Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

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In most cases, it was a struggle to get people to pay even $3/month for one of them, and I ended up shuttering some of them. The feeling I get from this is that hundreds and hundred of hours of blood, sweat and tears from me, (which includes 50 years of knowledge, and personal sacrifices that I and my family have had to make) is, at the end of the day, worth less than a hole in the earth.

I've been there, so please don't take this the wrong way, but yes, your hundreds of hours of blood, sweat, and tears may mean less than a hole in the ground. And why shouldn't it?

Your hard work on its own means basically nothing to anyone. People buy because of the perceived value to them of what they're buying, not because of what the seller did or didn't put into it. If people weren't going to pay $3 / month for your project, it's because you weren't offering them at least $3 / month of perceived value.

There is basically no connection that I can see between how much hard work goes into something and how much the market is willing to pay for it. Some people labor a lifetime on something that no one will ever want, others spend a weekend throwing together a website that will one day IPO for billions [1].

This is why so many successful startup founders and investors advise getting a project out there as quickly as possible and iterating rapidly to either find product / market fit, or to abandon it for something else. Fighting an uphill battle to make people want something that they don't care about, just because you've poured so much into it is a recipe for disaster.

Again, I've been there, so please don't take any of this the wrong way! Just my own rumination in response.

1. Yes, a lot of hard work goes into it along the way, but that's a hell of a lot easier with early success.

I totally agree with you about the value perception, and don't take your post in the wrong way at all.

But seeing people put even $10 into the 'hole' project just highlights that someone, somewhere, thinks that giving their hard earned $10 is better value to them than an app that costs $3. More than 3 times the worth, really.

That kind of thing really sucks, to me. I've spent a few dollars here and there in the past to support people whom I think deserved it for their efforts - be it a small trinket at a craft fair or a CD from a busking musician in the street. To me, spending money on the efforts of their craft (even if it is on things I didn't really need) rather than a cup of coffee, or a hole, says to them "I think that your efforts and creative energy are worth something, and I am willing to give you some of my hard earned cash to prove its worth". Even giving a few dollars to a homeless person is leveraging the money for the betterment of humanity.

The sadness here is the fact that I live in a society that thinks a hole in the ground is worth more that someone's creative output. All the worse for the fact that they are prepared to make a statement about it by quite literally throwing away money to make their point. Is this the every day person's equivalent of lighting up cigars with $100 bills?

The problem is, a hole in the ground is indeed often worth more than someone's creative output, because many people's creative output has negative worth. Silicon valley has fixated on behaviors that are actively harmful to users--corporate surveillance, spam, poor security, etc. In some cases these behaviors are damaging society as a whole.

I put $10 in the hole. If such a thing existed, I'd be willing to put a lot more toward any effort that would plausibly put Facebook out of business without an equally evil alternative arising.

I can't say the same for your apps, since I don't know you or your apps, but the average app I wouldn't install for free, because I know they would collect my data and use it against my interests.

Valid point re: collection of data in apps. Mine don't do that, but of course I understand that a lot of people have that natural suspicion these days. I didn't think of that aspect and am grateful you pointed it out.

I put $10 into the hole project for exactly the same reason I might drop $10 into a talented street musician's tip jar: to express my appreciation of their creative effort. The hole is just a hole, but the project to dig the hole is a hilarious, dark, and well-executed piece of performance art.

A good point. I had actually never even considered this hole project as a performance art piece, and now see that it indeed can be perceived as such. Glad this discussion elicited feedback like this, because it has helped me see things in a new light (and feel better about it myself).

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