderators, and as a result of them being non-paid, you can end up with people running the show who otherwise wouldn't get hired to do so. Luck of the draw and early adoption are really key to being a mod in r/news or elsewhere. This also leads to abuses that exist likely due to their inability to exert such control elsewhere.

Part of the reason why I like HN's moderation is you do not know who is generally doing the moderation work--same goes for places like 4chan if I might say. This prevents the sort of power tripping you will see on Reddit because there isn't a way to prove your worth. While I find some of the content posted here is not to my liking, I rarely have anything if at all to say about how the site is administered.

Now whether or not this is censorship is subjective. To say that Reddit is engaging in censorship in this case is a bit erroneous as these moderators are not employees. You can still post these stories elsewhere without consequence.

<comment><USER13> I don't think that anyone got censored here, and I'm a big Greenwald supporter.

I think reddit needs to reform their moderator system immediately. Whether it's issues like this one, or the /r/standupshots fiasco, content is simply too controlled to be useful.

It's very similar to what happened with digg. Control of the medium became less democratic and more centralized. This time, it's in the hands of moderators rather than very powerful users. The problem is the same.

I'd like to see reddit eliminate the default subs and allow subs there by way of voting. As it is, it's too easy for a moderator to control a sub, and no easy way to get rid of them.

Subreddits are amazing, don't get me wrong. They're just subject to becoming less useful as they get bigger. Ironically, the subreddits I really like are usually the ones with very strict moderation. Reddit needs to find a way to bridge the gap between the users who unsubscribe from all the default subs and the users who never log in.

I'd like to see a reddit clone that used dogecoin for up votes and featured both increased mod power and increased transparency.

<comment><USER11> " _content is simply too controlled to be useful._ "

Really? I believe the opposite is true. I think reddit needs _more_ moderation. I wish mods wouldn't be as afraid to lay down the ban-hammer. I think the mods of /r/News were justified in their approach, and that these censorship stories coming out about reddit are due to an ignorance of how reddit works.

The mods are fighting a battle against the lowest common denominator and losing. The beauty of reddit is that anyone can create their own subreddit and mod it however they see fit. If you want an easy going subreddit with mods that are hands-off, you're free to create one or subscribe to one. If a mod wants to rule their domain with an iron fist, their free to do that too.

More importantly, the users are free to subscribe to any subreddit they wish. Users can literally vote with their feet and have done so on more than one occasion. Your proposed overhaul would change that dynamic. It's a dynamic which has helped reddit get to the level it's at now. People like to believe the collapse of digg contributed to reddit's success, but the fact is, (according to google trends), reddit had already surpassed Digg long before the big collapse.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you. I think the most useful subreddits by far are heavily moderated subreddits like /r/AskHistorians or /r/Standup.

I think the subreddit idea is brilliant. If reddit is going to survive, it will need to increase transparency for mods, and decrease the emphasis on the default subreddits. The problem is not that there's too much moderation, the problem is that the default subreddits have such a wide audience because so many users never bother to subscribe to anything else. If a reddit competitor offered the democracy of subreddits without the gatekeepers of the default subreddits I would switch in a second.

If my memory serves, there were quite a few controversies that led to a bunch of people coming to reddit from Digg. There were quite a few influxes of Digg refugees. redditors complained about quality drops every time. This is before subreddits, of course.

The challenge, I think, is combining democracy with with some kind of editorial function. I think what it comes down to is what happens when you click the comments button.

Edit: Hey, I just found this and felt it was appropriate. [http://www.laughspin.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/nathan...](http://www.laughspin.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/nathananderson.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I support the Reddit moderators. There is no censorship going on, and the idea of unbiased journalism is becoming something we don't even respect any more (to say nothing of how hard it is to achieve, but we don't even seem to agree it's a laudable goal any more).

Read the article, a non-analysis based piece on the same subject made the front page and was not removed. Reddit has other subreddits for analysis pieces, that _why_ there are subreddits.

/r/news just got a new reader.

<comment><USER15> It's not really as simple as that. If you say GG is partaking in biased journalism, who's to say whether the silence and hesitance of established news organizations (to not be as aggressively iniquisitive as GG has always been) is pro-gov bias or not?

You should read Bill Keller's conversation with Greenwald here on the objectivity/partiality of news: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation- in-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a- column.html?_r=0)

It's a little long, but it's a very, very important conversation, everyone should read it really.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. I'm not liking this latest trend of saying journalists that attack the government are "biased", especially when they have strong facts to support their reasoning, and it's not just the daily senseless Obama-bashing we see on TV. I think there's a pretty big difference between these two.

I really don't want this to just "fade in the background" like it happened the last time around with the NSA:

[http://pando.com/2014/02/04/the-first-congressman-to- battle-...](http://pando.com/2014/02/04/the-first-congressman-to-battle-the- nsa-is-dead-no-one-noticed-no-one-cares/)

<comment><USER17> No journalist is unbiased

<comment><USER18> Any journalist that claims to be unbiased (I'm looking at you, Bill O'Reilly) is someone who you should never be listening to.

It's all about accepting your biases and making them very clear, allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions.

Disclaimer: this requires critical thought, which seems to have fallen out of favor these days.

<comment><USER17> Quite unfortunately in the US Watergate seems to have elevated Hacks to some sort of sainted status who poop rainbows.

When in the rest of the world they are regarded as at best a necessary evil or lower than estate agents and politicians in the trust states in the case of tabloid journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> tl;dr: /r/news considers the piece an opinion piece and they don't allow those.

And here's the last paragraph of The Incerpt aticle that makes clear it's opinion:

>Whatever else is true, no government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target people – who have been charged with no crime – for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse? But to allow those actions with no public knowledge or accountability is particularly unjustifiable.

<comment><USER20> Although I disagree with the premise that news shouldn't contain any opinion (because it's not always black and white, especially since the article in question contains original reporting), I would play a devil's advocate and argue that this isn't an opinion.

The sentence states that this cannot be justified by the government, which may be a fact. Or do you know of any justification? We could maybe even prove that this contradicts freedom of speech, and therefore cannot be justified.

(What I am trying to show here is that you can, to some extent, make an opinion into a fact and vice versa.)

<comment><USER21> _> I disagree with the premise that news shouldn't contain any opinion_

Nobody's asserting that premise. The question is whether _/ r/news_ should contain opinion.

<comment><USER15> That is the right question. And, I think at this point, it's become abundantly clear that default subreddits should _not_ be "randomly" moderated. Policy (written by Reddit staff) should be set for moderators to follow.

When you have a website that gets visited by more than _a hundred million_ users, this just won't do. Why are a few handful of anonymous random users dictating what is seen and not seen by millions and millions as "news? That makes no sense, something has to change.

There is something quite different about "news"... from, say, "biking". Most subreddits can stay as-is, but r/news and other subreddits would probably do better with officially picked staff.

<comment><USER21> The admins (disclaimerbrag: I used to be one) prefer to exercise control one level up: by deciding which subreddits to put in the default set. So the moderators have near-absolute domain over their subreddit, but only the ones who do a good job get featured on the default front page.

That restores the proper incentives and controls to the system while maximizing free speech and experimentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _"The story itself is irrelevant, it's simply how the story is presented—which is why any unbiased, objective and wholly factual news article on the event would be (and is) allowed in /r/news."_

That's an awfully hazardous line they're trying to walk. I understand the desire to walk it, but the inevitable hair-splitting over when articles cross a given line is going to go on forever.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Unbiased news" \- what would that even look like? As soon as you decide what to report on and what not to report on, that is a bias. If anything, this is about filtering out stories that don't fall within the consensus narrative and thus require that value judgements be made explicit and explained - what they seem to call "analysis".

<comment><USER24> I believe the idea is the "both sides" approach, where you get quotes from those who disagree on the story at hand, then uncritically present an equal amount of quotes from both sides (and there are only ever _two_ sides to a story). And of course, you do your best to keep out any context that might suggest one side or both is full of shit.

<comment><USER25> You are being too generous. "Unbiased" means you didn't ask questions outside of the talking points predigested by the press secretary's office or PR agency that prompted something to be in the news in the first place.

Everything else is obviously driven by potentially dangerous and unfair opinion, since it hasn't been vetted for safety.

<comment><USER24> There's definitely that, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Redditors are calling it an act of censorship.

It's not as thought Reddit moderators don't censor certain fact-based topics at their personal whim:

[http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html](http://arachnoid.com/psychology/reddit_psychology.html)

<comment><USER27> I actually think /r/askscience is one of the best moderated subreddits, which is impressive given its size and traffic. The example you linked is incredibly frustrating to me. That blogger has a very specific mindset about a subset of problems in parts of the general field of psychology that he is hellbent on applying generally to the entire broad discipline.

I went to an engineering-heavy undergrad and I saw that disdain from engineers on "softer" sciences all the time. I did not major in psychology, and parts of the field do have some serious issues, but to paint with such a broad brush and be so sure of yourself in casting aspersions on fields you have no formal training in is really gross to encounter.

EDIT: Hell, I'll go a step further and say that as neuroscience continues to intersect and grow with psychology I would consider a greater portion of psychologists as scientists than engineers.

<comment><USER26> > That blogger has a very specific mindset about a subset of problems in parts > of the general field of psychology that he is hellbent on applying generally > to the entire broad discipline.

Which blogger would that be? Perhaps you're thinking of Thomas Insel, director of the NIMH, who has taken exactly the same position I have, and for exactly the same reason:

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- diagnosis.shtml)

Quote: "While DSM has been described as a "Bible" for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been "reliability" – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. _The weakness is its lack of validity_."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, _not any objective laboratory measure_. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. _Patients with mental disorders deserve better_." [emphasis added]

For the above reasons, the NIMH has recently ruled that the DSM may no longer be the basis of scientific research proposals, on the ground that it has no scientific content.

> ... parts of the field do have some serious issues, but to paint with such a > broad brush and be so sure of yourself in casting dispersions [sic] on > fields you have no formal training in is really gross to encounter.

Fair enough. Let's see how your viewpoint stands up under scrutiny. Do you think astrology is a science? No? But you don't have a degree in astrology -- doesn't that disqualify you from having an opinion on this subject? My point is that, in science, authority counts for nothing, only evidence matters. To put this another way, in science, evidence means everything, reputation means nothing. The greatest amount of scientific eminence is trumped by the smallest amount of scientific evidence.

Also, the expression "casting dispersions" isn't quite what you had in mind (s/dispersions/aspersions).

And finally, Allen Frances, editor of DSM-IV, has recently written a book that makes the same points I do ([http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control- Medicalizati...](http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Normal-Out-Control- Medicalization/dp/0062229257)).

If NIMH director Insel, or Allen Frances, tried to post to r/askscience, they would get the same treatment I got -- scientific censorship.

More here: [http://arachnoid.com/building_science](http://arachnoid.com/building_science)

<comment><USER27> As for aspersions/dispersions, I tend to miss a lot of autocorrects on my phone these days when I believe I've typed a word correctly, so I came back to fix it and saw your response, which I'll take a closer look at after work.

My major bugaboo is that I think the field of psychology is broader than the DSM, I don't argue with its failings, just that there is more to the entire field of psychology.

<comment><USER26> > My major bugaboo is that I think the field of psychology is broader than the > DSM, I don't argue with its failings, just that there is more to the entire > field of psychology.

Fair enough. Let's make a comparison with medicine. Medicine isn't just doctors and clinics, there are scientists working behind the scenes to produce new research-based cures that have been validated as well as explained in scientific studies. Doctors who go off the ranch in medicine are censured or arrested because medical research is a science and clinical practice is fully backed up by solid, empirical evidence.

Psychology has clinics and practitioners, but what takes place there is not remotely scientific and is sometimes astonishingly ignorant ([http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology](http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology)), and there are no cures, only questionable symptomatic treatments. The reason? Unlike medicine, psychology has no scientific component to prevent absolutely any practice in clinics.

My point? Many argue that psychology isn't just clinical psychology, that there are scientific psychologists working behind the scenes. My response is to ask why this fact, these psychological scientists, have had no effect on psychological clinical practice, as is true in medicine? The answer is obvious -- psychology describes, it cannot explain, and science requires empirical, testable explanations, for reasons given here:

[http://arachnoid.com/building_science](http://arachnoid.com/building_science)

But don't take my word for it -- NIMH chairman Thomas Insel has recently come to the same conclusion, recently ruling that the DSM may no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content.

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- diagnosis.shtml)

<comment><USER27> Again, the NIMH argument from authority. I truly do not understand the laser focus on clinical psychology and the DSM, which, I agree, has some major issues. Clinical medicine was not always as science-backed as it is today, but the field evolved over time as our tools and methodological became more sophisticated. I would argue that the broad field of psychology is far closer to its infancy than medicine, as it only branched off from philosophy late in the 19th century, and over time (with better tools and increased interaction with neuroscience and biology) the field will evolve to be closer to what you want. It might have a different name at that point. I think one aspect of psychology that leaves it open to attacks is that it borders a whole bunch of other fields, because it comes from an inherently fuzzy place of human consciousness and behavior.

Despite that, it still doesn't make sense to discredit all other psychological research as non-science because you don't believe in clinical psychology. By the way, if you want to trade federal research organizations, the NSF funds psychologists and psychological research.

I just can't and won't see the value in denigrating an entire field because I disagree with a piece of it. It's counterproductive and only breeds animosity. If the argument goes "hey, there are some parts to this research methodology that I don't think are up to snuff, let's focus on improving it." It's a bit more effective than "The DSM is worthless, clinical psychology is worthless, therefore all psychology is not a science."

And hey, going back to my first comment, sorry I didn't know you were the blogger, but you didn't have to be snarky, obviously I wasn't accidentally mistaking a random website for an indictment from the head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> After reading the article, my gut reaction was 'Oh this is an interesting article, I wonder what the HN comments have to say about it?'

Then I see the top comments and they all try to discredit Greenwald as a sensationalist trying to grab publicity at the expense of honest reddit moderators. I then mentally put less validity on the article and move on to the next link. However I can't help but question if somehow my reaction was engineered by someone else. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER29> Power users/Mods using the vague reasoning of "editorial standards" on a crowdsourced rating mechanism to game stories. Where have we seen this before???

<comment><USER16> My thoughts exactly. On a crowd-sourcing platform based on consensus you shouldn't _need_ moderators messing around with the stories being posted there.

As PG put it "if it's what the community wants, it's what the community wants" (even though I'm very disappointed he's still heavily penalizing stories with "NSA" in them).

<comment><USER11> It's easy to say "Oh, you shouldn't need moderators" but the reality is, you most certainly do need them. It's like saying "Wikipedia shouldn't need mods or admins". I couldn't see wikipedia existing without them. There are just too many people out there who aim to ruin it for everyone.

Without moderators the system is easier to game, communities will almost immediately go off-topic, and the lowest common denominator will win. It's naive to think that online anonymous internet forums can exist without moderation. It's even more naive to think that you can foster high-quality content without heavy-handed moderation. Subreddits like /r/Askscience just wouldn't exist without it.

When you plant a rose garden, you don't just let the garden grow wild. You prune it to your liking, and to keep the garden healthy. The garden must be meticulously pruned if you want it to look beautiful. Pruning content which break the rules is the same thing.

<comment><USER29> You certainly do need moderation as a community reaches exorbitant scale, and if there are standards requirements to enforce. Not every online community is Something Awful or Hacker News.

I'm not singling out that Reddit is a flawed community because it has moderators. I am outlining that the behavior they are taking, within their own sense of unwritten standards and "internet points" reminds me of why I left Digg.

This is all further compounded with the sheer number of moderators who are editing /r/news and on other subreddits, especially those that are specifically covering the NSA/GCHQ stories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd have more sympathy for GG if he wasn't using the Snowden docs to further build his personal brand.

He's treating these docs like a marketer treats a new product launch, and because of that, I have little faith in his analysis. I'm happy to see /news standing up for what they believe in.

<comment><USER31> So what if GG is using them to build his personal brand?

Are the documents authentic? _Then the truth needs to be reported and disseminated as widely as possible._

If GG is a self-promoting hack, it will eventually catch up to him.

<comment><USER30> I've come to the conclusion that he is a self-promoting hack. His primary concern should be disseminating the truth, not editorializing it on an ala carte basis.

His treatment of the docs is a disservice to the public.

<comment><USER32> Interesting: you spend every comment condemning him for not being tightly focused on "disseminating the truth" (whatever that means), and somehow you find nothing dissonant about you having nothing to say about the actual investigations, facts, and content he writes.

Interesting indeed.

<comment><USER24> Mind, he doesn't actually have to be a plant. It's surprisingly easy to find fans of an administration who will go after critics with amazing single- mindedness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'll go with end result: the discussion has shifted from the manipulation stuff GG wrote about to censorship. Doesn't it look like a perfect example of successful manipulation?

</comment><comment><USER3> The conspiracy theory explanation for this is that the mods are actually government assets and censored the stories in order to make their handlers happy. I don't believe that this is consistent with the history of the NSA leaks on reddit so far, given that most of the other NSA stories have been highly visible and upvoted, though some have been deleted infrequently.

Perhaps this isn't so far fetched after all, though. I checked the front pages of CNN, ABC, MSNBC, and FoxNews, and found zero mention of the NSA whatsoever, nevermind the explosive reveal of COINTELPRO style operations against the internet public.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't think the moderators are necessarily employed by the US Government. The gravitational pull of power, particularly state power, is something some people have a hard time resisting.

I am pretty shocked about the ban on RT as it seems like a legitimate news org that helps fill in the gaps in coverage.

<comment><USER25> It is very unlikely that participants in spinning online forums are direct government employees. PR agencies do this. There are even GSA schedules for buying PR services from an established group of firms. What you see on TV and read in mainstream newspapers has been steered by this PR. It would be anomalous to think online forum influence isn't on the menu of services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and > Destroy Reputations

I knew there had to be a reason why my posts were getting downvoted.

</comment><comment><USER36> Funny, that article pretty much describes why I don't participate in Reddit much.

Drama, drama and more drama.

Your news is filtered no matter where you go to get it. Unless you're personally there and involved with every event happening around the world, you're getting filtered news.

If you don't like how /r/news is filtered don't go to /r/news. It's that simple.

<comment><USER37> No it's not that simple. When you get news from a community curated source, you get a say in how it's run. You're criticism helps shape how r/news is run. In a way, places like r/news depend on participants voicing their complaints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The problem with classifying this event as censorship is the subjectivity of the argument. One can propose that an individual is a subject of a government whose sole purpose is the malicious discredit of unfavorable information pertaining to that particular government's desired propaganda, but we can also propose that this particular individual believes that government conspiracies to undermine the public opinion on internet forums seems irrational.

I think we can all agree that both are entirely feasible, but remain unable to provide substantial evidence that discredits the other.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting that even this post is dropping heavily on the frontpage. Posts that were submitted 6 hours ago that have less karma are higher up.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ok - what about the story about webcam spying yesterday. It was #1 on r/technology for a couple of hours, and all of the sudden it _disappeared_ from the page.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why is /r/subredditdrama spilling over onto HN? Flagged.

<comment><USER41> This issue has implications far beyond reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Maybe if he didn't want to be censored there he should have posted teen girl creepshots or some other reddit-condoned content.

</comment><comment><USER43> News flash: If you get all your news from a single source, you might not get a complete and unbiased picture of the news.

</comment><comment><USER44> There's no censorship going on, and Reddit is not the only place people get their news. Seriously, if /r/news is your primary news source then something is wrong with you.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm not very convinced by either side: none is trying to offer an objective take on what Greenwald tried to do. It doesn't sound impossible to get the source, filter facts from his analysis and offer that to r/news. Is this me not being a journalist, and missing the point?</comment>


New White House Budget Spells Trouble for Nasa's SLS Rocket - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/nasas-new-budget-raises-questions-about-the-future-of-its-sls-rocket/ <comment><USER2> The article goes over a bunch of things, but IMO the most interesting paragraph is buried at the end:

> "As chairman of the appropriations committee, I have more than a passing > interest in what NASA does. And I have a little parochial interest, too, in > what they do in Huntsville, Alabama," where Marshall is located, Sen. Shelby > said. "Jody, you keep doing what you're doing. We'll keep funding you."

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman is in NASA's corner, so that's something of a relief.

Out of curiosity though, can someone walk me through why it would be a big deal if the worst case scenario were to happen and NASA's entire new generation of launch vehicles were scrapped?

Wouldn't that just create a massive opportunity and subsequent land-grab in the commercial space to fill the vacuum? SpaceX has proven it can be done. Other commercial entities are nipping at SpaceX's heels.

Especially if SpaceX starts successfully launching crewed missions this year, won't that prove that you can have a company that is significantly leaner and more efficient that can also produce vehicles containing tons of very explosive chemicals safe enough for humans to hitch a ride on?

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is weird. It admits in the first paragraph that the president's budget request is typically ignored by the Congress and then goes on anyway.

My understanding is presidential budgets are pretty much meaningless and have been for over a decade. Congress ignores them and does its own thing.

SLS is also known as the "senate launch system" and isn't going anywhere.</comment>


Show HN: My first website, for my startup. To do pre-sales of VPS Instances. - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I don't know how to code, so my whole website is all text, and looks spartan.
But it includes the relevant content- shopping cart items & email waiting list.
Have a look & let me know what you think: http://superspeedyservers.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks Chris, it's great to see people (pre-)launch. I think you deserve some honest feedback.

You absolutely must learn to code. If you're running a start-up out the back of your bedroom, you need to push down costs -- and push them down hard. That means cracking open a jar of coffee and doing everything yourself -- including the coding.

Thankfully, at this point you only need a professional(-ish) looking front- end. As it's a hardware product there's no obvious/pressing/necessary need for interactivity. So you need to learn the basics of HTML, CSS and JS. This isn't as difficult as it may first seem/appear -- a good week/fortnight should get you up to speed on the basics. Or, even a productive night.

Then you should deploy and customize a pre-existing framework, i.e., Bootstrap. There's a tonne of interesting content hanging around about how to adapt Bootstrap to your needs.[1] These days there are many tools for novices to get to grips with contemporary trends quickly and easily.

Why do you need to do this? One, because at the moment no-one will take you seriously -- at all. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. There's no use getting on the phone/networking/reaching out if your product is effectively pre-Internet. A non-website sets off serious, serious alarm bells. You're wasting your time. Second, as no-one will take you seriously, you're funneling your ad revenue down the drain.

It's time get your head down, learn and crack on. Don't hesitate to reach out.

[1]: [http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/12/customizing- bo...](http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/12/customizing-bootstrap/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on the startup.

I'd lose the enter site thing. Im already there, and its not porn right so I don't need to consent.

Design and copy. You need both. Best of luck

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://superspeedyservers.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> $100 can go a long way on odesk.com for you.

I could even help you out with just thowing a bootstrap or template together.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm _really_ hurting for money this month, and couldn't even afford $100 for anything at the moment. I just committed to spending $350 on an attorney to review my TOS to be sure it's going to be effective in my use case. But I'll keep odesk in mind for July when I have a new budget to work with.

Another thing I just committed to is $1.61/day each ad spend on both Facebook & Google AdWords, which equates to $100/month, and is about all I can afford- leaving me with little or no money for things like coffee shops or breakfast diners for myself. Hopefully it'll be enough to bring in _something_.

I'm currently on disability, but I just applied for a part-time job at a grocery store today in hopes of raising enough to cover Google AdWords & drawing some traffic to the site. If I get the job, I'll be able to spend a couple hundred on odesk like you say.

Of course, if someone would like to help for free, I'd certainly be happy to accept their assistance. My hosting doesn't support _any_ server-side scripting however, so everything has to be strictly static html. Which is unfortunate because I have a lifetime Mixpanel membership I'd love to use with it.

Thanks for your reply.

<comment><USER5> 100% agree with ainsej. Do not waste money on any paid advertising without a proper landing page/website set up. The way your site is now, there is no way you'd get anyone to convert, so you'd just be throwing money away on those clicks. The only people who may sign up are those looking to spam, attack, dos, or abuse your services in one way or another.

The $350 for attorney to review your ToS is not the right way to use your funds. You can find some decent templates for ToS or borrow from other hosts and edit/rewrite portions yourself. You need to solidify your product and overall brand/appearance before you spend any money on marketing and legal.</comment></comment></comment>