Product Marketing for Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for-Engineers <comment><USER2> I've often found engineers really struggle to jump over their own shadows when it comes to marketing. Things like...

\- "Marketing is evil!" ... perhaps but it's also a necessary evil if you want anyone using your product

\- "Build it and they will come" ... except they won't unless you tell people

\- "I hate spam/push messages/ads therefor everyone else must do to" ... but engineers tend to be the grumpiest about this stuff. Drip marketing to get users to engage progressively with your app, for example, can be valuable to users that even forgot they installed your app in the first place, because something distracted them right after

\- "We have all these features / options so let's so let's just show them all to the user and let them figure it out" ... paradox of choice etc

And many more. You could _almost_ argue that some jobs, like PM, UX researcher, designer, digital marketeer largely exist because of the narrow mindedness of engineers... I don't mean that seriously for obvious reasons but think there's some truth in it

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure it's narrow mindedness, I feel like it's mostly principles and not seeing that marketing isn't _only_ spam, lies and shit.

I think most engineers associate marketing with sleazy SEO/affiliate/self- promotion people who offer little to no added value to the web, society or humanity, who will lie, cheat and steal to make a buck. Most engineers don't want to be like those people in any way, and that's a good thing, because we'd all be better off if those people were gone.

But not all of marketing is "I have a shitty product, it has no encryption, but I will just say that it has super mega NSA encryption because stupid consumers will not know the difference". A lot of marketing is just getting the information out there.

I think it's similar to SEO in that sense. There's the shit that's manipulating Google (and Google is willfully playing along) by just spinning the same text thousands of times and stuffing keywords into it. Everybody would be better off if that disappeared. But there's also the basic common sense SEO. Make sure your HTML works, well, make sure you have your headlines in <h1>, <h2> etc, make sure the important pages you want found can actually be reached with links on your site, make sure your site loads fast etc.

<comment><USER4> I think your view on this will depend on what do you believe the distribution of good vs. evil in marketing looks like. Is it like this?

      ^  DECENCY                              PROFIT
      |  --->                                   <---
      |  --->                /----              <---
      |                  /---     \----
      |             /----              \----
      |         /---                        \----
      |     /---                                 \--
      +</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>>
       EVIL                                        GOOD

Or like this?

      ^ DECENCY                               PROFIT
      | ->      |\                       <</comment><comment>----
      | ->      | \                      <</comment><comment>----
      |         |  \-
      |        /     \--
      |       /         \</comment><comment>-----
      |     /-                      \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>>
       EVIL                                        GOOD

I personally believe it's the latter. I added arrows indicating opposing incentives at personal level, and I believe the profit motive is much stronger than personal morals, for two main reasons.

One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted.

Two, professional specialization. I sometimes quip, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to be separated from it by enough levels of indirection". I mean it. There's plenty of entrepreneurs who wouldn't feel comfortable going to someone personally and lying about their product, or spying on them and selling what they learned to a scammer. But if such entrepreneur hires a marketing manager, who then outsources all marketing to an external agency, which buys its tools off-the-shelf, you may suddenly end up with lies in ads and 50 megabytes of trackers on your GDPR-violating website, and at no point each individual's conscience crosses the "this is EVIL" threshold; everyone can point at each other and say, "I'm just doing what I'm paid to", or "I didn't know my subordinates/subcontractors would do that".

<comment><USER5> > One, market competition means you won't survive unless you're optimizing for > profits very strongly; with strong enough competition, if your competitor > does something shady, you have to follow suit or risk being outcompeted.

I have recently learned here on HN, that this is called a Red Queen's race. Since like me everyone on HN loves expressive language I am spreading the word.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race)

<comment><USER6> Depends. If you're on the market for a time period, customer A who bought your shady competitor's product will see all its warts quite soon. Meanwhile, your own customer B will be happy with your honest product.

The fence sitters on the marketplace might ask both A and B of their experiences and opinions. They will then calibrate that against A and B marketing. Maybe one or two customers might be random, but if it repeats over a longer time, things get quite obvious to everyone in the scene...

<comment><USER5> Which I would counter with another short phrase:

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Your competitors earned some money and will gain interest on it, if they are smart.

<comment><USER4> And because they saved the money that you spent on building a good product, they now have more money to spend on marketing than you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Marketing can be a real struggle for engineers, they are often so focused on "proving" what works, they feel marketing or promotion somehow pollutes the purity of their invention. They are also REALLY bad at the aesthetics of design.

They are often dead wrong about this moral high-ground, good brand/marketing can be the difference between success and failure.

I've lived in this difficult world for decades, started out as a programmer, but the majority of my work is marketing and brand management. Iv'e worked with start-ups that 100% refuse all brand/marketing, and others that are completely misguided. But ive also worked with very successful companies that devote the time and money to marketing. After all what's the point of making something if no one uses it.

Car's sell because they have personality, it's not just about what's under the hood.

<comment><USER8> > Marketing can be a real struggle for engineers ... They are also REALLY bad > at the aesthetics of design.

This is a pretty sweeping generalisation.

<comment><USER7> Yes it is, and with 20 years in the game it's generally true, there are always exceptions of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is nice and fine, but I feel that the world needs more engineering for marketeers. Some of the marketing stuff that they pull out is so outrageulsy ridiculous (cf. zoom's infamous "end to end encryption") that we are afraid to talk about their products in polite company.

<comment><USER10> > they pull out is so outrageulsy ridiculous (cf. zoom's infamous "end to end > encryption")

You assume it is a matter of ignorance and not them simply not caring. I've come to find many people who work in marketing almost Trumpian in their relationship with information.

<comment><USER11> I think the "them" should be broader than marketing - it's easy to point the finger on the ones that write the message, but everyone was in on it.

"End to end encryption" doesn't show up in a marketing brainstorm that goes unnoticed into branding creatives. Chiefs, Management, Product Teams, marketers, engineers, product managers, everyone knew it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like I must not be good at marketing because I find the emojis to be a massive turn-off / distraction from the content

<comment><USER13> I think that speaks more about your capacity to focus than your marketing ability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great resource!

One of the main problems with project that launch their marketing campaign is their attempt to create an image of something they are not yet to become.

I think that by being transparent along the way with your target audience, telling them about the progress you've made and the difficulties your company face and overcome, that's worth more than any marketing trick. That's when your company becomes a brand, and people can recognize with it

<comment><USER11> >One of the main problems with project that launch their marketing campaign is their attempt to create an image of something they are not yet to become.

This is more about perception and something to aim at. It's extremely difficult to develop a brand if you don't have anything to aim at, because from the moment you have an hook, you can anchor pretty much everything based on that and this allows you to do something that's extremely important in branding: consistency and congruency.

Your brand, communication, product, should all be in line with what they might not be yet, but are aiming at.

>I think that by being transparent along the way with your target audience, telling them about the progress you've made and the difficulties your company face and overcome, that's worth more than any marketing trick.

Being transparent when necessary, yes. If you have something that's harmless and innocuous, it brings no value to anyone to flag it.

Telling about progress works with a small minority, like a dev log works mainly for that audience. Stripe, Facebook, Google, have a lot of this in place to try to lure in talent, or more of that than to make people use their product - so in a sense, this is a "marketing trick".

Most people want something that works, either from a tangible point of view like a flash light that turns on, or intangible, like a piece of clothing that makes them feel they belong to something that others will recognize.

</comment></comment><comment> dynamite-ready Been looking for a guide like this.

Recently finished an MVP as a personal project, and was thinking about how promote it. It's a daunting task.

It's nice to think that l337 design (well... It's functional, hopefully) and a Reddit/HN post will be enough, but that's probably analogous to writing the first test record to your dev database, techwise...

On top of that, confidence is a big thing. What if my core hypothesis is flawed, or it's just a silly product? It's natural to want to innoculate yourself against criticism and rejection... That's a fundamental psychological feature of all nerds afterall.

<comment><USER15> _" On top of that, confidence is a big thing. What if my core hypothesis is flawed, or it's just a silly product? It's natural to want to innoculate yourself against criticism and rejection... That's a fundamental psychological feature of all nerds afterall."_

The trick is to remember that those responses are still better than the alternative of no one using your project or caring enough to provide any feedback. Users providing feedback is a good thing, even if it is negative.

I post a lot about my side project here and on other forums. It would be great if everyone just knew about it and already decided if it was something that they were interested in or not, but I know only a small fraction of relevant users are even aware it exists.

For me, it would be way worse to spend time building something that people might find beneficial but never got a chance to hear about, than sharing it and being criticized on the internet.

<comment> dynamite-ready Great promotional work! What's your side project?

Jokes aside, a large component of marketing is in aggregating opinion. The other half is the dark art we famously complain about.

Aggregating opinion at any level is hard work. And it's almost been elevated to a science now, so it has to be respected.

So to perform all that work to derive a conclusion which will most likely (given all that's known about the probability of start ups and success) prove you wrong, seems a perverse thing to do.

Masochistic, in fact.

I think it's easier to perform this work in the third person... It turns the dynamic on its head (like the schadenfreuder one might feel when working on a software project in the capicity of a QA tester). You're performing a clinical service.

But it takes some special effort to willingly put yourself through it...

I dunno.

I suppose I'll learn more if I just do it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I saw a sales funnel for an app I built for a customer once.

99% people dropped before they even saw the app.

I could have built the best app in the world, and no one would have ever known.

<comment><USER17> That's one hell of a leaky funnel. Did you ever figure out the underlying issue?

<comment><USER16> Problem was the ads target audience was to broad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks useful as I'm just getting into that sort of stuff for my business [0]

I experimented with two ad campaigns, on Facebook and on Reddit, both the cheapest options. Had some weird results from the FB one: most of the "reached" users were concentrated in Eastern Europe, even though my locations were set to the US, Canada and Europe. All in all, it didn't yield many clicks but for ~£10 I wasn't expecting much.

Reddit's ads are more expensive, and I was dissapointed to find that you can't target just any subreddit. They have a list of "ad-approved" ones that you can pick from. Campaign is still running but it already looks like it's reached more people. Not sure if it's resulting in more clicks though.

[0] Shameless plug: [https://makely.me](https://makely.me)

<comment><USER19> Makely looks nice! Thanks for sharing. I sent the link along to someone who was considering starting a 3D design business :)

I haven't signed up myself, but how are you planning on solving the chicken/egg marketplace problem?

<comment><USER18> I'm glad you like it and thanks for spreading the word!

> how are you planning on solving the chicken/egg marketplace problem

The plan at the moment is to advertise whilst it's still in deveopment and get a healthy user base of mostly creators. It will take time; I don't expect it to blow up overnight.

I have worries when it comes to attracting enough "clients" because that's significantly harder to advertise to. To start off with, the demographic we'll be targeting will be general gaming and board game enthusiasts, as well as some of the "creative" communities that exist on the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I always enjoy [https://marketingexamples.com/](https://marketingexamples.com/) it's a good one for lot's of different ideas and how others did it.

<comment><USER21> Creator Here: Cheers Andy. Appreciated

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are there two different definitions of the marketing function in everyday use?

Some people seem to equate marketing with the promotion of existing products. Some others see marketing as helping to determine the products / services the company should build.

Are there better terms for these different functions in an organization?

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a great compendium. What might be helpful is a bit of a flow chart or an actual step-wise guide that shows you what to consider when and why and how. I'm reading Seth Godin's "This is Marketing" book right now.

</comment><comment><USER24> Product Marketing for Engineers, or developers/programmers? Because I have a feeling that actual engineers (process engineers, systems engineers, mechanical engineers, etc.) aren't going to be able to utilise this list.

</comment><comment><USER25> That's actually extremely helpful. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER26> Really helpful. Thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER27> Original source: [https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for- Engineers](https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for-Engineers)

\---

For what it's worth, one of the best articles in the list, for me, was patio11's:

Business of SaaS - [https://stripe.com/au/atlas/guides/business-of- saas](https://stripe.com/au/atlas/guides/business-of-saas)

<comment><USER28> Moderators: please update this post's URL to Lisa Dziuba's copy; most up to date, and of course, proper credit!

<comment><USER29> Ok, changed from [https://github.com/michael-andreuzza/Marketing-for- Engineers](https://github.com/michael-andreuzza/Marketing-for-Engineers).

<comment><USER30> I would petition to add "Software" in front of "Engineers" in the title, and perhaps adding "Product" in front of "Marketing". I'm supporting a mechanical engineer get his remote services business going, and as far as I can tell this resource is _not_ of interest.

<comment><USER31> Curious why not. It does seem to be oriented towards things that can be sold to an audience that can be reached through email campaigns, social media, Medium (uggh), etc. The emphasis would almost certainly be different if you have a much narrower industrial focus where F2F interactions/sales may be relatively more important.

I will say that the list of resources seems to be oriented towards tactics more than thinking about what your strategy around the product is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Really? [https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for- Engineers/issues...](https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for- Engineers/issues/24)

Am I the only one that thinks it's annoying that people feel compelled to announce their enthusiasm? I've always thought reddit comments along the lines of "have you an upvote" were annoying noise, but this seems a bit more egregious. Issues are supposed to be for reporting issues, it's on the name! Not only did someone have to spend time to read this, and close it, but it crowds out _actual_ issues.

<comment><USER33> This is inevitable when someone tries to turn forge hosting into social media (and succeeds at it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why link to your fork, which is only behind the upstream?

<comment><USER35> Marketing, obviously!</comment></comment>


Pocket Casts changes subscription plans after user backlash - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20873611/pocket-casts-plus-premium-web-desktop-apps-changes-rollback <comment><USER2> Excellent news. I don't need to find a new Podcast app :).

It was fairly obvious things would come to this. Either accept major user backlash, or provide lifetime. I'm glad they made the right choice, I just wish they hadn't stumbled first. They got some unnecessary bad press.</comment>


Ask HN: Does HN have an API and if not what's the etiquette for scraping? - <AUTHOR>

I haven't seen any mention of an API and I want my new resume app, aimed a tech types, to have some very basic HN integration. I want to offer the option for the user to supply their HN username and have their karma appear on the resume generated by my app. This along with how long they have been a HN member. I'd like it to be an up to date figure and so ideally would like to scrape it every time a request for the resume is made. Would this be acceptable or is it bad form? If it's bad form what would be a polite number of times to scrape?<p>I guess this question could open a more general discussion on the etiquette of screen scraping. So feel free to answer in general terms too. <comment><USER2> Hacker News has an unofficial API at <http://api.ihackernews.com/> , and as far as I know, it is running with PG's permission and under certain limits.

I've worked with the API and it does a fantastic job. For what you're looking for , I think this API call will do the job:

<http://api.ihackernews.com/profile/{userID}>

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/robots.txt>

      User-Agent: * Disallow: /x? Disallow: /vote? Disallow: /reply? Disallow: /submitted? Disallow: /submitlink? Disallow: /threads? Crawl-delay: 30

</comment><comment><USER4> Another user posted a similar question a few days ago asking if it would be alright if he crawled HN, and would Paul block him if he attempted to do so. I told him: "There's enough of a load on HN as it is without every Tom, Dick, and Harry testing out his proof of concept by crawling this site."

I think a year ago this wouldn't have been an issue if you spaced your requests out by several seconds, but during the daytime (United States daytime, that is) this site is hammered. Yesterday the site was brought to a crawl (no pun intended) by just from everyone commenting on that DDG/Google article.

If you spaced your requests out by 3 or 4 seconds and only crawled during the US night time then the servers shouldn't be affected too much. That doesn't account for the data transfer you use up though. Someone has to pay for that and there are already several sites (that I can think of off the top of my head) that crawl HN on a regular basis.

</comment><comment><USER5> For what you're looking to do, once a day is plenty often enough. (How much does karma change in a day and does it matter if your site is a few points behind?)

If it were me, I'd cache the results of an api call to HN with a last- retrieved timestamp and check against that for requests > 24 hours to retrieve again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I guess it doesn't really matter if my site is a few points behind. Timestamp strategy makes sense too. Thanks!

I like the look of <http://api.ihackernews.com/> and so will poll this rather than scrape - thanks for the tip hardik988 and for all the other comments too.</comment></comment>


What can you do with a second Ethernet port? - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/133849

<comment><USER2> Fun, but if you have a managed switch, there are some even more interesting things you can do, like bandwidth monitoring:

nTop - <http://www.ntop.org/news.php>

And realtime traffic stats:

<http://iptraf.seul.org/>

If you run SIP on your network, you can capture call setup information to debug phone issues:

<http://wiki.wireshark.org/SIP>

And even extract RTP audio streams to investigate call quality issues:

<http://wiki.wireshark.org/RTP_statistics>

<comment><USER3> yup. another handy tool is ngrep: <http://ngrep.sourceforge.net/>

for app-level protocol stats and/or high-end situations i'd attach an extrahop product: <http://www.extrahop.com/products/></comment></comment>


Calculating rolling cohort retention with SQL - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getmetrica.com/post/44824108745/calculating-rolling-cohort-retention-with-sql?ref=twitter <comment><USER2> This is well done! An internal project I'm working on will soon need to provide documentation like this.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I was surprised at how long it got, but hopefully the exercise is good for learning real-world SQL in general (beyond just the cohort use case). Would love requests for future posts topics if there's anything you want to learn.</comment></comment>


Promoted Add-ons Pilot - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/09/introducing-the-promoted-add-ons-pilot/ <comment><USER2> I just applied. I don't want my add-on "promoted". I just want to get rid of the Mozilla message: "This is not monitored for security through Mozilla's Recommended Extensions program. Make sure you trust it before installing."

I wrote back to Mozilla: "This is an old add-on. I just want to get rid of the warning label. How much will that cost me?"

I feel like I'm asking the extortionist goon how much it's going to cost me to not be beaten up.

<comment><USER3> Meanwhile, commercially owned extensions which are terrible for privacy and security, like Grammarly and Honey, are going to get promoted by Mozilla.

The open-source projects with no income are the ones getting hurt.

<comment><USER4> How are the Grammarly[1] or Honey[2] addons terrible for security?

I can guess why you say they're terrible for privacy, but they both mention what data they share on the addon page. So it seems not so much that they are violating users privacy, but that you think people should be more concerned with the amount of privacy they give up.

For the record, I am pro-privacy, and would never want to use addons like these that send my browsing and other data to a third-party. And I know the vast majority of people don't read privacy statements and might not fully realize the amount of privacy they're giving up. But that's a much bigger problem than Mozilla giving these addons that openly collect this data a Verified tag. Also, the tag will ostensibly indicate some level of verification that the addon isn't doing anything sneaky (on the client side), so it's not "just" promotion, according to the announcement. If you don't believe Mozilla is going to do that verification well/honestly, that's a different discussion.

Regarding open-source projects, I share your concern, but would be interested to see some evidence that they will be hurt by this.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/grammarly-1/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/grammarly-1/)

[2] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/honey/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/honey/)

<comment><USER5> Open source extensions already wait weeks or, more often, months to be reviewed and have that scary warning removed. As this program is planned, any commercial or other well-funded extensions will be jumping the queue ahead of them. That seems strictly worse, unless they also pay to play.

<comment><USER6> Well the Mozilla add-on website maybe isn't the only way to distribute webextensions. Mozilla already hosts and lists the add-ons for free. It seems only normal it warns users that no verification has been made as they might assume since it's on an official website. Extensions may be hosted elsewhere and reviewed by online communities too. For example, the Krabby extension that add Kakoune keybindings to web navigation is hosted on github.

<comment><USER2> _Well the Mozilla add-on website maybe isn 't the only way to distribute webextensions._

It is now. All add-ons must be signed by Mozilla. There's a development mode, but test add-ons disappear when the browser exits.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the precision. I did not know it was the case. Indeed you have to use Firefox Nightly to use Krabby... But if no verification is made on add- ons, does it mean it is easy to have them signed? It seems rather contradictory that a add-on has to be signed only to end up with a banner that warns it might be harmful but still can't be distributed elsewhere. It's like you want a store like everyone else but you don't have the perks of a store. What's the point then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really like this step, but I think this limitation is quite a shame: "You (or your company) must be based in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, or Singapore, because once the pilot ends, we can only accept payment from these countries"

I've got two extensions which I'm really fond of: "I don't care about cookies" (1), and its paid version "No thanks" (2). The creator, Daniel, lives in Croatia and thus they won't be able to join this program. I hope the country limitation is lifted soon.

1) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont- care-a...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about- cookies/)

2) [https://www.no-thanks-extension.com/](https://www.no-thanks- extension.com/)

<comment><USER8> FYI, you don't need another extension for the 'Don't care about cookies'

Go to the home page and click the 'AdBlock Plus' link to add to uBlock Origin - [https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/](https://www.i-dont-care-about- cookies.eu/)

1 less addon with access to all sites you visit.

To remove cookie banners permanently on lesser known sites, follow this 30 second guide by the dev - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TvCGWwQr5o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TvCGWwQr5o)

<comment><USER9> Yes, this addon looks like repackaging and selling someone others open source work. I'm really not sorry for that author.

<comment><USER10> I'm the author.

I maintain both the "I don't care about cookies" and the premium "No, thanks" extension and the filter list. All by myself, for the last 8-9 years. Please don't write stuff you didn't recheck first.

While the list is a cool addition for those who can't install the extension, it really can't do much when cookie policy needs to be accepted for the website to work properly. The extension accepts policies automatically when it's needed.

Cheers, Daniel

<comment><USER11> I love your extension Daniel. Installing Firefox Mobile, then this was a revelation. Unfortunately, it was killed by the Firefox update two weeks later.

<comment><USER10> They'll fix that. I think they realized they will lose so many users without extension support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are currently 21,100 add-ons on the store.

Considering the relatively small market share of FF, I feel like the amount of companies that would pay for review could be pretty small (<= 1000).

The ad model also creates an awkward conflict of interest: the add-ons most willing to pay good good money for placement are probably ones that you shouldn't install and Firefox should not promote. Think tracking, ads, .... Or commercial ad blockers trying to always appear above Ublock Origin.

It will be detrimental to open source/hobby add-ons in general, unless Mozilla includes those in the review program for free.

Overall, I can't see how this will bring in any considerable amount of revenue, not even considering the labour cost of manual review. At least while keeping shady actors out.

I can imagine this just to be an effort to balance out the costs of curating the store, while still bringing in a bit of additional money.

I'm tentatively supportive, assuming they provide free reviews for non- commercial open source extensions and are strict with the promotions they allow.

<comment><USER13> > the add-ons most willing to pay good good money for placement are probably > ones that you shouldn't install and Firefox should not promote. Think > tracking, ads, .... Or commercial ad blockers trying to always appear above > Ublock Origin.

The whole point is for people to pay to have their add-on manually vetted by Firefox staff to verify that it meets the recommendation standards. As the article says, this process is repeated regularly to account for updates.

> I'm tentatively supportive, IF they provide free reviews for non-commercial > open source extensions and are strict with the promotions they allow. No > mention of this in the announcement though...

This is already how it works, every recommended add-on has been manually reviewed. The article says that they will use this to expand the reviewing process, not to replace it. They also say, "During the pilot program, these services will be provided to a small number of participants without cost." The extent of the two promotional "levels" are clearly outlined as well.

This is just a way for companies to get their add-ons on the fast track to wide adoption by having them reviewed for policy compliance and, if they choose to pay more, added to a promotional section to increase visibility. The Twitter-style hot take to find a flaw right away is not warranted.

<comment><USER14> It does create a conflict of interest, and a significant risk that at some point greed will win - compare e.g. AdBlock Plus that started with the "acceptable ads" program and then allowed the worst of clickbait (Taboola & Co.) despite heavy user complaints.

On the other hand, it also provides an opportunity to have a _trusted_ addon ecosystem. If the price is reasonable, popular free addons can collect it through donations, and in exchange, users can be sure that the addons were actually reviewed (hopefully thoroughly and by humans, i.e. with a much lower "oops bad thing slipped through" rate than addon stores that rely mostly on automation).

Could even be a great way to generate revenue. Have two versions of the addon. One is free. One costs $1/year but is reviewed. Same addon. I know which one I'd pick (for myself and all relatives). Mozilla and the addon dev can split the revenue 50:50.

<comment><USER15> That might even be an interesting next step: allow users to chip in for review, right on the AMO page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems like a reasonable choice to bring in some revenue and also scale up their extension review team. I personally prefer to trust an app almost solely based on the permissions it asks for, but many of the "Recommend Extensions" have wider permissions, and I suppose the fact that Mozilla has reviewed them comforts me a bit.

The fact that Mozilla will only promote/market extensions which have been reviewed by humans for security and privacy issues is a big step up over pretty much everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mozilla has been recommending a copy-cat extension for ~3 years, despite reports from users and developers.

[https://twitter.com/Pythux/status/1154403982342852609](https://twitter.com/Pythux/status/1154403982342852609)

[https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1165747661691064322](https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1165747661691064322)

[https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/1078](https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/1078)

This is an unpaid recommendation. Why would I trust Mozilla now that they're getting paid?

<comment><USER17> Is there anything inherently wrong with recommending a "copycat" extension? As long as it complies with the license, why is the fact is has copied an issue? If it is useful for users and passes Mozilla's criteria why should they not recommend it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't understand what exactly it means to be reviewed. I have an addon and they review every time I update it. [1] I provide them with source code, and they often have issues with this or that, and we make changes to satisfy them.

If this isn't reviewing, what is? It makes it seem like this new program is less about actually reviewing (which they already do) and more about pushing for advertising revenue. That's a fair thing to do, but it's weird to frame it as if reviewing isn't already happening.

1: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/beelinereader...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/beelinereader/)

<comment><USER19> The second paragraph of the article answers your question. Recommended extensions go through a stricter review and, if approved, are then "prominently recommended on AMO and other Mozilla channels". Mozilla has been doing this curation "for free" and at their own discretion; now they're adding a paid "shortcut" for anyone whose extensions are under their radar.

<comment><USER18> I guess my point is that they've been looking at things pretty darn strictly already, poking through our source code and asking for all sorts of changes, even between submissions (that's right—we'd just be sitting there minding our own business, and we'd get an email saying we'd be pulled from the store if we didn't address issue). And to be clear, we have never collected any user- linked browsing data or even usage data, so it's not like we're a high-risk addon.

If what we've experienced isn't considered a strict review, I'd hate to see what the next level looks like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This sounds like a good idea. I was lucky to get my Weather Extension listed as a recommended extension. There is extra work involved and the code reviews are strict. I plan on submitting my Link Shortener extension to see if I can get it promoted.

<comment><USER21> Any comment or key points from the procedure?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe a first step of turning the add-ons into a kind of paid app store? Worked well for some others ;-)

If eventually some kind of payments would be possible, Forefox could transform into a kind of platform and bring completely new possibilities.

<comment><USER16> It's the opposite of a paid app store. Instead of users paying to download apps, developers are paying to list them.

<comment><USER22> Apple and Google require a fee just to register. It is also possible to pay them for more exposure.

Just saying this might only be a first step. Tipping their toes, see what is possible. Might work out differently. Or not at all, or the same ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An interesting side effect of an earlier policy means that the sponsored ads for extensions will not be able to be blocked. Firefox extensions are prevented from operating on AMO. This is or was to ensure malicious addons can't interfere with its operation.

Now, it also means Mozilla is in the enviable position of offering ads to Firefox users which can not be blocked by Firefox ad blocking extensions.

Put another way, if you want to browse AMO ad free, you will need to use a different browser.

<comment><USER23> Look up `extensions.webextensions.restrictedDomains` in `about:config`, you can remove Mozilla domains from the restricted list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> More extensions need to be reviewed. This seems like a good way to do it. I only install recommended or community promoted addons, since I am not capable of reviewing the code.

</comment><comment><USER24> I bet they're going to make bribing Mozilla a condition to get on the whitelist for mobile Firefox. Which explains why it exists.

<comment><USER17> It's hardly a bribe though, is it?

The allowlist exists so it can guarantee users install add-ons which work, and don't break their browser. Both reviewing and adding support for required APIs costs money.

<comment><USER24> Not putting artificial restrictions into the browser is free.

<comment><USER17> It's really not. I work on Firefox. Just yesterday I spent some time helping a user debug an issue they had, and it turned out to be caused by them flipping a hidden pref in about:config. This is not uncommon, it takes up my time and my colleagues' time, which costs money.

<comment><USER24> We aren't talking about hidden preferences but about add-ons. And if you don't want to support people who installed add-ons you didn't verify, don't support people who installed add-ons you didn't verify.

<comment><USER17> It's not a huge leap to see how the same could apply to add-ons too, it frequently does even on desktop. It would be many times more likely for the new android Firefox, hence the existence of the allowlist. Not to mention that some of the restrictions aren't artificial at all.

As for support, a) we'd like to support all of our users, and b) it often takes a lot of support time until you establish that an add-on or hidden preference is responsible.

<comment><USER24> > Not to mention that some of the restrictions aren't artificial at all.

Such as?

> a) we'd like to support all of our users

Only what the users would like matters. Giving them the choice between being installing what they want and getting support is strictly better than a forced whitelist.

> b) it often takes a lot of support time until you establish that an add-on > or hidden preference is responsible.

Then check for that first.

<comment><USER17> > Such as?

For extensions, as I understand it not all the APIs are implemented yet for geckoview. Not my area though so can't provide more details. For about:config, again lots of the preferences don't make sense for geckoview, or can even break it completely.

> Giving them the choice between being installing what they want and getting > support is strictly better than a forced whitelist.

For you perhaps. But for many users having a working browser is more important. Users don't deliberately break their browsers, yet it happens all of the time. I believe (and I'm speaking for just myself here, not Mozilla) that finding a balance between allowing users to install/tweak many things whilst ensuring a usable browser is better.

> Then check for that first.

Sure we could immediately check if users have any addons or prefs set, and just ignore them if so. But that would let many genuine bugs slip through, not to mention not be very nice to those people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is the exact same thing they said they wouldn't do, and now they're doing it.

This is very unfortunate. I'm not liking how the future is looking here. Fired a bunch of people, then announce a partnership with Google, and now this.

<comment><USER26> The company needs money. They're the only browser out there not directly controlled by Google & Apple.

<comment><USER27> Do they though?

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its- go...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-google- search-deal/)

<comment><USER28> Yes. It's unwise to depend on a sole source of income.

<comment><USER29> Yeah this seems like an ok experiment so they aren't totally dependent on google for income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Firefox should just stop tiptoeing and absorbing useful addons regularly. Starting with uBlockOrigin and youtube enhancer.

Make adblock be a first class feature that you enabled/whitelist in the main browser option screen.

</comment><comment><USER31> things like an os, browser etc are now at utility level. and should be funded through taxes and grants. you know like nato contribution grants but at the un level. everyone needs a reliable, privacy based browser and os. & I would reckon it a human right.

<comment><USER32> How would state coercion bear better fruit that the love of freedom?

I'm not yet a taxpayer, but I'm not looking forward to having my money be wasted on yet another "service" that neither I nor most people would choose to benefit from. I'll wager the postal service is an example of waste of public funds that translates well across borders.

Evidence that open source leads to better software abounds. I don't think one could say the same about state-funded anything unless one lives in that fictitious country called Finland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What is the difficulty in accepting payment from more countries. Don't most of the payment providers like Stripe support a broad range of countries.

<comment><USER34> If you take money in exchange for services in a country, then you have to deal with taxes and regulations of that country...

<comment><USER35> Is it though? Mozilla would still be providing the service based in their country of incorporation and where their website is hosted regardless of where the customer is based. As long as they comply with the regulation of their host country (export restrictions, sanctions, etc) they should be in the clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will people be paying for review (with angry developers of rejected add-ons) or approval (with misaligned incentives to approve them)?

</comment><comment><USER36> Yeah, what will help live up a moribund (share wise) browser platform better than paid add-ons?

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't fully understand the positivity here. Isn't Firefox sell itself as a non-profit?

<comment><USER38> I think the positivity comes from the fact that Mozilla has struggled to survive since its inception and is generally a good company.

<comment><USER39> Except when they fired basically all their talent. I don't really have any love for them after this.

Mozilla should've always been structured as a co-op.

<comment><USER40> if they asked their advanced users to pitch in $10/mo to keep at least some of that talent and to ween off google revenue, i doubt any of us would have had issues. but they did the most absurd thing possible :(

<comment><USER41> Haven't they been asking for that for years?

<comment><USER40> it has always been impossible to donate directly for firefox or any specific mozilla initiative. any donations just got black-holed with questionable sideshow shit continuing to happen. i stopped donating at that point; that's not how i want to "vote with my wallet".

really bummed about the whole thing.

<comment><USER42> I specify in the note where I want the donation to go to when I send a donation (e.g. "for Thunderbird"); I have received notes back from the Thunderbird team referencing the donation, which satisfies the question in mind as to whether my donation preference was respected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Mozilla makes a gazillion dollars from Google for being the default search engine. They get free labor from volunteers all over the world, being OSS and all that. So what do they need extra money for??

<comment><USER44> Because a single source of income (Google) isn't smart for anyone. And the more money is involved (in this case, a gazillion), the worse it is to do so. What if Google just one day decides to not renew their contract? Mozilla'll be out a gazillion dollars a year.

<comment><USER43> That's a hypothetical scenario. I'm talking about the reality: Google was paying Mozilla close to a billion/year to be the default search agent. That is a shit-ton of money.</comment></comment></comment>


How Long Will Programmers Be So Well-Paid? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/27/write-code-get-paid/ <comment><USER2> This really should be 'How long will 'some' Programmers Be So Well-Paid'?

C'mon lets be frank not all programmers are well paid, You really have to be working at Google or other big place or make it big in the start up area. None, of that is any different than any other profession I know of. In fact even the author seems to be talking of 'Google and Facebook' employees, the number of people working at Google and Facebook are small enough to consider them a clear exception.

What you really must be talking about is of a time around a decade and a half back when programmers seem to be paid well. And even they were paid well not because they were programming, its just that the IT sector grew so rapidly there was a immense demand in the middle level management areas that caused a impression of rapid career progress in the software industry. That is what made people to 'come in the game for the money'.

The only distinction that I see programming has compared to other professions is programmers tend to think of themselves as people 'who solve problems' and not just people who write code. No other profession, I know of carries that tag line.

<comment><USER3> Precisely.

The article quotes the average starting salary at google to be $125,000. After converting that into GBP (for the UK where I live) you get to 77,613.

Whenever I look around at local programming jobs, a salary of 77K would be attainable mainly only by people who were project leaders/architects for large corporate systems.

Most entry level jobs are .Net, PHP or Java programming and will net you a salary of 18-25K. A programmer with 4-10 years experience can maybe expect to get paid 30-35K.

Basically a similar payscale to a plant fitter , electrician or teacher and quite a way off what you would expect for a doctor or lawyer.

<comment><USER4> I dont think we can compare salaries in Silicon Valley and UK like that. In the end its about how much you have after you pay all your basic expenses and I think the person with GBP 77K has much more left than the person with $125K in California.

Edit: Apparently living in the UK aint too cheap either. Did not know that!

<comment><USER5> Not sure about this. In my experience accommodation in the UK is more than in the US (possibly not in the big cities or SV, though it was true of SF last time I visited), gas and electricity are a lot more expensive, and food is about the same price.

      Average annual salary of software developer in US: $93,000
      Average annual salary of software developer in UK: £35,000 = $56,000 approx

      Average house price in the US: $181,500
      Average house price in the UK: £234,000 = $376,014

Ever feel like you're in the wrong country?

(the 93k figure from this recently front-paged article: <[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4696113>](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4696113>); all other figures from a randomly-selected page from the first few Google results, but the UK figures seem reasonable to me - I'm in the south of England but outside London, and houses here are all above 250k but most programming jobs I see offer 30-35k. Of course using nationwide averages isn't necessarily an accurate picture as the places with most tech jobs available are probably not the ones with most houses on the market)

<comment><USER6> To be fair, "average" is a weird measurement for comparing the US to the UK. The average density of development in the UK is far higher than in the US,a nd housing prices are higher accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the premise that professional salaries are determined entirely or even primarily by supply and demand is weak. When you can't measure a workers quality easily, all sorts of other issues influence salary.

I think the more interesting question is: how much higher can programmer salaries go if they play their cards right? Programmers seem to have positioned themselves as a step above IT. But there is money in perception and the perception you want is to be just a notch below the "real men" (execs). This is particularly true in places that aren't software houses, but have programmers internally. What's important is not just supply and demand, but the perception that quality matters, as well as having easily digestible signals of quality.

Compare programming to accounting. I don't think the intellectual horsepower necessary for the two jobs is that different. But accountants at big companies make more money, and external accountants at accounting firms make even more. Why? The demand is obviously there--everyone needs accountants. Supply is limited--accounting takes some mental horsepower. The same things are true for programming. Do what's different? The difference is that there is a perception that quality matters, and there are proxies for quality (association with a big firm, education, CPA) that are easily digestible by C-suite execs. Companies don't cheap out on their accountants or their lawyers because there is a perception that executives will be held accountable if the company suffers problems related to that choice. But companies aren't afraid to cheap out on programmers. If a project fails or is late, there is a perception that that's just how software goes, no decision they could have made could have changed the outcome.

I think programmer salaries are going to continue to go up. First, Google and Amazon, etc, are creating a perception that quality matters. They aren't hiring the cheapest people they can get. Second, the next generation of F500 execs will have grown up with their friends taking a gig at Facebook instead of going to Barclays or McKinsey. That's extremely important for the profession. Programmers want the industry to be seen as being in competition with banks, consultancies, etc, for "talent." Third, I don't think supply is going to expand, and I feel like industry groups may move to create certifications (rigorous ones like CPA or Series 7) to create indicia of quality.

<comment><USER7> Accountants are highly paid b/c they save companies money. If I charge $300/hr, but I save you ~$100k in taxes, it's a no brainer that actually _makes you money_. The same direct profitability cannot be said about programmers. At best it is indirect. That's what's called a better business model. You don't have to be an expert to understand you're getting a better product.

Additionally, programmers would do well for to adopt an accountants mindset toward explaining and justifying the reasoning for everything. My father's a tax acct/atty Who worked for the IRS for ~10y and now runs his own practice. I'm a "highly paid" programmer in Mountain View. I see a lot of parallels, but the difference in the business model is most glaring.

EDIT:

Perhaps a better word would have been "potential," as in potential revenue. The conclusion that spending $Xk on engineering will generate $Yk revenue is never guaranteed. This is what a typically tax accounting conversation sounds like: "I will save you $Xk in taxes for $Y." Conversely, engineers at best can predict that they will generate $Xk revenue while necessarily costing $Y. This is the distinction I was making.

<comment><USER8> Well... no, it doesn't _make you money_. It means you pay out less in taxes. There's no more income, just less outgo.

I've boiled down my programming-skills to people sometimes by saying "I can use computers/web/IT to do one of two things: bring in more revenue, or reduce your operating expenses". That's pretty much what everything boils down to.

Accountants, almost by their definition, aren't going to be able to increase revenues. They might increase profit by reducing outlays, or shifting money around to different tax years and such, but fundamentally accountancy activities aren't going to increase revenue.

Most IT projects don't increase revenues on their own either - it's generally in conjunction with initiatives from some other department. But sometimes the increase in revenues that can be generated with strong IT/web initiatives is enormous.

However... most of us are focused on the 'saving money' aspect, similar to accountants. We can optimize processes in an organization, increase auditability, generate more reports faster, etc.

EDIT: "The same direct profitability cannot be said about programmers. At best it is indirect" Ummm... just to be clear, yes it can. If I do a project for someone that costs, say, $100k, but allows them to bring in, say, $3 million in extra revenue, it's a no-brainer. The project increased revenue (and, well, it's a no-brainer to do if it increases profits). But I may do the same project for $100k which allows a company to reduce its internal helpdesk needs from, say, 25 people down to 5 people, saving $400k per year. That should generally be a no-brainer too.

It's pretty easy - I'd say often easier, to justify developer or software project cost/benefits/ROI vs an accountant's abilities, simply because the laws surrounding taxes are impossible for anyone to fully understand. That huge tax deduction you got might come at the expense of an audit 3 years from now. Even if you 'win', the cost of the audit needs to be factored in later.

<comment><USER9> "But I may do the same project for $100k which allows a company to reduce its internal helpdesk needs from, say, 25 people down to 5 people, saving $400k per year. That should generally be a no-brainer too."

Here's the problem I have as a manger. Answer me these questions:

1\. How do I know your software will actually allow me to replace 20 people?

2\. How do I know the project will succeed, i.e. actually finish in a usable state?

3\. How do I know the project will be on-time or on-budget?

Historically, software projects fail all three of these questions rather regularly. And most people who have any kind of dealing with software _know_ this, so they _know_ that it may end up costing them $200,000 to replace old software with buggy new software which doesn't do everything the old software did, requires training new people, and maybe doesn't even reduce costs.

That's what the parent meant - software projects are _not_ as predictable as accounting. They also tend to take _much, much_ longer and cost much more before you see whether they worked or not.

<comment><USER8> How do you know accountant X won't fiddle the books and land you in hot water? How do you know all the deductions are kosher. Even well-meaning financial people have conflicting views on what's allowed and not allowed.

When talking about hiring an accountant or firm, it's still a crap shoot until you have a relationship and track record with them.

<comment><USER9> Less so. With accountants/lawyers, you can usually tell someone is at least decent by school/company they work for/companies they worked for.

There's also a lot of government intervention to make sure they act legally - I'm pretty sure that most countries force CPAs and lawyers to have a minimum level of credibility (studying, passing tests, etc.) This makes it easier to make sure the majority of the population makes at least decent decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would say likely forever. Programming is a commitment. Many people will just not be able to sacrifice other things in life to keep up.

Programming isn't a "learn it once and you're good for life" sort of career. Programmers have to keep learning every day to stay relevant.

<comment><USER11> That is a good point, and most other professions that require continuing education are similarly well-paid (healthcare, law, accounting, engineering). What sets programming apart is that in these other fields, continuing education is compulsory in many cases, so everyone has to do it (license renewals may depend on it). In programming, if I don't keep learning, I won't get better jobs or salary increases.

<comment><USER12> Plus, the amount of things in our world that will be controlled and performed by software is only going to grow.

While more exposure to technology and better education will create more programmers, I think the demand for programmers will always outstrip the supply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author glanced over the fact that "software is eating the world", and I think that therein lies another factor - the constant demand for more software.

As software becomes more complex and critical, more companies need not just people who can code, but mature engineers ([http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior- engi...](http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/)). Meanwhile the path for more of those to appear in the global economy involves waiting for the standard of living to rise across the world, more people to grow up in such an environment, get their education and at least 10,000 hours of experience.

</comment><comment><USER14> Regarding the author's company, HappyFunCorp, perhaps they should do a little bit more moderation on their site if they're really trying to hire. They have a section of their site called "happy thoughts" where anyone can submit text. Here are a few gems:

>when one black guy does something and then other black guys go "OH DAMMMMNNNNN"

>blowing my load in someone's mouth

>jiggly breasts

<comment><USER15> i would hope that a tech-savvy person in 2012 wouldn't lend any weight to stuff random strangers left on a graffiti board when deciding whether a company is a good place to work at.

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't work at a company that thought a "graffiti board" was a good thing to have on their corporate website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A succinct quote and something I had never really put thought into. Nicely said.

 _It's not until you reach a near First-World level of development that pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems like a reasonable and/or admirable thing to do._

<comment><USER18> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> as a "senior" se in latam, what i see as the biggest problem is the separation in location. i tele-commute, but it takes luck, experience and a _shared culture_ to make it work. thankfully, i am english so share a little more, culturally, than most chileans when it comes to dealing with gringos. even so, most job offers i receive drop as soon as i mention telecommuting.

and i don't think the problems of telecommuting are going to change for a while - reproducing physical presence is hard.

what _will_ change sooner is the rise of _internal_ markets (and development) in these countries. the people there want software too, and local companies _may_ be able to win out in some way (eg more sensitive to market requirements, lower prices). once that happens, then the same software may start to be sold in the usa.

so demand will be lowered, eventually, but the process is indirect. cheaper programmers will write code for _local_ companies; competition from the code they write will drive down the demand for code produced in the usa, and so lower programmer demand and salaries there.

the "passion argument" is bullshit. i know plenty of passionate chilean programmers. they're not just in it for the money.

</comment><comment><USER20> I didn't find much of this article very stimulating but the last comment made a very good point about fields in general:

"So why aren't there more people drawn into the[any] field out of sheer interest? Because when you're poor, which most of the world is, money is more important than passion. It's not until you reach a near First-World level of development that pursuing your passions rather than escaping poverty seems like a reasonable and/or admirable thing to do."

<comment><USER4> Maslow's hierarchy of needs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apparently, the author doesn't really has an overview, how the programmers are paid outside of Google and Facebook. Lets take a look on Germany. Lots of lots of IT companies here. I was looking for a development position one year ago and got about 7 offers. Basically, I wasn't rejected even once. But the problem was, that the offered salaries were not even close to those in Silicon Valley. The salaries are not significantly different from other (non-IT) engineering positions here. And it's not a matter of being A or B player. All interviews were so ridiculously easy and non technical, that the companies aren't even able to distinct between bad and good programmers. There is no notion of A or B players here. A software developer here is basically the lowest level of the hierarchy of the R&D department and are merely considered as code generators.

A new tendency here -- to hire remote "code generators" in India or East Europe and to manage them having only managers or architects on site. So, this transition of development jobs to East the author doesn't see, has already started here in Germany. And as a programmer you never get rich in Germany, you have to move to management.

<comment><USER22> this is why I'm going to the US, in a nutshell. Sadly, there are not a lot of options at that level here.. (aside from working in a local Google office)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's a bit frustrating to read a post like this one. There's lot of good developers and very few good coding jobs. Why does everybody still claim it's hard to find good developers?, we're everywhere.. Maybe i'm missing the point or i don't know how to find a coding job..

<comment><USER24> Are you in the Minneapolis, MN area? Do you have a technical degree (CS, CE, or other science or engineering degree?) Are you a skilled developer? Not just a coder who can patch together bits of code and read an API, but someone who can take a requirement and talk to the users and understand what it is they really want, then architect, design, code and test a subsystem that is not allowed to fail in its operating environment. I don't much care what languages you know, although knowledge of C++ would be nice. Can you demonstrate to me in a 1 hour interview that you are _good_ at what you do? I'm not going to read your github code, but if you can demo a working application you wrote on your own I will look at it and ask design & implementation questions.

That's basically what we look for, and trust me, it's very difficult to find someone who comes close. Code monkeys, OTOH, are easy to find.

<comment><USER25> > someone who can take a requirement and talk to the users and understand what > it is they really want, then architect, design, code and test a subsystem > that is not allowed to fail in its operating environment

You are asking for someone that can complete an entire product cycle by themselves. The power of a company is in bringing together complementary people that complete a whole, not in finding a single person that does everything you need. Why would a person with the skill set of an entire team want to work for a company, rather than starting their own?

<comment><USER26> I suspect you're thinking of a product that would support a business -- the post you're responding to mentions a "subsystem".

This is only a few steps beyond what _anyone_ who completes a CS degree does at least two or three times during their coursework. If you take one of your end-of-year projects, do the work to make it actually robust enough for other people to use, and share it with the world (then do a few iterations of "wow, people aren't using this how I thought" and "wow, apparently that wasn't robust at all" and "damn I need real revision control", or even "huh; no one seems to want this at all") -- and fix the things that were wrong with your first attempts -- you're now far more valuable working _any_ part of the process in large project dev than any of your classmates.

Your project doesn't need to be big -- it probably shouldn't be, or you'll never get it out the door -- but scoping it is a lesson in itself that's really valuable to future employers.

This is how I got my first software engineer job, fresh out of undergrad with a major in music; I had developed a set of music theory training drills, put them online (for free) and had already fought my way through a lot of lessons about browser incompatibilities, usability for non-technical users, how to support non-technical users effectively, etc. etc..

There was no way in hell I was ready to start a business of my own, at that point, and I was eager to work with more experienced developers -- I wanted to learn better ways to solve the problems I was struggling with -- so in seeking a job I wasn't just someone saying "I learned some stuff in school; can you pay me money for it?". I was saying "I already know somewhat what you do here; I want to learn how to do it really well, with you -- will you pay me to do that?"

<comment><USER24> Exactly. I really don't think that what we ask for should be hard to find, but experience proves otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> As long as only about 20% of the population has the ability to learn to program, programmers won't have to worry.

</comment><comment><USER28> >First, you have to grow up wealthy enough to have a decent education, some exposure to technology, and the ability to choose between options in your life, which immediately rules out most of the planet.

No, all you need is access to a computer and someone to start you going in the right direction. And the latter is really just a nicety. You can get there without it.

I'm largely self-taught, with a little push back in Elementary School. They introduced the ideas and taught us to write Apple II BASIC programs. I took it from there.

I eventually got a 2-year degree, but I practically slept through the classes. I learned a bit about database normalization, and nothing else. 4.0 GPA.

My first job didn't care about the degree at all. They only cared about my actual skill. I stayed there long enough that any other job would know I had skills. And my career was on its way.

There's no need for an expensive education.

However, you _do_ need to have a head for logic. Passion for logic helps tremendously. And a computer.

But who doesn't have a computer these days? I don't know anyone who doesn't have one. And there are charities that help people get computers if they can't afford them.

So no, I don't think rich-poor artificial scarcity is what drives the price at all.

</comment><comment><USER29> The $500 or so you need to buy your first computer is too much of an upfront investment for a lot of people in the world. And the time required to learn how to program, time you could be spending making money at a local job putting food on the table, is an insurmountable investment.

Part of my family is from a small fishing town in Croatia, I go the their every year on holiday. And every year I see so many intelligent and hard working people there who walk around with that lost expression on their face, longing for a way to make a good living. But there's no role models, no people to set an example. The wealthiest guy in town owns a cafe. To them, what is programming? How do you convince someone like that to spend a month's salary and many more months of hard work learning something when they have no sense of the implications or the benefits of it. A lot of this world doesn't even know what programming is or why we need it, no wonder programmers are in short supply.

<comment><USER30> Reminds me of the fishermans parable:

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I make less than in 2007. I must be doing something wrong.

<comment><USER32> If you aren't 25 and living in San Francisco making over $125,000 per year, then yes, you are doing something wrong.

Get younger, move, and/or compromise your beliefs to work on moronic projects throwing money to the wind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> My bet is: till strong AI is developed.

<comment><USER34> There is no such thing as "strong" AI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Find a position that supports value-based pricing.

</comment><comment><USER36> If only there were a guiding economic principle that could be applied that would relate the _supply_ of skilled workers with the need or _demand_ for them.

God with such a framework, we might even accidentally elevate the discourse beyond that of a comic-laden TC "article".

<comment><USER32> We need multidimensional labor pool analysis though. There isn't "programmer" vs. "non-programmer." There's a stair step pool from "programmer who is among the best in the world in multiple areas" to "programmer who posts every minor problem on stackoverflow for free answers because they can't think."

The problem isn't the supply of people who believe they are programmers. The problem is the supply of amazing people who do things we don't even have words for, but we end up calling "programming" anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Programmers aren't "so well-paid". In fact, I think we're underpaid, when you consider that the top technology companies earn several hundred thousand dollars (and sometimes, low millions) per employee, averaged across _all_ employees.

I actually think we're underpaid, and that's a problem, because if an engineer only costs $100-200k, then executives can cost-justify using programmer time on a lot of stupid shit that doesn't add any value (the hits, the projects that deliver $1 million per person per year in value, make up for it). The fact that software adds so much value (on average) should give us a huge risk allowance (that startups have visibly capitalized on) but it's only people with VC connections and executive douches, for the most part, who can actually take that risk.

It's not even about money, from my perspective. Engineer salaries are low compared to the value we add, but reasonable for the most part (we don't starve). What bothers me is that 90% of software engineers have to do stupid stuff with minimal autonomy or career growth, and I think that engineers (as a class) would be better treated if they were more expensive. Of course, the AbstractVisitorSingletonFactory crowd (who bring down the reputation of the field) would all be fired, but that's a good thing, too.

</comment><comment><USER38> Just a note: In 1999, before the jobs disappeared, it was the same articles...

<comment><USER39> Does that suggest indefinitely? "Bubble 2.0" was already being talked about by 2004. Which puts only a 2-4 year lull in incomes out of a 15-20 year span.

<comment><USER38> I do think there are parallels between when mainstream magazines write about X as a good profession and when mainstream magazines write about investment and shares. (The latter case is infamous for predicting bubbles.)

But sure, the work market did come back. Just pity the people coming out of university at the wrong time.

<comment><USER39> Was it really that bad? I did not have the opportunity to go to university, but I did come out of high school right after the burst and while I wasn't making $100K for just knowing HTML, I was able to do alright. And by the time the market started to recover, I had some amazing experience under my belt allowing me to leverage the upswing in ways someone just graduating wouldn't be able to do.

<comment><USER40> Depends where you live, like anything else, but in California there was a really bad stretch around late 2000 to early 2002 where it was pretty damn difficult to find new work as a developer.

Even companies doing relatively well were so worried about the future that hiring freezes were the norm across the board.

If you were really exceptional _and_ really well connected or had very attractive experience, you could still find something, but it was certainly a very difficult time for a lot of people I know working in the industry in CA around that time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Open source will eventually kill wages. Why?

Why would I pay a software engineer lots of money to write an entire system when I can get the engineered parts for free and hire a software mechanic (IE: less skill and less pay) to make the changes?

I've already worked at a few companies where we should have had 3 or 4 developers and only had me because of open source software.

This is why I plan on running a business that utilizes it rather than a career that depends on it.

<comment><USER42> Open Source Software may be drastically cheaper compared with hiring programmers to reinvent the wheel, but that very fact also enables a lot of projects that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

For every company that's not hiring 3-4 engineers in favor of just one guy, there may be another 3-4 companies hiring one person instead of not doing a project entirely. This is similar to what happened to the demand for computer skills when computing itself got drastically cheaper: the increase in usage more than made up for the fact that an individual task was cheaper.

Now maybe the act of tying disparate open source products together isn't the same sort of programming we did in the past (though it is software engineering). And maybe some day we'll actually finish writing all this software we're working on and it'll be good enough.

<comment><USER43> Nonsense! Sheer nonsense! If Postgres didn't exist, I'm sure the <20 person company I work for would be happy to pay me to spend the next decade recreating it rather than building their application.

Not to mention Linux, Apache, Ruby on Rails, Java, Git, Vim etc. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Programming bubble will pop. Automated Machine learning is taking over. Even at google, Jeff Dean has recently stated that his Perceptual AI project is aimed at reducing feature engineering in their machine learning projects. In plain terms this means eliminating the need for programming in their search engines and other machine learning focused projects like google now and google goggles (the mobile app, not google glass). The only programmers left will be to manage cloud computing infrastructure and front end programmers. As things like siri and google now take off, front end programmers will also be in less demand. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are also increasingly focusing on machine learning. Automated analysis of text will take over the role of sql databases as demonstrated in IBM watson. In manufacturing, the role of programming also diminishing as vision guided robots like Baxter by Rodney Brooks's team take off.

All this is a good thing though, programming is slow and data is agile, as talked about by Peter Norvig in his startup school 2008 speech <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNjJTgXujno>

Startups should aim at doing as little programming as possible and leaving it to data crunching.

<comment><USER32> The current incarnation of machine learning is nothing more than an ultra high dimensional two year old. "Here's a new item. Which pool of millions of items is this new thing like?" "Is the red square more like these other red squares or the green triangles?"

You can get pretty far extracting the math behind the meaning, but lack of meaning is still deathly apparent.

We should fix that sometime.

<comment><USER44> I think most people are interested in practically solving problems. If the black box can solve it, there's no reason to care about "meaning". Once the machines have taken over all jobs, you can sit around and understand the meaning of things to your satisfaction at your own leisure surrounded by the luxury the machines have created for you.

<comment><USER32> Imagine how many more problems we could solve with meaning. Every secretary in the world could be fired. Software could actually _know_ you. It would be a huge psychological problem for people.

You think MMOs kill brains in south east asia _now_? Wait until software acts like a boyfriend. Every site (read: website/app/software) could be unique, well designed, and work cross platform by telling the system what you want (remember: in this delusional scenario the system understands meaning to avoid the unintentional vengeful djinn problem).

You think multivariate testing is omgballz amazing? Imagine if ad networks share a sophisticated personality model (instead of: likes cats, doesn't like monster trucks) of you. Every site you visit could be rearranged to appeal to your individual design sense, buying patterns, and social expectations. A/B testing basically tries to suss out your average user so you can appeal to them. You leave your non-average users in the dirt by optimizing for the common moron.

It's possible and I think the incumbent giants will miss it whenever it happens (5-10-50 years out).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Programming jobs are not much to brag about. Many IT people don't just check out after 5pm. They are on-call after work, stay up late at night trying to finish X or fix Y. They are expected to show up to the office on the weekends to do Z. In the meantime, the HR people are relaxing at home with their families.

As long as programming jobs are worse than regular jobs, people will require higher compensation to take those jobs. More stress, more requirements = higher compensation.

<comment><USER34> Um. Then you need to hire people for that. Sorry, but, "i'm not paid to be on call 24/7 but I am anyway" is not a reasonable argument. Fix it or deal with it and move on.

And what do you mean, "worse than regular jobs?" Have you looked around much lately? Sitting in front of a computer all day doing what you love pales in comparison to about 95% of all jobs on the earth. And do you really think "HR" people just go home and chill? Everyone has responsibilities that exceed their billed hours. That is part of life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> As long as Tech Company are not willing to out-source them (which is already happening, everything can be outsourced). there is not one profession that cannot be out-sourced. Is it good on the long run? well global business are not tied to a local consumer base anymore , so i guess it is for them , and consumers do not care.

<comment><USER32> Good morning. You've triggered my "I have a political stake in my comment stance" detector. Are you perchance someone residing in not-U.S. who wants these magic outsourced jobs?

<comment><USER46> no ,off course , not , but these are just facts. In my company , Accountency has been out-sourced to eastern europe, and my job may be next , no matter how good i am at my task. It is not something i want of course , but it is something that might happen in the future.

<comment><USER32> If your company treats you as a cost and wants to unload you, then you are probably in trouble. Maybe try to find a place that sees you as an asset? In SF, the fancy programmers are entire products and personality cults by themselves.

Saying everything can be outsourced would lead to all American actors being replaced by Bollywood or Korean or Chinese actors. There are forces other than price of labor acting in the market.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interpreting random forests - <AUTHOR> http://blog.datadive.net/interpreting-random-forests/

<comment><USER2> I commented on /r/machinelearning but the obvious disadvantage of this over the importance (mean impurity decrease) approach is that it won't handle non linear, non monotonic and multivariate effects as well. It is also still plagued by the same issues as importance including being "diluted" over highly correlated features etc.

Tree structure and rf interpretation work is really cool stuff but this is hardly state of the art or groundbreaking. There have been a number of papers out there that address the issues above by developing a more nuanced or augmented approach to importance, including Brieman's proposal for a local importance based on permutating each feature and recording the change in oob accuracy for each case.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few things i feel i need to clear up here.

1) I'm not sure what you mean by being unable to handle nonmonotonic/multivariate effects. There is no issue with nonmonotonic effects, the sum of feature contributions is always how each tree actually predicts. Yes, interpretation would be somewhat harder, but can be solved by looking at feature value and/or distribution once you know its contribution.

2) Mean impurity decrease or Breimans feature permutation based method have almost no use in a setting i'm describing. They are both static measures in the sense they only apply to the model itself, and they will tell you nothing about a particular prediction on a data point or a set of predictions on the data set.

3) The issue with highly corelated features is indeed still there, but it is literally exactly the same problem that mean decrease impurity and Breimans method would face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> nice enough but i didn't get too much from the information you provided.</comment>


The sad state of engineering or "Jobs ranked 3rd in Engineering Heroes list" - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.co.uk/education/news/index.cfm?newsid=3278554

<comment><AUTHOR> Even worse, Bill Gates is #5... Go figure.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay for this service? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>So I'm thinking about offering this service to startups and small businesses- competetive research and analysis. So would you pay lets say $40/month for a comprehensive analysis on your top 3 competitors every month or quarter? Thanks! <comment><USER2> You have to ask the right questions to get the right answers. You shouldn't be asking us, "Would you pay for this?", you should be asking yourself, "Can I convince people to buy this?"

Whether you make any sales is completely up to you and your ability to sell. Businesses buy competitive analysis all the time. Typically after a well articulated value proposition. All the details you left out in this post, the specifics of the service you're providing, is what makes or breaks a deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are absolutely correct. Great point. And sorry, I wanted to keep the post short. Here is what I would offer:

For $30/month, you will get reports every quarter consisting of evaluating a company's top 3 competitors, in what they are doing in terms of marketing, what new milestones they have reached in terms of growth and revenue, what sort of complaints they get from customers concerning what, and a little more such as outreach and giveaways they do, and their projected success in the future.

<comment><USER2> Generic value propositions don't give the buyer confidence, it doesn't jump start their imagination, it doesn't do anything for you or them.

You're not being specific enough to even peak my interest. Depending on who you're selling to, the metrics you provide need to make sense to them. An internet marketer might want to know exactly what you're monitoring (Google News, Facebook, Backlinks, Newly Created Pages) but the CEO would need it presented in a different way, in order to provide him with the value you're promising. That way you don't have the marketer trying to interpret data that he himself might not fully understand.

The demons are in the details.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like how so? It's essentially competitive analysis as a service... There are known templates in which these are formatted. I would simply do one for a company every quarter, and list each source in the back. You're telling me I'm not being specific enough, yet you are doing the same. It goes both ways I guess

<comment><USER2> Don't describe it as if everyone should already know what you're talking about. You're not going to sell anything to anyone that way. And you definitely won't sell a service based on "known templates" and doing what everyone else is doing.

I know exactly what they offer, but you are the one selling right now. You can't just say, "I'm selling what everyone else is selling, wanna give me $30/month?"

What makes you different? Why are you better? What are the benefits? What value does it provide and to who?

In B2B, you could charge $200 a month and it wouldn't make a difference -- it's not their money that they are spending. A lot of little things, such as export to PDF, are much more important. Know your customer and know your product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, I'd be somewhat skeptical of the value of a report produced for $40. That price implies that these are at least mostly automated checks.

<comment><USER4> Those questions would be answered by a landing page that shows you what you'd be paying for. There's much better tools for data extraction and automation available today than in the recent past and this market sounds like a great category for disruption.

Startups often neglect competitor analysis because it's not available cheaply. If you could get 85% of the value automatically that's worth paying for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm... I was planning on doing the research manually, but if you want to share any examples of sites that have gotten better at data extraction, I'm all ears. I will do research as well on that.

thanks!

<comment><USER5> At that price, it doesn't seem like you would be able to provide much value by doing it manually. If you factor in some overhead, you would have to be spending less than an hour on each report to pay yourself a decent wage. If I'm running a business, I'm not going to pay someone to do research that I could do myself in less than an hour, even if it is really cheap. With B2B services, it's probably a better idea to provide substantial and demonstrable value than it is to have a really low price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps a way to promote your services and showing the concrete value you could provide, would be publishing a monthly newsletter. There you'd show the kind of analysis you are capable of. You could do this also as a way to attract traffic if the topics are interesting enough. (Hosting, seo tools, analytics, project managers...). Those are generic topics and you could sure find an interesting (niche) subgroup enough to be useful & atract posible customers.

</comment><comment><USER7> WHY WHY WHY?

What's the point of this service?

What are you really selling? I see that it is a report but are you trying to help startups? In what way specifically?

WHY are you creating this service? If its simply because you think its a good idea or you will be good at it, it will be very difficult to sell it without a better reason.

<comment><USER8> I agree. The service is also very vague. Competitor analysis in what? SEO (ala SEMRush?), Competitor analysis in PPC? Competitor analysis in website audience(ala Quantcast?) Competitor analysis in the form of consulting?

<comment><AUTHOR> it would mostly growth-related data-- you will get how the company has grown over the quarter in terms of users and revenue, what new marketing strategies they have undertaken, new products or features they have released, complaints current users are giving to them, and their overall strengths and weaknesses, as observed objectively by me. The point is to allow you "to keep an eye on your competitors" because most startups don't have the time to do so.

<comment><USER8> users + revenue is private for a lot of businesses.

For the rest, they all belong to the category of "social monitoring". That's the name given to this. It's a crowded market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do you plan to make the competitors research? I think the guys in [http://www.compass.co/](http://www.compass.co/) have a great product, but sincerely if they don't share revenue of it with startups and businesses that are the ones providing data & info, it won't work.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't pay for it, but competitive research is a big and active market, so I don't doubt there's a demand for it. I suspect though that your audience would be mostly established businesses. Startups are usually too busy to worry about their competitor's every move.

<comment><AUTHOR> How does bi-quarterly sound? It's risky business neglecting your competitors.

<comment><USER10> I understand what you're saying, but I'm actually inclined to think that (in our case) it doesn't matter what they do. We learn what we need to know from our customers and we have our own roadmap. We can keep tab on the competition, but getting periodical detailed reports seems counterproductive to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would not pay for it. Can learn more by doing research myself.

Also, it costs a bunch of money to acquire business customers. Tough to recoup that on $40/month if you spend $30/month doing the research work.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't answer without seeing what we'd be paying for. That said, in general, a quality analysis would be worth $40/month to me.

If you add your email to your public profile I'd like to reach out privately.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd find it helpful if you had a white paper on it perhaps using 3 YC companies as examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can do the first report free if you like

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> little confused what would have changed about my top 3 competitors in a month?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just you get an updated report on them... So, what sort of milestones they reached, any new marketing stratehies they've undertakem, any new product changes or releases thet've done, and any sort of complaints they got from customers, and about what. It's a way to stay updated on your competitors.

Maybe bi-quarterly would work better?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> \- No. That is too much money.

<comment><USER15> rofl</comment></comment>