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Comment by driverdan | Hacker News Reader

All businesses take time and money to build. How is that sad?

It is sad because it doesn't really go into the core business. He spends thousands of dollar on marketing, domains and suppliers just to have a farmer sell to consumers. It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers".

> It should almost be two clicks on "etsy for farmers".

Sounds like a viable startup opportunity. Especially with the Beyond Meats S-1 post from yesterday where hackers talked about buying meat directly from farmers.

Would spending thousands of $ developing "etsy for farmers" be sad also?

Its the nature of the beast, you invest money to make money, the internet is no different.

No, because the money would be going into the business of serving an entire nation of farmers with these services. The cost for each instance of doing the fundamental thing, having a farmer sell to consumers, would hopefully be low.

But on the other hand Etsy4Farmers (tm) would probably turn out like Etsy, and care progressively less about the farmers, more about money and eventually turn into just another online supermarket riddled with fake products and fake reviews (not suggesting Etsy has made it all the way there either btw).

This guy has one partner, Incentives are aligned, if I were one to buy onions online, I can see myself still being happy with them in 20 years time. Maybe it cost more, but they don't have a monopoly on Onions, their ability to pass on that cost is limited, which is the major concern, is it not?

I don't disagree. I am just saying that thousands of dollars to bring a farmers business online to consumers shouldn't necessarily just be seen as a success thirty years after AOL.

More generally, all open problems are hard, because the economy's limiting reagent isn't mildly intelligent people willing to do easy work for good money.

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