How many of you know that the team is working on something that no-one wants? - <AUTHOR> https://iism.org/article/how-many-of-you-know-deep-down-that-the-team-is-working-on-something-that-no-customer-wants-54 <comment><USER2> Obviously using a throwaway here. Our board members got it into their heads that successful companies must have an AI "play", so they instructed the CEO to invest about 10% of our development budget on AI.

We are doing absolutely inane projects that have no hope of succeeding.

We serve a niche industry where certified professionals have to do certain tasks personally, instead of being able to delegate to secretaries. Somehow our CEO has been convinced that AI can be trained to do these tasks, at a reliability level not achievable by other humans.

Team motivation is in a weird space: everyone is relaxed because there is no pressure to succeed - we all know the project will fail unless someone develops well-perfoming, human-level AGI before Q4/2020\. Lots of long lunches and checking out early in the afternoon.

At the same time, everyone is worried how terrible the fallout is going to be once the project reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Interesting times, but at least we can now tell investors we are a keen company with an AI play up our sleeve!

<comment> reading-at-work > we all know the project will fail unless someone develops well-perfoming, > human-level AGI before Q4/2020

This is hilarious, and makes me wonder how many similar corporate AI initiatives are under way in the world right now.

<comment><USER3> I have had a couple conversations where a business guy starts off with a decent idea then he says something like "the cognitive AI module will fill out your expense report after watching you do it for a couple weeks".

What the fuck? If I had the ability to code a cognitive AI module which could do that I would not be building it for you, I would solve self driving and license the software for billions.

<comment><USER4> Business guys usually comes together and brag about their works. Quite often, they start to talk about things they heard but don't understand much.

And the other one hear about it, get excited, but also don't understand much. Then on the meeting, he brought the idea up and convince everyone to do it.

The next you know, you're pulling your hair out trying to understand what is going on

<comment><USER5> Yes, the best salesperson is usually the one least concerned with reality.

Or as one VC put it: Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

<comment><USER6> This makes more sense when you remember that being "concerned with reality" for a salesperson mostly means "Getting the commission paid and moving to a different role before everything blows up too badly", rather than "delivering software that meets the sales deal's contractual requirements".

Salespeople are too rarely judged/punished for the disastrus messes they leave behind, and all too quickly judged/rewarded for being able to convince a customer to sign off on a big number without any care for long term implications of that deal...

<comment><USER7> Hm... Vested commision?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes, so I put analytics in to prove it.

I told the project leader that nobody wants a share button there, because of the nature of the data, nobody will share it.

They disagreed strongly, suddenly the share button was super important.

So I put tracking on it. A year after launch, guess what? Yep that's right, nobody clicked the button. Not a single user.

So I showed them the data and told them I was right. I told them I was sick of not being listened to, and sick of designing and creating software that literally nobody uses, and handed in my resignation

Was a good thing in the end because it pushed me onto the entrepreneurial path

But I know how much it sucks writing software that no-one wants

<comment><USER9> That was porn, wasn't it?

<comment><USER8> Hahahaha I re-read my paragraph and it does sound a bit like that!

I wish it was - then there might have been some engineering challenges related to scale, but sadly no, it was a mobile web app for getting small % discounts at stalls at a niche event.

<comment><USER10> Seems like a thing you acctually would want to share? Instead of copy pasting the url which is almost impossible on smart phones nowadays...

<comment><USER8> It was an info page similar to a terms and conditions page, nobody wants to share that.

<comment><USER10> Ok explains your comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Agile teams that truly iterate with the customer can often avoid these problems because the customer is there the whole way through and the team continuously pivots to close gaps discovered by the customer throughout the project, thereby building something the customer actually needs and wants."

I'm 2 years into my first role as a product owner (made the switch from design) and working at a fortune 100. The thing that's struck me most since starting this role is that as while the company has invested more to our transition to agile teams (hiring external agile transformation companies, everyone goes through scrum training etc) we seem to have distanced ourselves even further from the customer.

I report to a product manager, who I think in turn has had zero hours interacting directly with our customers or our users. Our roadmap seems completely driven based on whatever features seem to be flavor of the month (or quarter since we do roadmap planning quarterly) and it's been a struggle to even try and get buy in to having our customers represented in some way by proxy (e.g. through personas, or setting product metrics that attempt to measure customer value). Features that we do release have no expectations around what is considered successful usage (usage will be measured, but without context, so if 5% of customers use a feature there's no interpretation if this is really low, or really high).

The puzzling thing is that when I talk to my manager (or managers manager) about this disconnect, they seem to agree in principle, and that we _should_ be doing these things but no one ever does.

I've been told that someone in leadership described me as being too "black and white" in this area, but I consider myself both pragmatic and flexible to alternative ideas.

Because I'm still new to this role, I wonder if I'm being naive or idealistic around how we approach our feature development, or if this is just how most companies operate.

<comment><USER12> I've worked 6 years as a PM, last 4 at FANG

Here's some advice, which you are free to take or to leave, (and that's very reasonable since my advice is generic and I can't speak to your exact circumstances)

1) Just start doing it. Don't wait for someone to give you permission to prioritize customer needs. Pick up the phone and call them. Go to a store and watch them shop for your product. Talk to people. When you set OKRs/KPIs, just make them about customer needs. Be the change you want to see. Especially if you have spiritual buy-in from your manager. But your intentions have to be crystal clear on point about wanting what's best for the customer and the business and doing so in a rational way until you earn some social capital. It cannot be interpretable as political or they'll construe it as that and fire you

2) Use bureaucracy jiu-jitsu. Do what you think needs to be done in order to make the customer and the business successful. When someone tries to make you work on their arbitrary BS, give them a form to fill out and tell them it's in your team's triage queue. Make them force you to deprioritize a project which has clear value and then when that happens, make sure you announce loudly to all stakeholders why that project was depriortized and what's going to be implemented instead. If your stakeholders have even 2 braincells, they'll do the pushing back for you - you don't need to do it alone.

Lastly, you can't change an entire culture by yourself. For some places, it's just too late. But if you can find allies who feel the same way you do, you can be the beginning of a large change for your whole org by just being a good example

<comment><USER13> See also: _Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt_ (2001):

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/25/getting-things- don...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/12/25/getting-things-done-when- youre-only-a-grunt/)

<comment><USER14> That advice reads as "If your job sucks and you can't safely quit, defy your manager and work overtime until you are thanked for it or fired."

<comment><USER13> Well, yes. Sometimes your options are limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll share a disturbing anecdote about one of the largest and most influential software companies in the world, based in the Bay Area, and I'll leave it to you to guess which one. I know of several people who work there who are ranked very highly and are paid extremely well, who have told me personally that the work they do there is terrible for the users (i.e. it's exploitative) and terrible for the internet (it interferes with open standards and access). But it also creates profits for the company. The individuals feel that it just pays too well, and for that reason, they could never voice their true feelings inside the company, and neither could their colleagues. It would mean giving up humungous paychecks. Inside the company, it's like the Emperor's New Clothes. Everyone pretends that they are making the world a better place, when they know without a doubt that in fact, they are making the world a worse place. They are not bad people. This company is filled with people who are making that silent tradeoff every single day.

<comment><USER16> > They are not bad people.

Very few people are "bad" people but the way you're describing it makes it pretty clear that they're making unethical choices, and they're doing so consciously. Actions speak louder than words.

<comment><USER17> What's the difference between a bad person and a person who consciously makes unethical choices?

<comment><USER18> Is that a rhetorical question? Because a person who makes conscious unethical choices is a bad person. Otherwise there would be no metric for "badness" and the word would be meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The problem is that software no-one wants often has the best careers.

I worked on a system used by many people and it was hard work, was getting 10-15 years old, held together with tape and lots of users who all had their gripes and requests.

I moved to a system hardly used by anyone and life is so much better. Get to play with interesting technology and no one minds because there is now risk of annoying a our users who dont really care. The best thing is I get paid more here too.

<comment><USER20> That might look good in the short term, but there are many companies and roles which require you to show the actual number of users, or the load of the service that you worked on. Also many technically challenging issues only come out under load, and actually working on challenging things are very different from reading about them. Just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER21>
        there are many companies and roles which require you
        to show the actual number of users, or the load of the
        service that you worked on.

I got my first job as a programmer in 2001 and not once was I asked that. I'm sure they exist but I wouldn't count on that being so common as to significantly impact the OP's career prospects.

Two things I've most often noticed people care about when hiring:

1\. experience with the exact tech / field that they're hiring for

2\. having brand-name job experience (google, amazon, etc).

It's sad but you'll probably get better mileage from having worked on a useless prestige/pet project at google using fashionable tech than a critical system written with JavaEE & serving a lot of high-value customers at Alliance Generic Insurance Services Corp.

<comment><USER22> That last sentence sums up the sad state of hiring in the industry well.

<comment><USER23> probably depends if you are applying to another faang or if you want to work on mission critical insurance technology

people who really need skills are probably good at indentifying said skills

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I currently work a "crypto" startup - we've developed our own language and platform for developing smart contracts.

Our CEO constantly talks of "ecosystems" and "blockchain", when that's none of what we actually have (or have concrete requirements to build...).

Our investors and customers have no real idea what they want or what to expect - most of the customers just want a basic enterprise system, but have been wooed by blockchains and AI and magical fairies that sounds really nice in a contract but deliver no value in reality.

The saddest part is that we have an amazing team - the smartest folk I've ever worked with, with so much potential to create amazing technology, if only we had a plan or direction.

Like I saw on another comment, it has all become long lunches and checking out early, because everyone knows the project is doomed (albeit well funded... for now). Where does one even go from here?

<comment><USER25> I work in a similar place now and have in the past. I've taken the following approach as much as possible: 1) Use the opportunity to learn new technology and toolchains regardless of applicability. This can greatly increase your worth when looking for jobs in the future. 2) Try to find things outside of work to give your days meaning. Find a hobby or side project. I started designing board games. This lets you treat work much more as a 9-5 punch the clock task and lets you look forward to working on your _real_ project later.

It is still entirely frustrating to feel like you spend your days digging holes and filling them back in but you have to fill your days with your own meaningful purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am currently employed to develop an entire data analytics system because a government department can't get their firewall rules right.

None of the members of this government department want a bespoke system, they want to use tools they are familiar with but due to the firewall rules this isn't possible.

<comment><USER27> It truly is fascinating, the world of tools and ecosystems built up to sidestep inane security rules in organizations.

Spoken from experience, this includes things like Anaconda in orgs where devs can't use just any Python packages, or scripts from the internet copied and pasted into files because the firewall blocks git cloning. One could even consider AWS as a platform for devs to get around InfoSec red tape and have some semblance of control. The goal as a dev here is to fight the fewest fights to make tools available, by getting access to the biggest "bundles" of tooling they can.

In such organizations, there is either no concept of cost/benefit of overly restrictive firewall rules, etc, or the culture is such that the security team has become entrenched and unquestionable.

<comment><USER28> Can confirm. I'm able to spin up multiple sets of m5.24xlarge without anybody blinking twice, but I'm not trusted to spend money to buy a ballpoint, for which I'll have to go through the whole PO process. The disconnect here is unreal.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything by necessity becomes a nail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For a couple of years now, I've been developing features for a product that hasn't found product-market fit. Features that nobody _really_ gives a shit about. I can talk directly to one of the cofounders, bring them evidence based on analytics or the past failings of the giants upon whose shoulders we're standing on. His response is, majority of the time, "yeah, I get that. We promised this to a few customers and I really think it'll work". It hasn't worked.

<comment><USER30> You need to ask him to define success and failure for the feature. Under what conditions will he accept it has not worked

<comment><USER29> It's an iterative process. Our conversations have gotten better over the years. He has the connections and market knowledge so I have to respect his wishes most of the time. I make it sound bad but it's because I'm, like many of us, tired.

<comment> the-dude There is website for that : [http://tired.com](http://tired.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A small team in a company I worked for got into machine learning a few years back. They had some success with some toy examples and were now looking for applications. They tried to use it for optimizing some specific engineering procesess.

Two people (one was me) were warning them that this is a waste of time and will cost the company a fortune and then no one will want it because the quality will be so much poorer. And the whole thing looked like an instance of hammer-looking-for-a-nail.

Fast forward a few years, the team tripled in size, built a multi-million-euro product, and some very large customers now trust their operations research to that new thing.

<comment><USER32> It's hard to take a lesson from this without hearing why you think that happened. Do you think the product got so big because the team applied AI usefully and your initial evaluation was wrong? Or do you think they gained customers because there is not much competition in that niche and customers were drawn to the sales team's claims of AI despite the AI not being very good?

<comment><USER31> My personal takeaway was that I don't know as much as I think. I didn't produce any data at the time to prove my point (not that I would have known how to), and because of that it's hard for me to analyse the situation more meaningfully as to why I was wrong.

Why they were successful in the end: the team struggled for some time before they got momentum with a single really large customer that put in resources, and made other customers follow. It's not that the tech got better that much, customers were just more willing after they saw one of the leaders in that space invest in that approach, and they were afraid of falling behind. It was not because of machine learning, but despite of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did anyone here work on implementing Bing web search into the Windows 10 start menu?

I'm curious to know the decisions that led to an operating system file search prompt ignoring exact file, directory and app names in favor of trying (and generally still failing) to show irrelevant web results.

<comment><USER34> After years of low level annoyance, I looked up the regedit incantations needed to disable it. Now start menu search is amazingly snappy and only returns relevant results.

<comment><USER35> Mind sharing? PLEASE!!!!!

<comment><USER34> [https://www.howtogeek.com/224159/how-to-disable-bing-in- the-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/224159/how-to-disable-bing-in-the- windows-10-start-menu/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I listening to customers is not really something you can only do with agile scrum. You can figure out what customers need with roadmaps or projects too. Outside enterprise, you also don't have one set of customer/users, you have thousands or millions them.

I agile scrum often leads to situation iterate the teams iterate towards local optimization or solving problems that people think they need, but fails to deliver actually create next level impact, since teams are hesitant to make plans longer than in two week increments.

I think most successful product teams take the practice of closely listening to the users (as the whole team or product organization), trying to understand the user, but choose to build product they think is right, even it's not what the customers currently say they want.

</comment><comment><USER37> > Don't just build Something™, build an industry leading product that > customers want and love!

The point of writing software is to get paid. If the process leads to something actually useful, good on you. If not, you still got paid. It was just a drill, life continues.

<comment><USER38> That is highly subjective. Money is a motivation but some people seeks more from their jobs. I wouldn't work on a job if it is not really giving me a sense of accomplishment either.

<comment><USER39> I currently work on a project that has struggled to make actual sense for a few years now. Sure I like getting paid, but there's a growing void in my soul.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was cheering a little inside while reading this and agreeing mightily until I realized it was an ad. Boo.

<comment><USER41> True, but I think we can separate the idea from the person/company.

The problem statement is very well written. The Director of Engineering rotating because they can't deliver, and the battle between Product and Engineering.

Conclusion is rushed, but it boils down to what agile advocates at the core: product manager and QA need to be in the room along with engineering.

It is until they hear daily about the challenges, first hand, and they see the struggle that it makes sense. Does not matter how many reports the PM does, first have seeing why technical debt is making things slow is invaluable.

Only addition I would add is: there is a reason why sprint waterfalls exist. You can't iterate forever, and someone needs to play the role of the mature person that knows when something is good enough and needs to be shipped. I think Agile as a framework is at its limits. We need something that lets us run the engineering but at the same time becomes more predictable to business.

<comment><USER40> I suppose I'm tainted because I've seen one too many methodology consultants. "What you're doing now is bad...but this _new_ way will solve all your problems.." Enter "Value Scrum" your new savior.

After almost 3 decades in software, I've come to perceive a few things about the industry and the people in it, especially the new entrants:

1) All problems begin with "how can we solve this with new software/feature/etc?" because after all, we're software people and we make software so clearly software is the answer.

2) Society believes #1. They expect that all problems are solved with software. Not only does society believe this, VCs believe this also. There is incentive to behave as #1 in the hopes that it leads to $$$.

3) Anyone not believing #1 is a detractor, or worse, a Luddite. Technology as solution is the prevailing axiom. It is Maslow's hammer. All non-believers must be purged or cancelled.

So when I read what I'll admit is an enticing article that demonstrates experience and analytical thinking by the author I'm intrigued and mostly supportive. Just like software frameworks (yes, you Javascript community) the answer to problems is always a new present solution which one day will be a future problem whether it be tech or tech inspired methodology. Tech first problem solving usually always leads here.

I was reminded of this book when reading the article. Many patterns of org behavior are well described here: [https://www.amazon.com/Organizational- Patterns-Agile-Softwar...](https://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Patterns- Agile-Software-Development/dp/0131467409)

I was also struck by an adaption of a statement I read once about XML. The adaptation follows: "Agile is like violence, if it isn't working you're not using enough of it."

So what does this mean, abandon all tech? No. It means, apply critical thinking. Let dissent be ok. Do the things the article suggests. You don't need training, or a seminar or a consultant. And if the leadership wants to do something you can't fully engage in, find something else to do. Don't waste your life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Agencies and consulting companies have built their fortune on clueless customers. But I honestly don't really care anymore. I just want to write code and go home

</comment><comment><USER43> > Don't just build Something™, build an industry leading product that > customers want and love!

One of the biggest challenges is that someone eventually has to say "no" for that to happen. It is easier to just say yes to whatever is wanted than fight with someone about doing it.

<comment><USER44> Words of wisdom and experience - I am with you on that one

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I am working with Start-ups since 2008 - and classic companies before that.

My chances to know beforehand what customers want is 50/50.*

So I am very humble by now. Launch super early. Get Feedback. Quantity wise and quality feedback (listen closely if you made their life any better). Iterrate and/or change path.

Yes, like flipping a coin. Sad that, quite a lot of managers have a way lower hit rate as they have an inherent "the customer is like me and users are stupid" bias (both at the same time, so that makes them...)

<comment><USER46> I wonder what is the chance if you are following the "worst" practices?

User is stupid -mentality, being a dictator and not explaining why things are done the way they are, etc... Id expect it to be lower, but not that much lower. Luck is a major component because new product development is basically forecasting the future. There are so many things which are out of your control. If you get lucky 4/10 times with worst practices and 5/10 times with best practices, it does not really matter.

Besides, it makes a much better story that you only knew how others are stupid and because of this only you could do the right solution. Whole western society loves the myth of intelligent jerks... Like Steve Jobs. "it's ok to be an asshole if you are smart".

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Worse is when you know another part of the company is sabotaging what your trying to achieve.

One might call it the right hand competing with the left, but frequently the path forward to the next version/product/whatever is pretty clear, but the existing product teams are well entrenched and of course make all the $$$$, so its a game of politics, and keeping a low profile while trying to gain traction.

Pretty frustrating in many ways. Especially when you start to gain traction, then suddenly groups start to take 1/2 steps, which might have been useful and productive years earlier but now just act subversively.

<comment><USER48> In my previous work, I learnt that two teams could write two solutions tackling the same problem. After two years, they would each present their solution and the hierarchy will keep one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This article makes me feel very fortunate to work the way we do in my company. We have tight feedback loops with our users, we plan work together as a team (not just a PM dictating things), we're not forced to give finger-in-the-air estimates (we work on stuff until it's good enough to ship and then ship it) and we follow up with analytics and user interviews to figure out if we achieved the outcome we were after. We rinse and we repeat.

<comment><USER50> Can you say more about how you plan work as a team? Interested to hear how you keep this fast and productive and avoid getting caught in the weeds of other's opinions.

<comment><USER49> I'd say the main factors that avoid getting stuck in the weeds of opinion vs. opinion are:

\- Focus on the outcomes you want to achieve, not the exact thing you're building or the way you're building it. This should be based on the needs of your users. Of course there are exceptions like refactoring tasks, infrastructure improvements, etc.

\- Give people a lot of autonomy on how they achieve the desired outcome

\- Work together across product, engineering and design so people's opinions are heard early and often

\- Ultimately have a "boss" who can stop the endless discussions if it comes to that (doesn't happen often)

Another thing is if you feel like you're iterating quickly, you feel less like stuff is set in stone and that results in less analysis paralysis and less bikeshedding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I have in the past with (small) clients. This was an upgrade to an existing product with flagging sales and their proposed direction made me scratch my head from day one.

However, I both wanted to do the work (it was really interesting by itself) and they made it clear to me that they didn't want my business input. It of course eventually went sideways, accusations were thrown around, the partners split up and I was left with ~18 months of unfinished work that didn't really get me anywhere (except paid -- never, ever risk your time for someone else's upside).

I'd say do the work if it's personally edifying and you don't mind the possibility of weak-minded people trying to throw you under the bus when it falls apart. If you're an employee, you are not shouldering the risk or responsible for existential-level decisions (or at least shouldn't be).

Having said that, seek out better teams with a higher chance of success if you can. Bad teams are sometimes hard to spot because they may look successful on the surface but may, in fact, be a few bad decisions away from falling apart.

One thing to look out for is founders who have a company because of an initial period of luck but questionable direction and drive to build something more sustainable (or larger). I've seen that a lot, even in myself when I was younger. People incorrectly attribute their success to their skills / vision / mojo and have enough runway that they internalize those beliefs while ignoring the slow death of their project.

It's hard to separate that misguided exuberance from a healthier drive. A good sign is when they temper their confidence with humility -- "we really got the timing right on the first one". If instead they talk about how they're crushing it and how "number 2 is going to be 10x" you might want to rethink hitching your wagon to them. In other words, if a founder ever makes you cringe while talking about themselves, that's probably your intuition telling you they don't really have what it takes.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm working on something that uses Hyperledger, so yeah.

</comment><comment><USER46> Nice write up of the problem, but the solution is not that simple. Not saying that you shouldn't try, but the problem of doing something that customers want is extremely difficult and has a lot to do with luck. We have implemented many features no one wants, and many features that the users wanted and use. It's impossible to know the outcome beforehand. We have always discussed with the customers before hand, but that does not mean the feature is going to be used. Even when customers are paying for something it does not mean they really use it. So "Don't just build Something™, build an industry leading product that customers want and love" is nice and catchy, but the reality is never going to be that easy. And how do you even know if you just did it the wrong way? If a small change would have changed everything? You can't really trust people either because they don't know what they want. You can't trust analytics because you don't know if you are measuring right things? When do you know that no one wants a particular feature?

Putting yourself to a pedestal because you've figured out a problem won't help for sure. Be humble and accept that figuring out the right thing is hard work. Most often people are doing their best, working in silos or else where. Most product managers are not there to make your life terrible, even though you might think that way from the article.

</comment><comment><USER53> This would be an interesting ask HN. I dont think theres much to discuss on the actual link since it looks like its just some sort of ad for some training program?

</comment><comment><USER54> It's inevitable, isn't it, given that we _have_ to work for a living?

In school they call it 'procrastinating', when you're supposed to be doing an assignment, but you're doing everything but the assignment?

You can force people to do the bare minimum - I just don't know how long we can have enough jobs where the bare minimum is better than not doing it at all, or automating it in some fashion.

This is the question of the 21st century and I'm afraid it'll only be the upcoming generation of politicians like Andrew Yang who even stand a chance of answering it in a way that doesn't lead to significant civil unrest.

</comment><comment><USER55> Sadly most of the software I have developed has been "something no-one wants", but I keep trying because if I ever do build something people want then that's my greatest professional life goal met.

</comment><comment><USER56> Nope, everything we are working on someone wants.

Very often, that someone isn't the customer, but someone in the team's management heirarchy, and usually those tasks are both prioritized and poorly specified and subject to worse requirements flux than customer requirements (unsurprising, since customer requirements are based on actual business needs, while management requirements are based on whims, flights of fancy, that- comment-a-higher-level-manager-just-made-that-gave-me-an-idea-of-how-to- impress-them, etc.)

Agile methodologies at the team level don't really protect against that, though.

</comment><comment><USER57> Due date driven work isn't necessarily because that's copied from manufacturing. It often seems to be just an accountability and planning measure. Ie if we (stakeholders) know the thing will be delivered in June, then I can launch my thing in July and I build that into my forecasts.

If there were no deadlines for features And teams could pivot willy billy based on whatever they find, cross functional planning would probably be difficult.

I think the right hybrid for larger companies is some agree on cadence for adjustments in direction based on customer feedback / learnings (eg quarterly)

<comment><USER58> At my company due dates are used purely as motivators. Every date promised to upper management is absurdly aggressive. I'm told this is meant to instill a "sense of urgency" to motivate people. It makes new hires burn themselves out. The few who survive the pressure eventually realize it's all a show and just get used to apologizing for all their "failures."

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This all seems a little back to front - engineering in a vacuum. I mean sure it solves the problems the engineering team has but at the cost of making everyone else's job near impossible.

"Date scrum" isn't an anti-pattern, it's a basic requirement. e.g.

Sales staff: Please buy our product

Customer: Cool. Can I see it?

Sales staff: Not ready yet

Customer: OK when will it be ready?

Sales staff: No idea. Whenever the engineers are done "discovering the best solution". Also, please sign here to commit X millions for a solution not yet discovered that will be delivered by an unknown date.

Customer: _spits out coffee_

<comment><USER28> Don't try to sell a product that doesn't exist yet?

<comment> jagged-chisel This seems obvious to non-sales folks: why would you like to a potential customer about what you're selling? But for some reason, it's common enough that every software engineer I've ever known has experience with salespeople attempting to sell things that aren't ready or don't even exist. When customers push back, Sales comes to engineering with "we can't make this sale until we've built X. can you have that by Friday so I can get this deal signed?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I work as a product owner in a company described almost exactly by this article. We shipped our important feature last month and nobody's used it yet. We have a product team totally separate from the engineering department and they come up with the ideas that we build. My input on the product is valued only at fairly low levels, around detailed implementation (how buttons should work, whether users will likely figure something out). I really don't like it, but at my level, I don't know what I can do.

My primary approach to address this is to push for improved data analytics, starting with our tracking and pipelines. I do think a data-driven culture can help lead the team/company in the right direction, and that it can spread from my level. Progress is being made, albeit slowly.

Execs have some lofty goals of changing the paradigm, but I don't see that happening in the next 2-3 years. Any advice on how I can help effect meaningful change from my position? Or perhaps could I be better served working somewhere else, building better habits.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have a weird story of the same type, I developed a new module on the product (Quite an obvious one, no need to educate users), and got very little traction, but after 2 years, but reports and support started piling in. My new interpretation is that we just had to let the market pick up on it and do its transition at its own pace (I don't know if development is paid for yet).

</comment><comment><USER62> IMO, that's the biggest sign that your job's not going to last very long.

I remember partial involvement in a major feature that I thought was kind of lame; but it pulled in quite a few engineers and was a major deliverable. I thought to myself, "huh, I guess customers will actually pay for this?"

Then later I found out that no one actually bought the feature.

<comment><USER63> This happens so much, I wonder what the effect would be if management actually got honest feedback and listened to it. I think often the engineers implementing things know if they will work or not but their opinions are ignored, if they are even brave enough to point out the things that won't work. It's the curse of the employee relationship. Employees don't want to stir things up, so they do what management wants, despite their experience telling them it'll fail. This is why I don't view success as connected to whether a project is financially successful or not. Success is pushing to production. That's all.

<comment><USER62> It wasn't a situation like that, yet.

In this case, we (engineers) had a lot of trust with management because usually features were developed with lots of customer involvement. (And when features weren't, they were usually MVP-style to test-market something.)

So, in this case, I pointed out some limitations and immediately got back an answer that implied that the customer was aware of the limitations and was more concerned about something else.

That's why I was shocked to find out no one bought it!

Anyway, to further add insult to injury, the new feature added lots of complexity to the product; complexity that added development cost to further development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I worked in a startup, that had around 30 employees (15 in tech at the time) and we had a good product that sold like hot cakes. But due to some issues the company closed that product down. Anyways, we were looking for new ideas.

There was this new guy who was previously in business development and customer support and somehow had got his role changed to associate product manager by talking to CEO, about his passion etc. He suggested a product by reading about a recently funded company in USA. I, a product manager and another one of the product manager, simply rejected the idea given very small market size and complexity of the product and technology required. But CEO bypassed our suggestion and we did build that product for more than 2 years, putting in tons of effort and resources, perfecting it but even then there was hardly any noticeable sales.

</comment><comment><USER65> And how many of you are working on something that no customer wants but Gartner believes is the future?

</comment><comment><USER66> Failure of Agile can basically be summed up as: "customer not involved every day".

<comment><USER43> That much involvement is going to lead to customer driven architecture, which seems like another failure mode.

<comment><USER67> "Customer involved every day" doesn't necessarily mean that you let the architecture or product be designed strictly for the customers need. Point is to have as much user feedback as possible, to take into consideration (or purposefully say "we're not considering that").

To end up with a useful product in the end, it's better to err on the side of involving the user too much, than too little.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Team 1 and team 2 both internally compete for projects at the same company.

Team 1 already knows their project won't be "bought", but they can't start on a new project yet, so what's the point of wasting developer time on it?

</comment><comment><USER69> This describes more than half of the corporate software projects ever started, IME.

</comment><comment><USER70> I worked at a major defense contractor in a small office for as an intern. The entire 50 person office was working on a single top-secret contract which very obviously was never going to get off the ground. After working on it for over 5 years, the prototype was still about as janky as could be and required a team of human operators to perform dangerous, highly intensive, time- intensive-training-necessary work just to get it to work. No one could say anything because everyone would be out of a job, and so, as far as I know, the project hobbles on.

</comment><comment><USER71> I work for a bank and we're rolling out later this year some new accounting management software for our users, to help them keep track of their budgets etc. Over the last seven years or so I have myself tried using such tools at various banks I have accounts at, and I could never get into it never really enjoyed it. I do use accounting software that is entirely separate from my bank. And some of the ones I used to use were discontinued, perhaps due to lack of interest. So I'm rather certain that what we're working on is probably not gonna be successful.

</comment><comment><USER72> Everybody working at Dropbox?

<comment><USER73> You forgot docker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Don't want this to turn into a big politics tangent, but I've thought that one use case for a tech workers union is to be able to push back against questionable business decisions from management.

I've seen places where engineers and other ICs, some team leads and managers, those with far more experience and clout at me, voice skepticism against questionable product decisions coming from upper management, only to receive nothing in response. Even when these decisions involve infeasible engineering forecasts, leadership stay the course. The worst they might get is some uncomfortable questions from the most bold, outspoken senior or staff engineers during all-hands. And the response is usually some stock party line about staying the course and everything will work out. Sometimes, this is coupled with toxic cultures that prevent people from truly speaking out.

Beyond fighting for better labor conditions, an intracompany tech worker organization should be able to push back against bad management decisions. Imagine if your engineering guild had power not just to determine the tech stack or coordinate between teams, but also to check the power of management on product and technical decisions, or even question strategic business decisions.

People imagine tech unions will just be a rehash of Industrial Era blue collar unions, but they have the potential to be something more- a way for the rank and file to finally have the clout to push back against bad engineering decisions from poor leadership.

Sure, you can say disgruntled engineers can just leave, or companies with bad management cultures should deserve to fail. But that just seems like defeatism. It seems like a form of capitalism that promotes throwaway, wasteful behavior. If employees have valid concerns, but management ignores them, doesn't it seem like a shame for an organization to decline and the product to die because of no one could oppose management's mistakes? What about the customers?

<comment><USER75> Imagine if your tech guild had the power to promote tech priorities over business concerns, and drive the company out of business.

If your tech team is better than management at running the business, quit and form a competitor.

<comment><USER74> That's honestly not a bad idea- I've seen high exec turnover resulting from their own mistakes, and much of the engineering team might have been happier together under different leadership. Worked for Fairchild Semiconductor, I suppose.

Who's to say that technical priorities aren't worth prioritizing? How many times do companies treat their tech as a cost center rather than a profit center, leading to expensive mistakes? I don't understand why one would want to be an apologist for the Pointy-Haired Bosses, unless they themselves are in management.

Everyone thinks corporate fiat rule is the best way to lead- until they find themselves outvoted on a stupid initiative. Perhaps the right way to respond to it is to vote with your feet, and leave. But again, that seems like a waste if the course is salvageable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I don't know if this counts. I worked briefly at a place that was making sensors for fitbit-style wearable medical devices. One thing that was really cool was a device that could measure your blood alcohol level. They were trying to miniaturize it to fit in a watch or whatever.

The investors and intended market are a staunchly Muslim oil oligarchy.

(In case it's not clear: ¿ɥǝ 'sɯǝlqoɹd ǝq ʇɥƃᴉɯ ǝɹǝɥʇ sɹǝlɐʇoʇǝǝʇ ɟo uoᴉʇɐu ɐ oʇ sɹosuǝs ǝzooq lɐuosɹǝd ɔᴉʇɐɯoʇnɐ ǝɔnpoɹʇuᴉ noʎ ɟI )

</comment><comment><USER77> Everybody should go read Bullshit Jobs.

<comment><USER78> Amazing book. The funny thing is I never expected to see it applied to software engineering - but in this context it's very appropriate.

<comment><USER79> I've been a duct taper all my career.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I had one of these, I found my writeup again today. It had an embedded copy of OpenOffice to read .doc files. [https://reddragdiva.dreamwidth.org/599841.html](https://reddragdiva.dreamwidth.org/599841.html) Also, the specification implicitly required the implementation of strong artificial intelligence.

</comment><comment><USER81> Not meaning to make sweeping generalisations, but in my experience, any company that mentions AI or machine learning too many times in there promo material seems to fall into the rather unfortunate categories of "working on something that no one wants" and "working on something unlikely to yield useful results"

</comment><comment><USER82> A lot of software is used because there is no better alternative. So it become the norm to use a certain product because there is nothing better.

Every phone OS is absolute shit, and in reality no one wants it, but we have no choice. So it because the norm and we quietly accept it.

Not to mention a lot of frameworks and languages.

</comment><comment><USER83> No. We know people want this. Many existing customers joined the wait list to try it, and a few employees are using a ludicrously inadequate alpha version.

We might get the details wrong, but _somebody_ is going to make a killing with this in the next few years.

</comment><comment><USER44> Many of the features can be a total waste of time, true, once we spent 3/4 of a budget building UI for the product whose biggest customers (95% profit) never used UI. But then again, business plans change, some features need to be customer-tested, etc.

</comment><comment><USER84> at the previous company i worked for, we were developing _several_ products that either no one wanted or were so bad you wouldn't use even if you could for free (i didn't even install the app thing on my phone because of how morally corrupt our mobile team was).

we had bizdev guys running around making deals in third world countries, and pr dept. working overtime just to create the illusion something was moving. r&d dept went through like 3 org restructures within span of 6 months, for no reason other than to satisfy the ego of r&d vp. i mean, i've seen politics that would make machiavelli seem virtuous by comparison.

it was beyond bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER85> This is pretty common in government. We have way too much duplication between projects so somebody gets the bright idea to replace all the standards with one standard but it doesn't get traction and basically doesn't get used.

</comment><comment><USER86> Love content like this, just goes to show that we're really just scratching the surface of dev products and startups.

Kinda like cockroach db and hasura built very well funded startups around open source products.

</comment><comment><USER22> No quite as bad as that, but we are a feature factory, expecting the next big contract to make it. Instead we keep on adding tons of features to an already large product with a tiny team.

</comment><comment><USER87> That's not how it usually goes. It's more like: How many of you know that the team is working on something that will never be released?

</comment><comment><USER88> Throwaway on this guy, but I actually was ground zero on a project like this. The rabbit hole went incredibly deep.

I was a pretty new hire at a small computer repair company with an absolutely manic CEO. The guy was an egomaniac and thought that because he owned a computer repair company (mind you, he has zero tech skills, his partner was the one who did all of that), he was the next Steve Jobs.

I originally got hired at the company to do work on their web SEO "business division".

By "business division", it was a 12 man team building Wordpress sites for about 5 clients. No version control, no backups (unless you count zipping the WP install and leaving the archive in the same directory on the server), paying nearly $1200 for Enterprise Azure for traffic that didn't even equal 10,000 hits/mo across all clients.

It eventually got around I knew what I was doing, so I got pulled off to another project--one to architect a custom backend for a new idea the CEO had.

One of the other coworkers at the company (who did everything in PHP--and I mean literally everything), had built a wheel interface in a web browser.

The CEO saw the wheel, and decided that the interface was going to be a social media app. Literally form over function.

The app quickly got convoluted because there was literally zero project management. We would literally get ideas from the CEO in an email and we'd start to work on it until he got the next big idea. There was zero accountability to what we were building. We would be interfaces and logic that would get torn down or hacked 6 months down the line. We spent literal months building this convoluted 6-7 layer deep wheel interface to make a Yelp rip-off clone.

Imagine you wanted an estate lawyer? You would have a wheel of 7 elements. One was "professional services". You'd circle the wheel around and click on it. You'd then get 7 more wheel elements. You'd circle the wheel around to "lawyers". Once on lawyers, you'd scroll around until you found the icon for "estate lawyer" and when you hovered to it, you'd get an interface on the top of recommended lawyers based on some constantly changing algorithm of friend recommendations and geo locations.

This app was in development for nearly a year and didn't see a single user until around 9 months in (where we posted "gigs" to Craiglist, promising money if you were a "top user", but I don't think anyone got paid).

We never did a formal launch because we kept building and building and building.

We added business recommendations first. Then it became movies and other media. Then we build a friends list that let you put in contact information about your friends (we rebuilt contact list). Then we built a tracker that would ping your location at few minute intervals and store it and a timestamp on our server. Then we built an aggressive scraper that would scrape your call history and contact list, store it to our server in plaintext, and then query each phone number in a plaintext query to Google to see if we could match it. We build a "pre-fetcher" that would aggregate data and scrape images from Google Images and build business profiles we'd pass off as our own.

The list went on and on and on--all while rebuilding the friends privacy settings over and over.

The entire time, I desperately wanted to find a new job, but couldn't because the economy was shit. I constantly was berated and yelled at. Promised equity but never got a statement. Pay was terrible (they bait and switched me with the SEO pay).

Finally after some unreasonable disagreement with the CEO, I was "indefinitely on unpaid leave" (I was basically fired without being fired), so I just quit. I got a call with a death threat days later.

Luckily, I landed another small time job shortly after. I ended up suing the previous company, but they hired the biggest defense firm in the state to stall out--so my lawyer bailed. Not before they called me, leaving me a second death threat for hiring a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER89> I haven't finished the articles first paragraph because I can't stop laughing when I read the title - it's too true

</comment><comment><USER90> Do it like Amazon, have two pizza teams.

</comment><comment><USER91> I work on a team that makes a product for actual customers. They tell us what they want and we do it :)

</comment><comment><USER92> > Instead, they are usually focused on making sure the team is building what > their boss thinks should be built.

This rings so true. I vowed to never again work with companies with non technical leadership for this reason. My career so far has mostly been building features nobody wanted for people who are trying to impress management and/or VCs.

> The less technical the dev manager is, the more likely they are to be > ignorant of technical debt, that is until customer escalations become > politically untenable. This life cycle is why the engineering VP job has > about a one year lifespan at many companies who run Idea Silos.

I've never heard of this concept of idea silos before. It makes so much sense. At my last company it was even worse. I had 4 managers over 2 years, yet the more senior management gave the VP of engineering free reign to make whatever changes he wanted (yes, they were all men), so the system was a cobbled- together mess of half baked features as a result of each manager coming in trying to make sweeping changes to show off their "scrum" skills.

> Engineers are problem solvers, and if the primary problem becomes delivering > Something™ that will pass QA by the Date™, they will, with enough pressure, > solve that exact problem.

Ahhh I can't even handle how accurate this is. You should have seen the spreadsheets and meetings we had about sizing and building roadmaps. The entire engineering department's job became keeping managers at bay by producing roadmap items on schedule. There were meetings upon meetings about "metrics", which were just numbers we made up but put into a fancy spreadsheet, because doing calculations on made up numbers makes them appear more legitimate than raw made up numbers.

The majority of the effort of our department was wasted on features nobody wanted. They sounded impressive and apparently were cool enough to keep investors satisfied. This company also went to great lengths to re-brand itself as an "AI" company, whatever that means, even though none of the people in charge had the slightest idea what AI was really capable of or how it would benefit the business.

The worst part is that it took so long for me to realize I was wasting my time. After the third major feature I delivered to be used by absolutely nobody I realized we were out of sync with reality. I thought I had made this great discovery and was almost excited to bring it up because I thought it would be a great opportunity to change to do better by our customers. Instead I was met with a response that essentially amounted to "shut up, know your place, and give me code", which is when I realized I was really just a cog in this machine designed to get engineering VPs bullet points for their CVs, and left.

</comment><comment><USER93> Plenty of times, but I always see it as a curriculum improvement opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER23> Don't a large portion of IT projects fail?

</comment><comment><USER94> Why not just quit? You're 100% a re-hirable asset under better management.

</comment><comment><USER95> Always about AI.

</comment><comment><USER96> My manager (a director) at a FAANG used to give me (and only me, justified with my strong background - though he used similar tactics on others) tasks that couldn't be solved and didn't have any business justification so he could keep me from getting promoted. The first few promotion cycles I still tried to find alternatives (X doesn't make sense, but Y would reach similar goals in a reasonable way), but the motives were quite clear.

At first I was looking for ways to move within the company (I was hired in the wrong part of the organization and on the wrong level, making this a bit difficult) and started working with other teams to be able to switch, but I realized it wasn't really worth it because most teams were building things that were very strongly driven by VPs and directors own motives rather than users or even what is good for the business. [1]

My impression was that this is partially driven by several factors: \- the very strong market position means customers don't really have a choice. It's actually rather hard to make good decisions when the market can't give you good signals. Situations would arise where one customer wants something, another wants the opposite and both may have a negative short-term impact on the bottom line. The lack of competition to really verify which decision would be successful gives too much power to the decision maker with really bad incentives, leading to some suboptimal decisions (unless there's a strong long-term strategy that is followed through). \- the drive to make "data driven" decisions, without understanding what that really means. Depending on how the data was presented, completely different conclusions were possible and instead of using common sense with the data, this was treated as an absolute truth to end many discussions. What quite frequently would happen was optimizing towards the wrong metric or underestimating bias. \- Silos created by people who were hired at a different stage of the company. Some of the managers just hadn't grown with the company - people who were around for 10+ years were hired for much smaller revenue und user numbers and this further increased the problems with the two points above. My impression was that the incentives weren't well aligned with overall goals of the specific product.

I think the solution in the article above would be a good way to avoid some of the problems I've encountered, by creating a more direct feedback loop between the product and the sales side and aligning incentives better. I don't think it's the best way how many companies grow with very diverse sets of offerings to have huge sales and engineerings orgs, rather than smaller groups that cover the product end-to-end. It's still possible to have many of the benefits of being a large enterprise (shared talent pool, operational processes, costs etc.), while avoiding the drawbacks.

[1]: I can't share evidence, but this particular company is well known for discontinuing popular services.

</comment><comment><USER97> I believe the TLDR of this article is, "skunkworks"</comment>


Three Steps to Demystifying Online Dating - <AUTHOR> http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/three-steps-to-demystifying-online-dating/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link directly to OkCupid's blog, which is good/interesting for a variety of reasons): <http://blog.okcupid.com>.

And here's a link to the related NYT article: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/technology/internet/13cupi...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/technology/internet/13cupid.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all)

That article includes customer acquisition metrics related to the blog's most recent post: [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/01/20/the-4-big- myths...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2010/01/20/the-4-big-myths-of- profile-pictures/).

That blog post has received 750,000 visitors in the three weeks since it's been published. Those visitors resulted in 10,000 new members. That's about 34,000 visitors and 450 conversions per day and the overall conversion rate was 1.33%.

If OkCupid had to buy that much traffic and conversions through a CPC program they'd pay tens of thousands of dollars (or more). At $0.10 per click they would pay $75,000 for 750,000 visitors, at a more realistic $0.20+, they'd pay $150,000+. At a 1% conversion rate that would be $10-$20 per new member, or $100,000 to $200,000 total for 10,000 new members. Sensitivity test the variables up or down, but this shows the blog value-creation potential. Nice work, guys!</comment>


Axel Springer sees early success in countering adblockers - <AUTHOR> https://ca.news.yahoo.com/axel-springer-sees-early-success-countering-adblockers-140638443--finance.html <comment><USER2> Check out "Asc"'s comment:

"There are adblocker-blocker-blockers definition lists... if you can make sense of that. In other words, there are subscriptions (as simple as checking a box in the ad blocker options) that block the scripts that detect that someone has an ad blocker on."

Quite the arms race!</comment>


Ask HN: What would you like to see included in a 21st Century Bill of Rights? - <AUTHOR> With the explosion of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the ever decreasing cost of storage and compute, and the apparent disregard for individual privacy on the part of both government and industry, which rights would you include in a "Bill of Modern Rights"? <comment><USER2> I can't answer this question, but just to put it in context, the United Nation'a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, put together after World War II, is a truly beautiful document. I had never read it or really knew anything about it, but if you read through it, it's an absolutely inspiring vision of humanity and of a world that one day might exist. It's wording is concise, clear, and beautiful.

Here's the foreword from the most recent published copy:

"The Universal Declaration promises to all the economic, social, political, cultural and civic rights that underpin a life free from want and fear. They are not a reward for good behaviour. They are not country-specific, or particular to a certain era or social group. They are the inalienable entitlements of all people, at all times, and in all places — people of every colour, from every race and ethnic group; whether or not they are disabled; citizens or migrants; no matter their sex, their class, their caste, their creed, their age or sexual orientation."

And here is the original document:

"Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Sorry not to hijack this thread and I know you technically said Bill of Rights, which is also very inspiring, but I feel like less well known in the US."

<comment><USER3> Theoretically beautiful, like most utopian visions. The reality is that most places that the UN is involved in are human rights hellholes.

<comment><USER2> And to answer OP's original question...

Right to Birth Control: we're never going to agree on abortion but can we at least get this? A long time ago women would usually stop getting their periods after 20...because they were constantly pregnant until 50 when menopause started. Having larger amount of children might very well be unsustainable in a world with less jobs and that demands a lifetime of learning (by both spouses) to stay employed and take care of yourselves, let alone 3, 4, 5+ children. If male birth control ever comes out I think this would become even more viable too.

Right to Internet: I don't have great reasons for this but can anyone think of a bad one for this? Like birth control could be found to have terrible side effects, perhaps some welfare plan might cause mass dependency, but literally is there any bad reason for guaranteeing internet?

<comment><USER4> Why stop with right to Internet? Why don't we just stop this silly game and declare that everyone has a right to anything that they could possibly want? Someone creates a technology in the future that may help people's lives in some significant, or even small, way? I declare I have a right to it and demand someone else pay for it to provide to me.

<comment><USER2> Initially, your point was "grinding my gears" lol. My reasoning was "'x is good". You took that (and this next part could be wrong so please accept my apology if it is but I tried to break it down into concrete math terms) and said "no it's not, because '20x' is bad, and if we do 'x' then that means we almost certainly will commit ourselves to '20x'".

But......You do have a point though. When extremist interpretations can be made...haha they almost certainly will (Islam, the Bible, anything related to communism, capitalism, etc).

How do you get around that? No contract is really bulletproof, there is a spirit to every law and document. That spirit I like to think is applied through good systems, common sense, and good leadership.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's a tough one. I consider many different ways of possibly dealing with it. I start with the notion that no matter how well a system is designed, it will eventually fall apart and requires a reboot. Sometimes actions prolong the system, sometimes they hasten its demise. These days I'm wondering if an automatic and irreversible sunset clause on every rule in the system might help. To force the people to rethink things from time-to-time. That way the rules don't slowly degrade over time as people "tweak" them for their own benefit. New people have an opportunity to contribute to the rules as opposed to being dictated by rules created by people long dead.

It would have to have term limits on the people involved in making the rules for the system as well.

Everything would have to be staggered though, can't have everything up for renewal at the same time. Too easy to cause chaos of which some people will take advantage.

But, most likely, it won't matter in the long run because my thoughts are around the idea of trying to prevent the always inevitable violent upheaval of the status quo to "make things better". Which only means get rid of all the crappy rules we've forced on ourselves to return to a time the rules were fair and made sense. Which, of course, eventually goes downhill again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the 2nd Amendment is for A) self-defense without the government, or B) eventual resistance against the government itself, then surely it should be interpreted to protect strong encryption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. The wording of the 2nd amendment doesn't lend itself to encryption though which could be an issue.

<comment><USER6> I hadn't ever really thought of this, but cryptography has sometimes been considered a "military munition" for purposes of restricting export: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States)

Is there any existing jurisprudence defending citizen access to cryptography on 2nd Amendment grounds?

<comment><USER5> There's this one xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/504/](https://xkcd.com/504/)

But no, to my knowledge this legal argument has not been made in court. (Here's a Motherboard article about the possibility: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-second- amendm...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-second-amendment- case-for-the-right-to-bear-encryption.))

So far I think it's more interesting to consider as a political argument than a legal one: conservatives who like guns should (IMHO) have every reason to oppose state-weakened cryptography, as much as that might fracture the law- and-order conservatism from libertarian conservatism. (Also, there is no universe where a militia with automatic weapons and tapped email is really going anywhere.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Right To The Best Available Deal:

To have all applicable financial / tax regulations applied to you automatically.

This way you don't have to discover tax breaks/credits/deductions — they just get applied to you.

This is important and effects something like 250M Americans.

Outside of criminal and civil law, much of the US system of government is enforced financially through the tax code.

The benefits of the Internal Revenue Code are applied unevenly because richer people are able to develop the sophistication or acquire service providers who help them make sure they are getting the best available deal.

Can you imagine if hackers/coders got better deals on products Amazon then non-coders? It would be absurd to say "well, learn to code or higher an engineer and you'll save $1000 a year!" That's a pretty close metaphor—we say "get financially literate! The information is out there! get an accountant!".

Computers, tech, machine learning, and AI are great at making sure all Americans get The Best Deal Available.

<comment><USER8> I wonder if having tax breaks apply to everyone that could take them would genuinely cause a Cloward-Piven collapse ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy), it's a strategy for collapsing a welfare state by doing exactly what you described, based on the theory that welfare benefits and tax deductions are not designed to handle 100% use).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Right to a defensive trial: If you are prosecuted, you should be allowed to do nothing, let the court sort it out with a free, publicly-assigned defender, and _if_ you don't like the verdict, you can dispute it in a second trial. That way you only have to spend money and time defending yourself against suits with serious merit. Would seriously hurt patent trolls, and all nuisance/extortion lawsuits in general.

</comment><comment><USER10> Freedom from imposition by any non-public government process. If the government does anything it must be open to public knowledge and scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER11> How about:

      A community has the right to transparency in the forces that govern it.

The principle may seem familiar, but it is not currently applied in a broad sense; Facebook's News Feed algorithm, which can swing elections, is secret. So is Hacker News's. Our behaviour is carefully shaped and we are not allowed to know how.

</comment><comment><USER12> The right to privacy of thought, and the right to think anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Crucial in a world where prosthetics and embedded sensors in your body could soon become common place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Preamble to the Bill Of Rights is important: [http://drexel.edu/ogcr/resources/constitution/amendments/pre...](http://drexel.edu/ogcr/resources/constitution/amendments/preamble/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I expect this post the become massive, as questions like this are so large a kind of bike-shedding exercise goes on, but my own 2c:

I think religious rights should have never evolved the way it did.

Religion is clearly different from creed color, etc, it also includes belief, personality, motivation etc. Instead of becoming power real estate for established religions to fight over (do 'cults', or atheist institutions get the same protections), it should have evolved into the right to believe anything that doesn't motivate you to break the law; in other words, protection against though-policing.

The flat-earthers should get the same protections as catholics - the right to hold any belief, be it on faith or otherwise.

<comment><USER15> In the US they pretty much do have the same rights.

<comment><USER14> the same rights in terms of outcome? They don't literally use the same legislature, because AFAIK flat-earth beliefs do not qualify for religious protection.

In fact, some believers wrap their belief structures in an established religious structure, it seems, _just so_ they have those protections.

One specific concern about this:

Don't like gays? sorry bub, go to jail. Have a religious basis to not like gays? protected! I choose _this_ contentious example to show that any belief protected by religious rights, should also be protected when otherwise having no religious basis; and also _why_ some beliefs shouldn't be protected, even if religiously based.

When all beliefs not barred are permitted, there will be a lot more motivation to bar specific kinds of belief - at the moment, the established religions can push exceptions for their specific beliefs. Put another way - if religion isn't special, then either racist belief is as valid for a neo-nazi as it is a church, or that belief is an invalid for a church as a neo-nazi.

<comment><USER15> Note that I said in the US, where we have openly racist groups that do not claim to be religious organizations.

<comment><USER14> They have to use different laws if they want to get protection though, and are liable to "hate" laws that religious organisations be more immune to?

<comment><USER15> No, not really. Our speech protections are pretty universal.

There are hate crime laws, but they largely are additional charges in cases of violence.

A church probably has an easier time demonstrating that they are a non profit for tax purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The right to innovate and invent without anxiety. To me this means clarifying copyright and trademark, reducing their abuse by claimants, and abolishing all patents altogether.

</comment><comment><USER17> Freedom of communication. In other words, "unreasonable search and seizure" extended to all communications. The same caveats - the authorities should be required to obtain an individual and targeted warrant before being allowed to (attempt to) intercept, and this should be granted only upon reasonable suspicion of a crime as determined by a judge.

If they fail to intercept, they could always get warrants to secretly surveil the suspects, swap or backdoor their hardware, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen anything on here about the right to be forgotten which I believe is extremely important.

I also think the right to human autonomy is absolutely crucial. I want the freedom to choose to drive my own vehicle. I don't want a self-driving vehicle to dictate where I can and cannot go.

I really think, and this is entering muddy waters, that there should be a right to anonymity. I should be able to say or do things without people knowing who I am.

<comment><USER18> Right to be forgotten is iffy, because we should have the right to hold public figures accountable, and that is where it would be mostly used. If you get arrested for drunk driving, lose all respectability in your community, and then remove it form the net, your life is still fucked. But if you are Donald Trump, having the right to immediately depublish things until it is proven that you are person if interest is usefull.

A right to privacy and a data letter (every outlet and company must inform you via mail about any data, articles etc on their servers/in their publication in which personal information about you is involved, if they are either supplying a service or writing the story) would fill most of that niche in my opinion

Right to autonomy I agree, that is basically stallmann. First sale doctrine, freedom to tinker, software freedom...things like this

Right to anonymity goes into dangerous territory again...you should have a right to not be surveilled(privacy), which makes it harder to connect you to your speech (good). But if somebody figures it out,having the right to stop that is ...dangerous again.Especially with the bullshit idea that corporate money is speech, that right would make it illegal to unmask bribery

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is "right" the correct abstraction? An alternative might be "obligation".

Bill of obligations:

Article 1: All parents are obligated to either support their children and provide their physical and educational needs, and give them the emotional support they need to grow up or leave them up for adoption at the earliest opportunity.

Article 2: Adult children must financially support their parents by a percentage of their income while their parents are over the age of 65.

Article 3: The nearest relatives with income to a person with disability are obligated to support that person financially.

Article 4: The government have obligation to help the needy, the disabled, the elderly, the abandoned, to search for their nearest relatives and garnish their wages and income to ensure the persons' needs are fulfilled.

Etc etc. Instead of centralising social welfare payments through the government, we can place this obligation back towards those nearest to those who need help. Instead of paying taxes to the government for who knows what causes, they go directly to those nearest to us, and if supporting them is too onerous, search for the next nearest relatives.

These articles obligations can be extended to include companies, governments, institutions. Any entity that doesn't fulfil their obligations can be sued by anyone, rather than only when they violate the plaintiff's "rights".

<comment><USER20> This goes directly against personal freedom though, especially points 2-4.

What if you were abused by your parents and/or had some other issues with them, and you haven't had any contact with them for 30 years? Should you still pay them after they get over the age of 65?

In general, the whole idea is upsetting to me, over here in EU we pay massive taxes but they guarantee people in need are taken care off, "garnishing wages" of nearest relatives sounds just stupid.

<comment><USER18> It's a difference in conception...in Europe, the idea of "positive freedom" is more prevalent...we care about being able to actually do things in all cases, even if we are in a bad situation. You have a right to education, health care, political participation etc., and part of that right is to be able to _actually_ do it (i.e., "I could if I chose not to work today, but then I can't eat"). Property is a means to freedom, not an end, and can be touched more easily. Hence, taxes are (more) ok.

In the the states, I feel there is still the idea of property as a basis for freedom. "Negative freedom" \- don't force me to do things, don't touch my house, don't touch my money, don't restrict what I could theoretically do if I have the means - is more dominant. Hence, people don't seem to like the idea of having to pay for "other peoples freedom". It's more palatable to think of taking care of just your kids/relatives - there is a limited number of them, and you can probably do that without actually giving up a lot of property. Buy a big house, move your parents in there, you still have a big house afterwards.

Of course, this also leads to (or is equivalent) to a "fuck the poor" mindset

<comment><USER4> >> In the the states, I feel there is still the idea of property as a basis for freedom.

This doesn't exist in the US anymore, maybe for a long time. People think it does, but it does not.

>> "Negative freedom" \- don't force me to do things, don't touch my house, don't touch my money, don't restrict what I could theoretically do if I have the means - is more dominant.

People like to think this too, but it doesn't work out that way for most people.

<comment><USER18> Do you know when and how that changed? I'd like to change my view, but just from the discussions I've had with US citizens and what is see happening in your politics, it seems like it is very much still alive. Sure, Sanders and his crowd think less like this, but he lost to Hillary, and not _only_ because of rigging

<comment><USER4> It would be difficult to nail down, simply because it's not a across the board change that happened overnight. There have been various encroachments on our liberty and property rights over decades.

Simple examples: police confiscating money and small items during routine traffic stops with little or no recourse, overzealous use of eminent domain for questionable reasons, creation of various "fees" because local government can't get tax increases passed, etc.

There's likely more easily found but those are the first few I can think off the top of my head. Note that in some areas of the US this sort of thing happened and there was instant backlash against it in some jurisdictions. But in others the government moved along just nicely thank you very much.

People think of their homes as their "property" and maybe there is some basis in "freedom" in that. But most people don't "own" that property in the first place. Property can mean many different things and many different aspects of property are in a constant state of seizure by government for its own ends.

<comment><USER18> Ah, I misunderstood you then. I got the impression you mean that the _mindset_ had changed. What you describe seems to indicate that the mindset is still the same, but the reality is changing. And in my opinion, this is exactly due to the mindset. Especially the thing about fees to sidestep the aversion to taxes. The police and eminent domain thing sounds like corruption, and maybe also correlates with your idea of freedom: if freedom is something which is enabled by society and the restrictions and opportunities that come with it, you risk some of your freedom if you act in a corrupt manner. If freedom is something that property gives you, and society is only there to protect your property because warlording is stressful, then trying to get away with small corruption becomes desirable.

Your last sentence confirms me in this. "The government" is made up of people who got into power for idealistic or selfish reasons, yet you refer to it as its own entity and concept. This gels well with the "lay of mine" concept of freedom, less well with the "we as a whole enable us all" flavour.

Obviously, I am biased, and I might be interpreting things. If so, please corrent my misunderstandings if you have the time.

<comment><USER4> I don't fully agree with everything you say, but it's close enough along the lines of what I'm saying that I can't disagree with it either. It's a complicated thing with a huge gray area surrounding it, there's room for multiple trains of thought that can be reasonably correct. I think that's a fact many people tend to forget when discussing such matters.

But I would say that the mindset hasn't changed per se, but I think it's starting to get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The right to total privacy in email and messaging communications.

The right to a speedy trial - you get freed from jail ROR if not tried within 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER22> The right for the energy (food, fuel), insulation (clothes, room) and information (internet) necessary to live long and prosper.

</comment><comment><USER23> Freedom of Information:

Its rediculous that one can be jailed, thieved or killed for: possessing someone else's number, telling someone a secret number, or refusing to share the correct number with someone.

These problems only exist because society believes in, and enforces, ownership of ideas

<comment><USER24> So, given that a jpg is just a very large number, I infer from your framing thst you are in favor of legalizing:

\- leaking someone's private medical records

\- sending weapons designs to a foreign power

\- selling photos of child abuse

Correct?

<comment><USER20> All three actions you listed can remain illegal, while owning the information(or to keep with the analogy "a very large number") should be fully legal.

It's not illegal to have a case full of medical records, but stealing them or releasing them without permission is illegal, no?

<comment><USER4> Depends on the item in question; sometimes mere possession of an item, even if obtained legally, can be illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why do we need a "Bill of Rights" at all?

Rights exist because they are insisted upon and asserted by the people, not because a government or a document declares that they exist.

</comment><comment><USER26> The right to be secure from unreasonable electronic Surveillance

</comment><comment><USER27> Free access to internet and online university for those that can't pay for brick and mortar degrees would be reasonable in terms of cost and efficacy.

<comment><USER28> I feel one of the bigger challengers for online university is the examination system as much as the course.

If someone could organise a monthly 'exam hall'. Over time you could even build prestige on these courses same as large university if you can guarantee the examination process is robust.

Thinking about it... I think you'd need;

\- A place where people have to physically turn up.

\- Paid/volunteer monitors do a proof of person ID check and some photo or physical ID check as students notoriously do other student exams in some unis.

\- Exam content has to be original to avoid rote leaning form doing past exams.

\- Exam content to be provided at test commencement on individual screens, communal projector or print out in the room that only get released as the exam starts. This way People cant gain early access to anything.

\- Web cams must be set up to show the exam room so effectively there is another level of monitors and the physically present monitors are monitored too. This again would reduce the risk of graft.

\- Exam paper/results must be collected immediately from exam with something to ensure the person who did the work uploads their own, e.g. At the end of the exam people are called by name to walk to the front of the hall and scan their paper.

I'm sure there would be a bunch more to it than that but it seems to me once you could guarantee results are genuine there is a great opportunity to have recognised online courses that can have all the prestige of unis (less networking effect). Without believable results it will always be a challenge and learning will be for learning sake, not the recognition factor universities provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The right to food and shelter. It really is ridiculous that we don't guarantee access to basic human needs.

</comment><comment><USER30> hello friends can you help me</comment>


Ask HN: Are you using Hive? What for? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I/We are also using Hive to process compressed logs, manipulate them and create sub tables, that we can query on. We use Amazon EMR, and storing the data on s3. But mainly we use it for text processing via HQL.(Right or wrong it creates some structure around our data.)

</comment><comment><USER2> I use it to replace writing tedious map reduce jobs. Once you have it setup, it is very easy to write new jobs very quickly.</comment>


A RESTful API server framework (PHP) - <AUTHOR> http://luracast.com/products/restler/

<comment><USER2> It can turn your public methods into RESTful API. Use the Live Examples (<http://bit.ly/RestlerLiveExamples>) to test drive at the comfort or your browser</comment>


Coast by Opera - <AUTHOR> http://www.operasoftware.com/press/theprmachine

<comment><USER2> Their 'corporateness' slider is weird. They're effectively creating 8 unique write ups of their press releases - which seems a little overkill.

That said, I was amused by the geekier translations - particularly when 'Geek edition' is ticked and the article becomes a change log printed in a monospaced typeface.

<comment><USER3> It's just something they did for this one press release, not for all of them. Writing eight versions of the copy isn't too bad if it's a one-time thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great to see Opera back on form.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the API article recently on HN which basically argued about how nonsensical it was to have APIs on top of an existing HTML site since that was multiple ways of getting the same information and wasteful.

This seems to take that to the other end of the spectrum by actually communicating the same info in many formats, even to human readers. Great piece of geek humor here!

</comment><comment><USER6> Not sure about the rebranding here, why call it "Coast by Opera" instead of just "Opera". As long as it's the only version of Opera available on the iPad, why get cute and dilute your brand.

</comment><comment><USER7> Full corporate was a fun read, I saw a few spelling errors but that doesn't ruin fun for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Impressive!

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice idea!</comment>


Ryver vs. Slack - <AUTHOR> http://www.ryver.com/ryver-vs-slack/ <comment><USER2> This kind of marketing turns me off before I even get to hear most of their message. Especially when they say they are better than slack because they are "free". Free just means we have a huge burn rate until we can figure out how to make money. It doesn't instill confidence, it makes me weary.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm giving a go at their application and I'm right really pleased to see how easy a potential complete transition from Slack would be done. You provide your Slack's API Token and everything gets imported from the look of it: channels, history, snippets / files, etc...

</comment><comment><USER4> while it looks promising, I don't like the idea of the "stream" for everything. With enough content old stuff gets lost, this goes for chat or news feeds. Traditional forums works because on a single page, i can see a list of sometimes a 100 different posts and skim through them and see exactly what I'm looking for. Search work if you know exactly what you're looking for and of course if the search works well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Accelerating the race to the bottom since 2015!!</comment>


VC investment vs. Gartner hype cycle - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2015/01/12/vc-investment-vs-gartner-hype-cycle/ <comment><USER2> Nice attempt by Dixon to pattern match, but I think he is substantially wrong on his diagnosis (of some peaceful build out). My recollection of the dot-com bubble is that desktop Internet B2B in the developed world drove the vast majority of VC funding. Specifically, the following markets/opptys (including a greater opportunity with the sum of parts) did not even figure out in the discussion during the dot com time frame

1\. smartphone and mobile ecosystem (phones, apps, games etc..)

2\. Digital/Search advertising

3\. Social networking

4\. 1.5 Billion customers in China/SE Asia/South Asia

So it is definitely odd to suggest that some sort of correlation between the dot com bubble and the VC funding now. One of the most astute commentaries on the modern VC funding conundrum was published a couple of days back

[http://reactionwheel.net/2015/01/80s-vc.html](http://reactionwheel.net/2015/01/80s-vc.html)

It is long but well worth reading. The author makes a very good case that VC funding today is like VC funding in the 1980's in that

1\. Too much focus on competing in established markets (so trying to disrupt existing rental, delivery, hotel systems etc.) instead of trying to create new markets from scratch

2\. Trying to flip startups to established companies instead of trying to build out a non-existent market

3\. Investment driven by fear of risk instead of looking at risk as the ultimate source of super normal returns.

I think the correct diagnosis of the flattening of the VC investments is that VC's are now taken over by fear of risk and keep investing in risk-less opportunities. As a result they keep getting lesser returns, which keeps shrinking the money that will flow into the VC class. They are like our great- grandparents who lost out in the 1929 crash and kept on talking about the always-eminent bubble and never trusted the stock market again. We now had two crashes 2000 and 2008 so who knows how long the psychological scars will take to heal.

A lot more VC money should be flowing in so that phenomenal businesses and markets can be created. If anything the size of the VC opportunity should dwarf the dot.com period. One of the consultancies published a report in 2012 that the total wealth of the world was about $600 Trillion (with a T) and on track to grow to $900 Trillion end of the decade. There is a mountain of cash sitting, there is are a bunch of issues to resolve but there is no mechanism to match them. Fear is a pretty destructive force.

EDIT: Another good article on the failure of creating new markets (and it is a problem) is by Clay Christensen on the Capitalist Dilemma

[https://hbr.org/2014/06/the-capitalists-dilemma](https://hbr.org/2014/06/the- capitalists-dilemma)

<comment><USER3> You cite the Capitalists' Dilemma, but Christiansen's argument actually suggests that the strategy of building companies to be bought by Apple/Google/etc is a good one. Why? Because they have tons of $ on their balance sheets and don't know what to do with it.

<comment><USER2> Sure, I'm not suggesting that getting Google/Amazon investment by itself is a bad thing. The problem is if the bulk of your investment thesis revolves around filling in niches in the Google/Apple ecosystem. The linked article talks about how investing in proven markets doesn't lead to great returns.

More broadly though, the universe of markets that can be created is much larger than what Google/Amazon/Apple are interested in. Just because they have too much money (though as I mentioned the cash pales in comparison to global capital) doesn't mean they will invest willy-nilly. So, the goal should be broader not just on what already exists and of interest to these guys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> in other news [http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=2948](http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=2948)</comment>