I used to fear being a nobody, then I left social media - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/opinion/quit-social-media.html <comment><USER2> I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don't talk to much directly (brother's wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that).

Really, I'm starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a hermit in today's society. Sure, I'm not advocating posting every 5 minutes on Facebook and getting into dumb arguments, but it really feels like opting out is a way of putting walls between yourself and the rest of the world (that is on social media). You will miss out on news of friends having kids, graduating college, going to college, getting new jobs, and even planning events together since many events are organized officially on Facebook - from free local concerts to your friends bachelors party. Many people just go through Facebook and create a private event and invite their Facebook friends when they have a birthday gathering nowadays. You will miss out on these if you opt-out completely. I did.

<comment><USER3> Don't conflate the medium with the quality of interaction. Not on FB != hermit, that's just what Facebook wants you to believe. I prefer deep personal relationships with few over hyper connectivity. Others may want a broader, shallower network; neither is wrong just define happiness for yourself.

<comment><USER4> yeah, I've never understood myspace or FB. I remember when myspace was first blowing up, people were talking about having 100 friends, which always blew me away. I couldn't imagine trying to keep up with that many friends.

I had a brief 1-2 year stint on FB where someone finally convinced me to get on it, and I had 13 friends on there. All of them people I know and hang out with regularly in real life. All I ever did was post funny things I came across, and I eventually got pushed off during the election cycle because I got REALLY sick of seeing all the misinformation about hilary and trump (both sides were doing it).

I just don't understand FB.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand people who don't understand Facebook :-)

You know what a blog is, what photo-sharing is, and RSS too. You know how people are social, a little bit vain, and like to brag. I'm sure you know about ad-tech, data-mining, EULAs nobody reads and dark patterns. I'm sure you've used email and chat, and you know deep down all email clients suck anyway.

Mix it all together, put it on phones with push notifications, and boom, you have Facebook and control half the Internet.

<comment><USER4> obviously I understand the business model intellectually, what I don't understand is the draw.

Trying to keep up with 200-300 people sounds fucking exhausting to me, yet this is the reason most people have given in response as to why they use FB.

I just have to question if these people actually do anything in life besides socialize.

<comment><USER5> How is this not a caricature of HN readership and geeks in general? Some/most people might even tell you that the purpose of life is to socialize--and all the games/power plays around that.

To add more information, FB doesn't actually connect you to 200-2000 people literally. When you think of RSS, you think of seeing every single article that you subscribed to, but FB doesn't do that. It shows you only some of the what others publish, and it uses its dark algorithms to make sure those are the most engaging and addictive stories (reposts of click-bait titles, trending gossip, politically divisive arguments, etc.). And then it pads the feed with ads and more click-bait.

Actually the "genius" of FB is to tap into the social-reward centers of the brain by letting you inflate the number of friends, the number of followers, number of notifications, while still trimming down the firehose of pictures of your second cousin's roommate's tacos. Conversely, it lets you post your food pictures into the void and feel that others care about it, without actually bothering too many people.

To answer your question directly, yes these people spend inordinate amount of time doing this, but I believe they feel it is a good thing, to have a big social circle and feel connected to all those people--without always seeing how they were manipulated into being addicted to something that is not real socialization.

<comment><USER4> I am who I am and I make no apologies for it, stereotypes be damned.

I get more value out of being useful than socializing. That's just the way I'm built.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to excessively post on Facebook. I started to worry that it was unhealthy- why do I need the constant validation from strangers? What is wrong with me psychologically that I crave that more than my own privacy? So I quit last year and I've felt good about that choice.

Now I have 17000 HN points and I'm starting to feel like I gave up meth and replaced it with cocaine. Maybe better, but still not good.

Going to stop posting here now too. Thanks everyone for the good times.

<comment><USER7> I post not for points. I post because I have something to say. Expressing my self is validating, who cares if others read or agree.

<comment><USER8> I post for the same reason, but getting negative points does discourage me from posting half formed thoughts.

<comment><USER7> I do try to save the hip shots for twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I quit social media for a long time too. And then I noticed how disconnected I was from all my old school friends and contacts. Even close family that still uses Facebook but I otherwise don't talk to much directly (brother's wives posting about their kids and stuff like that, maybe even more extended than that). Really, I'm starting to think that opting out of social media altogether is a bit like opting to be a hermit in today's society. Sure, I'm not advocating posting every 5 minutes on Facebook and getting into dumb arguments, but it really feels like opting out is a way of putting walls between yourself and the rest of the world (that is on social media). You will miss out on news of friends having kids, graduating college, going to college, getting new jobs, and even planning events together since many events are organized officially on Facebook - from free local concerts to your friends bachelors party. Many people just go through Facebook and create a private event and invite their Facebook friends when they have a birthday gathering nowadays. You will miss out on these if you opt-out completely. I did.

<comment><USER9> I felt similar, except in creater scale. There used to be forums and portals, where people share their experiences and knowneledge. Now many forums are almost dead, some are spam towns, some are closed. Few weeks ago was closing party for biggest local music community website. There was heathy forum but owners saw bigger picture and didn't want wait, until place dries up. Facebook seems taken over all kind communication.

<comment> compiler-guy This is the most disappointing thing about the facebook revolution to me. Facebook is useful for a lot of things, but specific forums covering specific community topics have mostly died out.

<comment><USER10> Reddit kind of fills the gap for larger niches but some of the smaller niches aren't well filled

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that it's going to turn out that social media is like coffee: It's fine, even healthy, for some people, and harmful to others.

And I _would_ think that's fine, except that I fall into the latter group, and social media has come to consume so much of the online world that it means that I can't avoid it without excluding myself from large swathes of public life.

I don't volunteer at my kids' school because coordination is done through Facebook. I don't stay in touch with people I meet at events because Facebook has thoroughly supplanted other modes of casual communication. I don't hear about events at some of my local community spaces because they only advertise them on Facebook. Etc.

So it's not entirely like coffee. It's like what it would be like if coffee were healthy for some, unhealthy for others, and quasi-mandatory for all.

<comment><USER12> Speaking as someone who can't drink caffeine without a painful pins and needles sensation (thanks levofloxacin!), I'd say the analogy works quite well.

<comment><USER13> Off topic but can you expound? I was "floxxed" with joint pain etc long ago...but have never heard of the caffeine related effects. Is it all caffeine? ie chocolate/pills too?

<comment><USER12> Coffee is really the only caffeinated thing I consume. I learned after my (relatively mild by some stories I've read) floxxing that caffeine + flox drugs are a bad combo, and I was very much a coffee person, so of course I combined them. My skin has been more sensitive in general ever sense, and attempts to drink regular coffee usually lead to that pins and needles sensation.

On the upside, I've discovered a great decaf: Slow Motion from Counter Culture. So hard to find high quality decaf, and I'm glad I was recommended this one. I actually drink more coffee now than before because I've been able to switch to decaf.

<comment><USER14> Kicking Horse is another decent decaf brand. Dark roast, Swiss (water) process, available on Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I do get the point of the author and I share it's thoughts and values, but for me it went quite different.

I have never been a really social person. I have never had many friends. No one really asks me ever where I have been or what I have been doing or whatever. I used facebook to shitpost. To shitpost a lot and MAYBE get a few likes. It worked. It worked for way too long. Then someday i literally fell on my head, my depression got way worse and I finally started working on it.

I then realized that I had no values at all. I always felt like facebook is bad, but i never acted accordingly. So I quit that. I thought 'yeah, maybe i will feel better now.' and i do. I feel great. But now, I don't even have anyone to contact and ask if there is something going on on the weekend or if people want to go out. I don't really have anyones number either (because i deleted A LOT of my private stuff in a furious rage). Now I am alone and I don't know how to get out of it. Social media is no option though, I don't want to be that attention seeking person anymore. I want to be the person i am and find people who like me for that exact reason. I just don't know how.

End of story: Quitting social media made me a better person, but if I add everything together i don't feel better (yet)

Woops. Went a bit offtopic, but whatever. Thanks for reading.

<comment><USER15> Fuck, I pressed way too many times F5 on this to see if anyone replied or upvoted. That's why I got rid of my HN account. I guess I should press logout on this one, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Many years ago someone told me that we should care about our mental hygiene as much as we care about the hygiene of the food that we consume.

I quit FB two years ago after 11 years of active use. For a few weeks after deleting my account, I had these temptations to go back but after two months, I totally forgot about it and after two years, I'm very happy about leaving the platform.

I also realized that it wasn't just FB or social media that contributed to my stress and anxiety; sensational and provocative news was as much to blame. These days, I try to get my news from only a handful of news outlets that I trust. I know this is not a perfect solution but at least, I've been able to avoid click-bait titles.

<comment><USER17> Next, take it one step further and skip going directly to any news sites or aggregators, and cut out news TV and radio.

You cut out the news-induced anxiety this way. After a while, you also realize that most news is noise, and doesn't matter even a day later.

If something really significant happens, you'll still hear about it.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure about that. I still enjoy the long reads in the New Yorker and a few other magazines. But if you mean the 24-hour news cycle, I agree with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> These posts are so tiring.

It's usually from the same people that are super active and obnoxious on FB. Posting every single hours of their life. And suddenly realizing they addicted to it. _And_ they still need to post about it.

<comment><USER19> I didn't quit fb but I unsubscribed from pretty much everybody. I think I've posted once in the last 6 years, though occasionally I come up tagged in friends' pics. I think I'm better off. I occasionally miss engagements of my friends though so this is a downside. (I'm 29). I continue to use messenger to chat with friends, including one good friend who has a budget phone plan (meaning fb messages are free while texting this friend isn't for her).

I guess I'm posting this here to say that there is a middle(?) ground that works for me. I rarely find myself envious or jealous on fb. I will confess that I do experience these emotions in my offline life (much less frequently than daily, more often than monthly). Come to think of it, while I spend under 20 minutes a week on LinkedIn, I feel some negative emotions while browsing this feed. I've just realized I should limit my LinkedIn better.

I'm not posting this to brag, just to share another perspective because it felt relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Facebook (et al.) has done an incredible job (for better or worse) at _changing_ the way people in society interact with and perceive others. It really is staggering when you think about it,.

<comment><USER21> One giant learning experience. We're adapting. It's kinda gross, but hopefully we'll all come out the better for it.

<comment> at-fates-hands There was a tipping point for me when I decided that all the negative things that come from social media far outweighed the good it does.

I have a Twitter account. I log in about once every couple of months. Nothing changes. The cancel culture hasn't died off, it's just gotten stronger, more pervasive and more corrosive than ever before.

This has lead me to believe we are on a downward spiral with no bottom in site.

<comment><USER22> Social media is very much what you make it.

I use facebook to keep in touch with hundreds of people that I would never normally keep in touch with.

I use it to plan events like birthdays, bachelor parties, and vacations. I fully believe it enriches my life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In LinkedIn, I get the opposite feeling. It seems that a lot of people spend a considerable amount of energy pumping their profiles with lots of achievements, professional photos and blog posts, but it feels like everybody is talking to themselves. Nobody cares.

<comment><USER24> Do people actually interact with each other over LinkedIn? The only people I've every talked to are recruiters. I thought it was just a directory of potential employees for recruiters. If people actually do social things on LinkedIn then that's news for me.

<comment><USER25> After a long time in software development, I'm now a sales engineer, and LinkedIn is a very different place when your weeks involve interactions with C-suite and marketing types. I find LinkedIn to be pretty absurd, and I'm never going to (or want to) compete with the people who share life-affirming abstract business nonsense in a vertical video shot from their car, but I get a surprising amount of interaction from my screeds about the ecommerce ecosystem. I'm not using LinkedIn to boost my personal brand, but I do use it to talk about the Saas ecommerce platform we sell (because a lot of people hate Magento and find Shopify doesn't suit their needs)

A coworker has at times referred to me as a LinkedIn Shitpost Memelord, although I don't use image macros/memes. I just share information about a very niche corner of the internet, and it's way more effective than advertising. It actually serves as an outlet for the kind of writing I used to do, and sometimes still do, on forums - but instead of being about music and bands, it's about commerce and software. It's weird, but it scratches an itch I guess.

I do see more 'social' posts on LinkedIn, and it's pretty close to the worst of the net. It's like YouTube comments, except you can see the people who post them all wear suits in their photos. A surprisingly large number of people who like & reply to self-help garbage, effusively, as though Gary Vee's latest you-can-do-it schlock saved them from offing themselves at the water cooler that morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You read enough of these 'quitting social media' articles over the years that you almost know word for word how the linked article is going to go.

</comment><comment><USER27> So, if I get this right, her addiction got so bad she needed to upgrade from posting on social media to writing to the NYT? </irony>

</comment><comment><USER28> I think with social media's goal of "connecting everyone" and "bringing everyone together" has brought us too close.

So close that we're like a village -- blasting out clickbait and accusations with rare repercussions and making sure we say "hi" to all our neighbors in the village while also maintaining our "social status" within this village: i.e. reputation.

I'm glad I took off from there a while back.

<comment><USER29> Social media promised to connect people. It connected avatars instead.

People are physical. We have bodies and brains. We have thoughts and opinions. We have friends.

Avatars are conceptual. They have representations, not bodies; "profile pics" that are edited and changed constantly, never bearing much resemblance to the human it claims to represent.

Avatars have agendas, not opinions or thoughts. They seek to convince you of something. To buy, to vote, to protest, or simply that the anonymized human behind the avatar has a life full of wonders and happiness. Agenda.

An avatar has followers, fans, not friends. Social media avatars have little to no interest in you as a human being. Your body's eyeballs are an avatar's currency. It wants your them to see its agenda so it can win.

A social network that brought humans together would fulfill the promise of social media. Meetup.com might be the closest thing to that. For now, social media does not connect people, it connects avatars--personifications of agendas which are built, almost always, to serve its master without regard for others.

<comment><USER28> Interesting point. At the same time, if a person legitimately has an account (meaning it's their personal account) and decides to let everyone know of their entire personality, it won't be "pursuing an agenda".

But realistically, this doesn't happen; unless that avatar is anonymous and can't be linked to you. I think this is why places like Reddit and HN to some extent are good: they allow people to freely speak, but at the same time you're technically still being manipulated by what others think (on r/popular for example)... which brings me to my last point:

You're a composition of years of manipulation. It just depends on who you trust, whether it's in real life or online.

In all, I agree with your point, but giving anonymity brings people to talk more about themselves, which hopefully is a bit better than the world that you described is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why is this problem of "being known" so common? Does it stem from the way you're raised? Personally, I've never cared two about how well known I was or that my accomplishments were recognized, etc. I just derive joy from the activities I pursue in themselves, I don't really give a hoot if anyone acknowledges them.

I never joined social meadia because of this. I didn't see the point. Seemed like a boring waste of time to me when it first dawned. Sure that has dramatically reduced the number of acquaintances I have in comparison to others, but I feel that the relationships I do have are of very high intimacy and quality.

Where does this need to "be somebody" come from? Has there been research on it? Are you more likely to develop a thirst for fame if you're given a lot of external motivation/reinforcement as a child? If your parents focus on appluading _you_ rather than the things you do? Not trying to be snarky here, I am genuinely curious as someone who has always been quite indifferent to the concept of fame.

<comment><USER31> You belong to a social species and come with built in drives to engage in social behaviors like acquiring status and an interest in others social standing.

These tendencies vary by the individual and life experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I never had facebook, irc and some forum was everything I wanted, exchange of knowlidge and ideas. In term of "beeing nobody" I never cared. I am 42, highly valued in technical circles. Lots of friends, paragliding, mountain biking. Never had a car. Didnt need it. Lots of friends to go for a beer with. I use phone, sms, email to communicate with real, physical friends. Never been unemployed. There is just nothing "social media" can offer to me.

</comment><comment><USER33> I took a year off of all of social media and took a break from startup tech in general. I didn't miss it, at all, and I wonder what real tangible value it still has coming back.

One thing is for certain, being plugged into the hive mind has clear advantages, especially as it relates to employment. It's like the old adage - it's about who you know, not necessarily what you know.

<comment><USER34> This. Left my job and traveled for almost a year.

Part of me wanted to push updates to Facebook and Instagram to get the dopamine rush from likes. I pushed myself to not post any updates others than calling//emailing my close friends and family and after a couple months I didn't miss it at all. I felt like I was living for myself in the moment without the need to publicize what I was doing.

Coming back, I still have my social media account and go there maybe once a week. I usually come out of it a bit burned out with the feeling that everything is fake. But overall cutting out social medias has been hugely beneficial.

I'm convinced that Social medias are a negative to humanity and overall causes more depression and anxiety than anything else. It must be extremely difficult to be a teenager in high school without the mental strength to resist that fake world of social medias nowadays

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I gave up FB and Instagram posts because my political view (conservative) and got 2 banned and harassed by relatives and strangers. Life is way better without FB/Insta

<comment><USER36> Try being a Libertarian on social media... I get hammered from the "left" because of my "taxation is theft" and "defend the #2A at all costs" mindset, and get hammered from the "right" because I believe in strict separation of Church and State, don't glorify the police and military, oppose all drug laws, am pro-choice, and oppose the death penalty. Basically, every political conversation I get involved in is a negative experience for me, as I basically feel like I'm always under attack and have almost no allies or friends. :-(

<comment><USER37> "It was useless to argue, she thought, and to wonder about people who would neither refute an argument nor accept it."

You have many allies, but they are doing more productive things than arguing with senseless people on social media :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I deleted FB from my phone about 2 years ago and have not once regretted it. I still stay in touch with my closest friends via phone, text, and the good ole' fashioned physical meetups.

No more fake celebratory comments. No more fake photos. No more fake LIVES portrayed by others (early on, I participated in this).

I must say that one of the best things you can do for your mental health is to delete these social networks off your devices. I've actually gone so far as to block all these sites network-wide via my pi-hole so nobody can mindless scroll through content while in my home.

My quality of life has improved as a result; I can now live in the moment and be grateful for not only where I'm at, but also where I am going (i.e., goal(s)) and what I will learn on the way there.

</comment><comment><USER39> The social media problem is multi fold..

Facebook - While i need to check my friends's life events and keep a tab on what they are up to, i dont want to see the constant tirade of posts regarding their political views.. How ya'll are handling friends with crazy political extremist thoughts, completely ignore those areas ? try to make them sane?

Twitter is even worse, so stopped posting all together and limited my time only to like few tweets .

Alternative to Twitter is Reddit, which you can scroll through for few laughs and that itself will become an addiction.

Finally, i think we need social media at the same time we dont need social media, no amount of filtering and altering the news feed can put us in a place of what we want to see.. So..

<comment><USER37> Re: Handling "crazy political extremist thoughts" on Facebook, I tend to either engage in a calm and reasonable reply that resembles the Socratic Method, or simply unfollow the person. It depends on how well I know them and how reasonable they tend to be. My best/closest friends are all reasonable people which is why I chose them as friends, so no contradiction there.

Twitter is worse, yes.

Reddit is OK if you avoid political subreddits and keep it light. I've curated my subs to be just that and it's delightful.

I believe that we shouldn't "need" social media (as other comments here pointed out, an external locus of control or validation is unhealthy), but rather we should _use_ social media. Have a purpose whenever you open the app, even if it's just passing the time (Reddit).

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was a pretty avid Facebook user from ~2008-2015. I posted multiple times a day, had about 70 well-vetted friends on there, but unfortunately I have a bad habit of starting arguments with people that I think are espousing uninformed opinions. By 2015, it felt like a not-insignificant part of every day was dedicated to arguing something political, leading to me getting mad. Eventually, I started to feel that this was unhealthy.

I deleted my facebook back in 2015; I was afraid I'd have some kind of withdrawal, but bizarrely after about two days I sort of forgot that I had ever even used Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER41> Recycled comment of mine from a few weeks ago here. Note: I was told NLP[0] (Neuro Linguistic Programming) was not cast in a good light in its Wikipedia entry, and I admit it has its weaknesses, but I was inspired by the fact Tony Robbins used elements of it in his seminars. Certain parts of NLP appeal to me, but some don't and can be denounced as pseudoscience/quackery.

Below is the original comment:

____________________________________________

I tend to stay away from Instagram as I once read a study (too lazy to find the paper) that Instagram is more detrimental to mental health than other social networks and is generally to be avoided (partly this is because you are comparing other people's highlight reel to your boring drab life).

I use Facebook, albeit sparingly and only ever to make meaningful interactions with my family, and nothing else. I don't feverishly 'check in' to locations, don't engage in 'groups', don't 'like' a million-and-one things, or otherwise engage in the Facebook app in any big way. It means Facebook can't build a dossier of my interests, although they do know my social graph, but then: I'm not a person of interest anyway. I am actually very forgettable.

For Twitter, I have a locked down account and only follow what I'm interested in. I don't actively seek to get more followers, and have literally nothing in my bio that is about me. I don't use my real name. My account is purely for discovery of positive news, and content that stimulates me intellectually.

I recently started to experiment with Neuro Linguistic Programming[0] and a big part of that is deciding what you pay attention to (especially online) and feeding your brain with content that enables you to grow as a person and not be bogged down with negative content that only appeals to your 'monkey brain'. I haven't gone to extremes by cutting out all social media, instead I just use it mindfully and by carefully choosing the types of content I consume.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming)

</comment><comment><USER42> I see a lot of people publicly quiting facebook, then quietly rejoining because... well that one person they know only communicates via messenger.

When I finally stopped using Facebook, I didn't close the account. It's just there. It's no longer part of what I do. At some point I realized that the worst thing about the network is not that they do shady things, or trick you into staying, or meddle with politics. The worst thing is the person you gradually become.

The moment you meet someone, you check their facebook, look through their pictures, browse their posts. When you become friends with someone, everytime there is tension you check facebook to see if they haven't posted about it. If it's a lover, you base the status of the relationship on their posts and frequency of pictures. If it's an ex...

In 2015 I wrote [1]:

> On facebook, why would I give someone privacy when I have access to all this > information. And I don't even need their permission. I can watch your > private pictures because you made them available. It's not that I can find > out where you work, where you live, where you eat, everything about you. > It's that I actually do find out without ever hiring a private detective. > It's not what I can do, it's what I do!

Facebook turns you into an insecure person.

[1]: [https://idiallo.com/blog/facebook-and- me](https://idiallo.com/blog/facebook-and-me)

<comment><USER43> I mean being raised with the attitude when you see the world, the world sees you makes the facebook thing just another venue for that same idea. There is an acceptable level of neglect for a facebook account. Just put up a nice photo of yourself and forget about it. Like myspace and friendster, ect. It's not clear what the value of facebook is to a 'customer'. It's basically a modern day newspaper, with classifieds and crossword puzzles, except your friends are now 50% of the news headlines. I never used to read newspapers either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I feel like social media and dating apps hurt one's self image. Even for individuals that have a serious following, there doesn't seem to be enough validation from peers/followers to satiate their drive for happiness. I'm curious to see how social media continues to mold society in the decades to come where we can delineate what the long term effects of its use are.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is it just me who thinks social media just filled the hole that was missing in the society ? No one forced anyone to join Facebook or twitter. People were obsessed with other people way before social media, they just gave the platform to existing behavior.

</comment><comment><USER46> The book I recommend on this topic is '10 Arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now' by Jaron Lanier.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37830765-ten- arguments-f...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37830765-ten-arguments- for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now)

It makes the arguments for doing so very clearly and with a good sense of humor. Lanier, is a treasure, I always like how balanced he sees the tech industry, it isn't all good or bad but a mingling of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER47> Modern problems require modern solutions.

One way to gradually lessen your facebook usage is to use this addon (chrome version available on the chrome web store).

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed- era...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/news-feed-eradicator/)

I think most people have been conditioned to keep themselves plugged in so to speak, gradually minimizing interactions rather than going cold turkey may prove more effective at re-framing your perspective.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love this article. Thank you for sharing. I'm on a similar journey.

</comment><comment><USER48> I used to fear being a nobody, but then i came to accept that i am nobody and i never will manage to do anything that would make my name worth putting into physics textbooks. More than a decade spent studying physics turned out to be somewhat helpful to an ordinary programmer.

Guess what i am trying to say is that, this is not a new problem created by social media, but an old problem caused by most of us having to be not special. And while eventual acceptance of it is very important, the initial denial is even more important.

</comment><comment><USER49> Fame and success is still valued by society writ large. This is deeper than this most recent social media layer. I also left social media but I feel just as much pressure as before because the people who I hang around with (who themselves are on social media, but that's not the only reason they act that way) directly or indirectly put pressure on incentive levers which all in all culminate in me preferring to be a "somebody" rather than a "nobody".

</comment><comment><USER50> I've got around 20 "friends" on FB (mostly family, and not really posting anymore), but subscribed to many feeds (mostly bands I like)

If they ever add RSS to their own websites, I will have no more reason to be on FB.

Please make RSS a thing again !

On the other hand, I was reading a tweeter feed an hour ago, and I was so disgusted by the hatred of the exchange that I told myself (again...) "Why are you inflicting this on your sanity ?"

</comment><comment><USER51> She forgot to quit meat, dairy, grains, booze, weed, going out, staying up late, having sex, and so on

Also: to get a flip phone and disable JavaScript

</comment><comment><USER52> Highly recommend reading 'The Courage to be Disliked' it may not revolve around 'privacy' but makes you think a lot about the 'self-validation' feedback we are trained to think we need... it helped me cement a decision to leave social media and other things in general within my personality.

</comment><comment><USER53> It seems like an absolutely nightmarish existence to have (as the author seems to have) your life defined by social validation. We are in for a very miserable and mentally fragile society if the author's worldview is anyone near the norm (or we might already be there).

</comment><comment><USER54> What happened to moderation? You can use social media without being obsessed with it.

If you have problems with self control then take steps to deal with it. Delete phone apps, set specific times when you use social media with limits, and if necessary talk to a mental health professional.

<comment><USER55> It's not a fair fight. Social media companies employ psychologists to assist their UX designers in designing their products to be as addicting as possible.

See this interview with Adam Alter here:

[https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-420-what- mak...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-420-what-makes-your- phone-so-addictive-how-to-take-back-your-life/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> "Perhaps at the root of this anxiety over being forgotten is an urgent question of how one ought to form a legacy;"

This is an interesting question, and one that I have to admit has never been on my radar. I don't intend to have a legacy at all. Do others worry about this?

</comment><comment><USER57> I quit twitter about 20 days ago - the account is deleted. I do not miss it one bit. I tend to use HN in the same way. I wish I could delete this account as well. I suppose the best I can do is change my password.

</comment><comment><USER58> Nothing gives me more anxiety than HN. Facebook is nothing compared to the depression I get from being constantly downvoted here simply by having an opinion that doesn't resonate with the norm.

<comment><USER59> > Facebook is nothing compared to the depression I get from being constantly > downvoted here simply by having an opinion that doesn't resonate with the > norm.

Well, a particular orange website has a audience that appeals to opinions from liberal tech folks. I couldn't care less about if they agree / disagree with my opinions. They are free to do so, which I support.

What's worse is the censoring, shadow-banning, flagging of genuine posts or opinions on these social networks including the orange site that really ruins the discussion and distorts the situation.

As soon as you see that trying to please everyone + looking at everyone's updates is an eternal race to the bottom, then social media gradually becomes irrelevant to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> The people who have successfully quit online social media aren't going to be the ones posting and discussing it online - whether on NYT, Hacker News, Reddit or anywhere else.

<comment><USER61> It's a bit like englightment isn't it? Not in terms of rarity of course, but the ones who reach it don't preach it about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> The latest wave I have been observing is LinkedIn. It has become an Instagram for business idiots. I can stand the stupid, content free cheering for bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER63> Everybody is a somebody to someone. And everybody is a nobody to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER64> I remain convinced that social media is bad for society

</comment><comment><USER65> A surprising twist: social media invades meatspace.

I go to a board gaming club once a week. It used to be reasonably easy to find someone to play with, but nowadays:

1\. all groups are already formed the moment the club opens (one per board game), 2\. newcomers come in groups already decided which game they're going to play, don't waste time looking around and play among themselves.

So you can be there on time, and that's not enough to find someone to play with. It feels like fb/social media is a kind of lobby for board games in that place. Wanted to go out and meet some new people over board games? Think again. It's like those stories you might hear about bars, dating and tinder - that nowadays even bar goers stare at their smartphones. Guess what, the same mechanism affects not just bar goers but also nerds like me. It's like each board game at a table is its own social media bubble(different people like different board game(s)).

There are two ways to deal with this: a) submit to social media b) resist

I'm doing b), I bring in my copy of Spirit Island and if there's no one to play with the game is also great solo.

</comment><comment><USER66> Being the person who shouts loudest "I am somebody" on social media does not make you somebody worth listening to. This narcissism is the key problem of social media. Oddly enough, social media made it's big entrance via movie stars - I could not possibly be any less surprised at this.

It would befit social media to rate someone with importance not according to a check or star but according to actual real world accomplishment. I realize that creates a natural bias against the underachieved, but without such weights, anyone can say anything about anything no matter what the education or perspective, and have it essentially equivalent to a subject matter in the field, at least until further examination.

<comment><USER67> > Oddly enough, social media made it's big entrance via movie stars - I could > not possibly be any less surprised at this.

Is this true? I don't recall that occurring, it seemed more like a young- techie-people, grassroots phenomenon when people started using MySpace and FB.

<comment><USER68> When fan pages gave way to official profiles was a watershed moment. It showed facebook wasnt just a teenage myspace replacement, but a commercial engine.

<comment><USER66> When user's information was leaked to third parties without proper management or oversight, while Facebook stock continued to go through the roof, that was another watershed moment. That was the moment people realized that Facebook is full of crooks and enables other crooks to boot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> It seems like much of technology is focused around narcissism. Even the technology ecosystem, with the startups and whatnot, are sort of celebrity technology. I'm not sure that is good or bad for actual technological progress. Given that the fundamental philosophy, math and science this is all based on is still considered lame, then modern technology is largely a distraction from true progress.

</comment><comment><USER70> "My wanting to share every waking thought became eclipsed by a desire for an increasingly rare commodity — a private life."

She forgot the part when she wrote a New York Times piece about her life.

<comment><USER71> It did offer us the chance to read thoughts that might mirror our own but in a more succint and well-written manner. I definitely saw a lot of relatable elements in the article and appreciate what was written.

<comment><USER72> >> I definitely saw a lot of relatable elements in the article

That is why I think this was written in order to receive attention from others (not necessarily the readers), but I tend toward cynicism.</comment></comment></comment>


Your Cool Technology is Worthless... If You Don't Know How to Sell - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mixergy.com/sell-tech/

<comment><USER2> Your cool technology is worthless if you can't get people to use it. Selling it is only one way to do that.</comment>


A radio station of "on-hold" music - <AUTHOR> http://www.accuradio.com/channel/thanks-for-holding!/1294/

<comment><USER2> If you find this kind of thing amusing, the keyword you want to search for is "Library Music." It's the audio equivalent of stock footage, and some of it has a special quality.

Library music from the mid-late 20th century is currently fashionable, and LPs that used to be worthless now go for decent money on ebay. This has of course spurred a rash of deluxe reissues for the second-rate hipsters among us. I can reccommend this one: [http://boomkat.com/downloads/586705-various-tomorrow-s- achie...](http://boomkat.com/downloads/586705-various-tomorrow-s-achievements- parry-music-library-1976-86)</comment>


Don't follow your dreams: A commencement speech for the mediocre - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2014/05/22/dear_graduates_dont_follow_your_dreams_commencement_speech_for_the_mediocre/

<comment><USER2> Reading things like this makes me kind of sad, because I feel like it really shouldn't be this way. Hopefully, with the advent of more sophisticated automation, many of our more tedious jobs won't need humans to do them.

I tend to be of the opinion that creating jobs for the sake of creating jobs is a bad thing. If we get to the point where society can persist without everyone having a job, why make people work to survive?

There's an interesting article along these lines here: [https://medium.com/career-pathing/463ff6dfec1b](https://medium.com/career- pathing/463ff6dfec1b)

The point here is that this would enable people to follow their dreams if they chose to, and not die of starvation in the process. If you still wanted to work, that's not a problem, and you'd make more money that way - but you wouldn't die if you chose not to do so.

For that matter, we might be able to achieve this now with a basic income system.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

Discussion at [http://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/](http://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/)

<comment><USER3> "many of our more tedious jobs won't need humans to do them"

We live in such a warped society here in North America.

Whatever happened to pride in craftsmanship, pride in an honest day's work, pride in contributing to the community?

I bet there will be (perhaps google will lead with this) driverless taxis soon, because after all "who wants to drive a taxi around all day?". Go to Japan. Get in a Japanese taxi. You will see someone who takes the utmost pride in their appearance, their interaction with the customer, the state of the car, the ride, etc etc. It is an experience, to say the least. I believe there is value in that... both to the community and to the individual.

Somehow in North America we have convinced ourselves that some jobs are "beneath us" (and I'm not just talking about taxi driving here). It's puzzling to me and it doesn't have to be that way.

<comment><USER4> _Somehow in North America we have convinced ourselves that some jobs are "beneath us"..._

I'm sorry, but there _are_ kinds of labor that are "beneath" human beings. We don't yet live in a world where people don't have to do those things, but that doesn't change one whit the fact that some basic, minimum level of human dignity, and some of the kinds of work humans have to do are fundamentally incompatible.

<comment><USER5> I think the OP was talking more about woodworkers and other craftsmen than poop-shovelers and toilet cleaners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's going to be a lot of developers on here who went the traditional high school -> CS degree route and think that this alternative life anecdote offers some real insights about the Other world of "passion-seekers", but it really doesn't. The take-away is to stay curious and keep learning even if, most likely, you will never find excitement in your life of corporate monotony, which is of course how many people view paths like CS. From the article, "Most people will have to choose between 'doing what they love,' and pursuing the more mundane promise of a stable paycheck and a promising career path." I think this is a false dichotomy common to a lot of college aged students.

I was like this for a while, working in restaurants and the sort before going back to school, and in these jobs you find a lot of people who are afraid to place a bet on a career so they can focus on some wholly non-unique set of "interests". I noticed that few of these people actually pursue these supposed passions to any real extent, and most of these interests were strictly of the creative, non-pragmatic category.

I figured that such jobs offered flexibility from the rigid 9-5, and would allow one to pursue these "interests" more freely. This is not the case. Working a developer job you have mental stimulation from learning new things and getting things done. This is normalized of course, and so it's important to remind that working odd jobs while you "write your novel" is entirely devoid of such stimulation, and I believe, actually and actively kills brain cells. And this is the path the author suggests many of our "undecided" college graduates will go? Say it ain't so! If you want to write a novel or learn to paint, and if these are genuine passions, you will make time after work and on the weekends.

It's less about "finding your passion" than it is developing a discipline to work on big projects that is completely absent from high school and non-STEM college education. Take your average "undecided" and finance them for a year to follow their passion. A few will make something of their time. Harper Lee did, writing To Kill a Mockingbird uninterrupted for a year thanks to donations from friends. But most will not for the same reason many of us developers (mundane corporate drones) struggle with our own interests and side projects--- because we all lack the discipline. Bukowski summarizes this "myth of creativity" well: [http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/10/04/charles- bu...](http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/10/04/charles-bukowski-air- and-light-and-time-and-space/)

It feels good to solve hard problems and challenge yourself. Doing so at work acts as a momentum towards your other goals and interests, and with persistence, lead to a discipline of continued creativity.

In case you have not read PG's high school graduation talk, I highly recommend it. Very relevant: [http://paulgraham.com/hs.html](http://paulgraham.com/hs.html)

<comment><USER7> > This is normalized of course, and so it's important to remind that working > odd jobs while you "write your novel" is entirely devoid of such > stimulation, and I believe, actually and actively kills brain cells.

Hmm. I'm a developer now _because_ I had a brain-numbing government employee job - I had developed an interest in programming as a young child, but it never went anywhere, and I'd largely forgotten about it.

Fast forward, I'm stuck in an underpaid overworked dead-end job which I'm resigned to because I have a wife and child to support, and I'm borrrrred. I then stumble across a website discussing how fun and accessible Python can be for newbies, and I give it a crack, and I'm hooked.

I get a new government job, better pay, less work, still boring. But the boredom at work gives me a huge amount of mental capacity for my learning at home. My sleep admittedly suffered because of my programming, but my work didn't. In my downtime at work, I'd write programs. I spent a lot of time learning JS because it was available to me for hacking on in my locked down work environment.

After five years of government schlepping by day, and programming by night, I met a man who could overlook my lack of qualification and who would give me a chance to prove myself. And all that boredom finally paid off.

Now that I'm a developer, my work is so intellectually challenging and interesting that I could not replicate the same learning that I did in my duller days. I just don't have enough mental capacity left at the end of the day, these days.

In summary - my boring day job gave me the capacity and impetus to learn to code.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked as bartender,eventecnician, MTB Guide, Skiing Instructor and a lot of other part time jpns. Before I started study with 27 and finished something like a year a ago. Working in software industry is a DREAM, you get a safe job, good money and good working time. Yes good working time compared to eventec it is insanly good. I financed my studys also with part time jobs in the beginning and soon (2 semester) could start programming for a local company, I needed to learn C# which just heard of in a GUI course and boy I was working hard, everything I couldn't do in the company I did at home, this brought me in the got position I am in today and that't what I would suggest to students. Learn, work, learn harder, work harder. Learn what 1 dollar or euro is worth. My role model Henry Rollins [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbnFJVgBcw0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbnFJVgBcw0)

<comment><USER9> I have finished my BSc degree in Software Engineering and then did postgrad MSc in Games Engineering from one of the best universities in the country for such courses(literally 99% of people on the course get into the games industry afterwards), as it has always been my dream job to work in games. Since I started programming(vb at the age of 12) I always wanted to work as a games programmer - that was my passion and my dream job. So I studied really hard at school, obtained all certificates needed to study abroad, got really good grades at uni,and got my dream job on the first try. It's exactly like you are saying - safe job, good working time, nice benefits - there's only one problem. The pay is literally half of what I could be getting in any other computer science related industry with an MSc title here in the UK. My girlfriend didn't do an MSc but went straight to work after her BSc in Computer Science and she makes 12k more per year than I do.

But hey, I absolutely love what I am doing,and I always wanted to do it. So should I just shut up and not complain about the money? Probably. But I am just saying this here,that even with a software engineering degree, fantastic grades and full portfolio, if you follow your passion you might end up making less than you would like to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess I dodged a bullet there. Not graduating meant not having a graduation speech which meant I had nobody to discourage me about what I would/could not achieve.

Sure I got lucky, and timing is everything. Even so, I think that it isn't quite as bleak as this speech makes it out to be. There is a very large number of solutions for the 'success' question, and it all starts off with how you personally define it. By all means, follow your dreams, but keep a balanced view and don't let your dreams mess up your life. At the same time, don't let your life kill your dreams.

<comment><USER11> Schools without graduation would be a better model for encouraging a life of learning. The culture around graduation seems to be that of, "just get it over with so you can get on with your life."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whenever I read articles like this I am surprised how people without a technical background balance work and fulfillment. I am so happy that I can find a developer position where I can be involved with such creative, fulfilling work and not have to compromise for money. I'm amazed and humbled by pieces like this and acknowledge the difficulty non-developers face when building a career and life.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you ever tried to speak to people who aren't software developers? For them, if you're a software developer, you're just a boring guy spending all his wake time doing the most boring thing imaginable, sitting in front of the computer, looking at the screen, typing something completely and utterly uninteresting.

If they imagine doing this for their whole life, they'd say "I'd rather die." And they certainly don't see any trace of possibility of what they consider "creativity" in your job (my other comment here elaborates this claim).

(I work as a software developer myself, but I'm also aware of my biased view of the world. And I've spent enough years doing that that I'm also at the point of "I'd rather do something else... maybe becoming a lion tamer" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOmB1q8W4Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOmB1q8W4Y))

<comment><USER13> For those who have wrong mental model based on excel or something similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I can be extremely creative in Excel! It can be programmed from the inside and from the outside in more complex programming languages. But that's my biased view where finding a way to implement something is perceived as creative. For non-programmers, I'm implementing something boring in fundamentally the only possible and utterly boring way: the program will get some boring input and produce even more boring output. Whatever you do, you're just making the connection between the two, which everybody can explain in a few sentences, in general. Duh! Everything else are boring details needed because the boring computers need them. And I, they observe, am earning my salary because I'm stupid enough to spend my time on _that._ Somebody has to do that too.

And don't think the people who claim that are stupid. A quote from Richard Feynman himself, describing events in 1940-ties:

"Well, Mr. Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you _play_ with them. They are so wonderful. You have these switches - if it's an even number you do this, if it's an odd number you do that - and pretty soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are clever enough, on one machine.

After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn't paying any attention; he wasn't supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly - while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arc-tangent X, and then it would start and it would print columns and then bitsi, bitsi, bitsi, and calculate the arc-tangent automatically by integrating as it went along and make a whole table in one operation.

Absolutely useless. We _had_ tables of arc-tangents. But if you've ever worked with computers, you understand the disease - the _delight_ in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing."

[http://benjaminjcousins.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/richard- fey...](http://benjaminjcousins.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/richard-feynmans- computer-disease/)

(Of course, finding a best way to calculate arc-tangent on a given platform is a serious task. We know that. Somebody has to do that too. Naive approach will get a lot of errors, and also be to slow compared to the good investigated approach. That, it can be said, is an engineering problem, not a problem for a "developer." But still, we're just moving towards the "only" effective and correct way. But if we consider it "fun", well, poor we).

<comment><USER10> But the playing is essential! Without the playing you'd never get past first base. If I wouldn't actually enjoy this stuff I would have stopped doing it long ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article wastes a lot of time on "stay curious" (not very useful advice either!) and skips over _the_ most important tidbit:

      > [My girlfriend] made me accountable.

Accountability is absolutely the key difference between "going through the motions" and "making progress". It is the way you put "deliberate" into your 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. It's the thing that tells you if you're actually making any progress toward your goal.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sam Spurlin wrote an interesting article that really resonated with me, and this article reminded me of it. In particular this bit:

> I think there is an underlying metaphor that we can examine between values > and passion. I'm not sure I can go a day without hearing or reading the > advice about "finding a passion." I used to be a purveyor of this piece of > advice as well. Until I figured out it's basically pointless. The belief > that everybody has a particular passion waiting for them somewhere in the > world and it just needs to be uncovered like a treasure under a rock is not > helpful. Therefore, the dominant activity when trying to uncover or find > this passion seems to be flitting from activity to activity, from rock to > rock, looking for that elusive passion that will fix all your ills. There's > a driving force that if you don't like your situation then you just haven't > found your passion yet. I've since decided that this line of thinking is > mostly fallacious and that "finding" is the wrong verb to use when > describing passion. Instead, we should talk about "developing" passion. The > focus is on action and practice. I feel the same way about values. The > traditional way of thinking about value places little emphasis on actual > action, just like the quest for finding a specific passion. Values shouldn't > be discovered but developed over time, like passion. Both of these > constructs need a radical overhaul.

It's worth a read: [http://samspurlin.com/blog/2012/2/12/values-dont-make- your-l...](http://samspurlin.com/blog/2012/2/12/values-dont-make-your-life- better.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've always told the soon to enter the job force something - "Pick two things, one is your passion, you should always follow it, the other is a practical skill you can always use to pay the bills - so yeah, go to school for game design, but pay close attention to those IT classes too, and you'll always have a job."

</comment><comment><USER17> A few thoughts:

\- good point about the selection bias of graduation speakers and now they probably downplay the role of luck

\- what makes people even think they know what their dream job is? After working for an interesting company for a few years their perception might change dramatically

\- is it the job that is the dream, or is it the fame, esteem and wealth? Jobs like being an author or a musician or an artist are probably less pleasant than working in a nice office with a team you like

\- most of your heroes... Did they learn to be great in their field by studying it in college?

\- on the other hand, advice to follow your dream might be good as long as you give yourself a healthy dose of optionality/convexity

\- my advice to people would be don't settle for a job that bores or distresses you, but prepare to be surprised just how fulfilling certain jobs can be

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd say if you feel you can be happy in typical or standard career path, then by all means save yourself a lot of trouble and do that. Some people really are happier that way. If you're one of those who can't be happy in that lifestyle, you probably know who you are. If you're one of those people, then I think you have to keep trying for what you really want. Nothing else will ultimately satisfy.

</comment><comment><USER19> If it is your dream to be truly exceptionally good at something then - if at first you don't succeed, give up.</comment>


BlackBerry's success led to its failure - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13119924/blackberry-failure-success <comment><USER2> A good post from 2010 (it was already obvious to many Blackberry would fail/go bankrupt then):

[http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.ro/2010/10/whats-really- wr...](http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.ro/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with- blackberry-and.html)

Blackberry's biggest mistake was blinding itself to the truth with "good financials". It was right there in front them of that they were _losing the US and Canadians markets_ \- way back in 2009, if not earlier than that. Those were Blackberry's _core markets_ \- the markets in which its brand was the _strongest_. And it was losing them!

But it refused to see it or accept it because at the time most of the people outside of the U.S. had barely heard of the iPhone, perhaps in a TV news story, and Android was barely a year old and nowhere close to the iPhone sales numbers.

But in those markets Blackberry had some inertia - people had heard of Blackberry from a few years back, and it was growing in popularity thanks to BBM. But the point is this was _irrelevant_.

Blackberry should've known that if it loses its core markets, where it's loved most, and where people had bought Blackberry phones for years, then it would only be a matter of time before it would lose the newly acquired emerging markets, too, where it's brand wasn't even that strong.

Because of this "success" in other markets, Blackberry dragged its feet when it came to building a solid touchscreen smartphone platform. Perhaps, in its own arrogance, it even thought that the success in the new markets is "confirmation" that Blackberry was here to stay, and those new "touchscreen fads" were irrelevant. But all it had to do is realize that it if it was losing its most loyal market, then the other markets were being built on quicksand.</comment>


How to generate more revenue from your web application today - <AUTHOR> http://nathanbarry.com/generate-revenue-web-application-today/ <comment><USER2> I'm dealing with this right now in the worst way. My product actually depends on a subscription to another service, which is massive and priced ridiculously (JIRA). It's a hard sell to say that my service is worth as much as the platform its built on, but it works out that way for some customers.

I was considering dropping the price and making it a long-tail type of service, but I'm still excited about plowing lots of development effort in. This just reminds me that for businesses, the difference between 5 and 10 dollars is minimal, but for me, it's enough to keep the lights on (metaphorically, my office/apartment is very dim). I'd rather try to grow the customer base the hard way and then keep giving them more value for money.

Edit: my app is FocusTi.me, at <http://start.focusti.me>. I welcome any feedback, I haven't really started promoting it yet.

<comment><USER3> Btw your font choice looks horrible on Windows (IE9, Chrome, FF): <http://d.pr/i/qK9i>

There has been a growing number of not-tested-on-Windows sites which need some serious testing on modern Windows machines because the fonts look _really_ bad.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for that. I actually develop on Linux, but either way Windows is definitely most of the market. I'll shop around and see what I can find.

<comment><USER4> Fonts that are not native always seem to have issues for me on Windows if they are not big enough.

The best option is usually to use a native font like Calibri or some of the many other fonts that windows comes with or increase the size of the font quite a bit.

The font your using looks kind of bad to me on my linux box because it seems more geared towards headings and larger font sizes because of how condensed it is.

You may want to consider one of the more used but good looking fonts like PT Sans or Open Sans

<comment><USER2> In case my comments - or more likely my design - didn't give it away, I'm absolutely not a designer. Open Sans was a great tip, and the point about condensed versus paragraph text was eye opening. I've basically applied those points now, I haven't tested on a windows box yet but hopefully it's more legible.

Thanks for the 5-minute font picking lesson guys :)

<comment><USER3> Looks a world better, great job!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      The Book ($39) – 226 copies sold
      The Book + Videos ($79) – 137 copies sold
      The Complete Package ($169) – 100 copies sold

In my experience real price elasticity only exists in business books. The author's example illustrates what tends to happen in real life: something that is 1/4 of the price rarely sells 4x better than the 1x-priced product. This generally means that you are leaving money on the table. The problem is that testing pricing can be a difficult art to master.

In some market segment selling a cheaper product in exchange for volume can actually cost you a ton of money. In hardware, for example, the customer looking for rock-bottom pricing will often be the most demanding in terms of support requirements as well as the expected value delivered.

<comment><USER6> I agree. all those price elasticity examples depend on at which point you are on the demand curve for your individual product offering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The "charge more" advice should be common sense in this day and age. I'm very surprised it doesn't get taught in college marketing 101 courses. I read a book on salesmanship published in 1929 teaching the same exact thing to salesmen and Cialdini wrote at length about this phenomenon in his book Influence.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, it should be common sense, but it's not. Just look at all the "Show HN" posts. Charging too little is still a very common problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some advice from a prospective customer: if you can't/don't want to offer free plan, at least give me a trial that's long enough to actually try out your product. Two great examples that come to mind:

1\. Mixpanel vs. Kissmetrics: Mixpanel gives me a free account that I can use for as long as I want to evaluate all the stuff I can do with it. KM gives me a 14-day trial. I'm the only developer working on this project which means that 14 days is not enough time to implement the changes I need and actually start to see the results. Going with Mixpanel for this one was obvious. I will reach their free 25k data points way before the first month so I have to get a real paid plan or put a banner on my website. In any way, they won already. Even if I wanted to switch to KM for the lower prices, exporting the data I currently have would be a hassle.

2\. The New Basecamp: Although they don't offer a free plan anymore, they do have a 60 days trial. They don't really lose much by offering those extra days and after two months I'm already hooked to their service, I know how everything works, and most importantly, they have my projects tied down. The work of those 2 months is already there so even if I don't like the product, I'll probably pay for it so I don't have to export it. Joel Spolsky has a great article that talks about this retention thing (his specific example was with email providers) but I can't find it right now :(

<comment><USER9> Rob Walling on Startups for the Rest of Us had a different take on it. One of the things that dropping to a shorter (14 days vs 21 vs 30 vs 60) is that it lets you iterate your marketing A/B tests much faster.

<comment><USER10> Which matters more, iterating tests faster, or getting to a better result? In my books, a better result.

Here we have an actual customer here saying that uselessly short free trials will drive him to a competitor that offers a useful free trial. And the customer had an actual example to point to of it happening. If this is a general trend, then it is impossible for the best optimized short free trial to match the best optimized longer free trial.

And yes, long conversion cycles are a PITA. However they are sometimes a necessary PITA. Furthermore a long conversion cycle (if needed) is a useful barrier to entry for competitors who will need more float to survive, and who will learn more slowly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised to see no mention of the Decoy Effect..

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect>

<comment><USER12> Finding out about this kind of thing is _exactly_ why I come to Hacker News. Thank You, eminent kefs.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you like that, watch this TED talk: [http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_c...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Contacting customers with invalid billing information is definitely a good tip. I was surprised to find out at 17% of our subscribers for StartupThreads were delinquent. Some had cards stolen, numbers changed, expired, etc. Wish I had taken their phone numbers to reach out easier, but sending a few friendly reminder emails will help.

<comment><USER2> Stripe can do this automatically with WebHooks; it's seriously worth taking the time to set up.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This list is just a starting point. I would love to hear what all of you have found works for increasing revenue. Stories are good, specific numbers are even better!

</comment><comment><USER14> Please do not substantially raise your prices all in one shot.

I watched in horror as the old marketing manager jacked our prices 50% one day. Everyone complained. He had to drop them back to their original levels.

Do it in baby steps.

<comment><USER15> There is a big difference in changing the price for new users and pitching an increase to your current users. If you are going to price test, do it on landing page visitors (if possible). Grandfather in your current customers at current prices if you can (which might even increase retention), or if the economics prohibit that, explain why the increases are necessary. "We think we can get more from you" is probably not a good reason from your customer's point of view.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a very good point. I should have clarified that I mean to charge more for new accounts. If you are going to increase prices on existing accounts do it on a case-by-case basis.</comment></comment></comment>


Discuss HN: Android phones become incredibly slow over time - <AUTHOR>

I have asked about 20 friends who all have Android phones and my anguish with how slow the phones become after 6-8 months is not singular. And yet, we see Androids out selling every other phone. Why is this not seen as a problem? I have the higher end Droid. I can only imagine what would the case be with cheaper models sold in Asia, South America. <comment><USER2> Had had the DROID now the DROIDX. I have loved these phones for the first few months and the everything seems to go on them. My GPS is useless at this point and dealing with Verizon to get any help is always very frustrating.</comment>