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Comment by pgsimp | Hacker News Reader

1000$ is not a lot of money. Stop making excuses. (edit: he paid 1200$ initially and bought more when he already had some sales). So 1200$ was enough, or even less, as he could have done the same project with 50 domains instead of 150).

If you don't have spare 1000$, you should work towards having them.

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> 1000$ is not a lot of money

For a lot of people in the world, it's a tremendous amount of money. Congrats on being someone without that concern.

> Stop making excuses.

Take that up with the person you've imagined you're talking to.

We are talking about people with internet access, not some rural farmers in the third world.

Nobody says those rural farmers should embark on an emoji project.

Here in the United States, there's well-publicized research into how hard many families would have to work to come up with the money to cover an unexpected $400 expense.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-economic-we...

I didn't see anything about how much they would have to work, just what percentage would have trouble coming up with the money on short notice. It doesn't even imply they are poor, they could simply put all their money into their mortgage every month.

$1000 a month is a good developer salary in lots of third-world countries, and that's not even entry level jobs. Hardly a bunch of rural farmers.

> For a lot of people in the world, it's a tremendous amount of money.

And for a lot of people it is a pocket change.

> Congrats on being someone without that concern.

> Take that up with the person you've imagined you're talking to.

Gee, someone being able to afford something really crawls under your skin.

> 1000$ is not a lot of money

Yes, it is.

I can't imagine spending $1000 on a fun thing or a joke and I'm single.

I run a corporate data science department and my wife has a more respectable job and we still couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on a joke.

Could you elaborate? I'd really like to understand why you don't have any spare money, despite of two good earners in the household?

"A joke" is also incorrect, the guy is trying to make money. Nevertheless, if you reframe it as "for fun", vacations presumably should count. I rather doubt you would be unable or unwilling to spend 1000$ on a vacation?

Nobody says that everybody should be willing to spend money on an emoji email project. That just happens to be that person's interest, so they spent money on it. Don't you have any interests at all that cost money? I personally wouldn't spend 1000$ on many things that other people spend it for, but that is not the same as not being able to afford it.

$1000 is less than 1% of the money I have in savings sitting in the bank. After all my expenses this month I better have more than $1000 left over when I get paid or somethings gone horribly wrong!

Yet...

I still wouldn't spend $1000 on anything outside of essentials without having a really good reason. I'm not spending $1000 on a holiday, that seems mental to me but then I'm not big into traveling.

I like gaming but I can't bring myself to spend the $2-3k or whatever it would be to get a good gaming PC. SO I have a PS4 and I mostly get games on sale or "free" via PS+.

Hell, I'm even considering whether or not I want to spend <$1000 on a PS5 if they are ever available for sale again... The PS4 is fine and I don't really need it so it feels like too much money to spend on something I don't really need. I can definitely live without it.

I just feel $1000 is a LOT of money. There's an amount of money that is a lot and an amount of money that I don't consider a lot. I think that break off is actually around $400. More than that trips a mental switch for me.

Sounds like you might also be starving yourself and your family for no reason? If you have > $100k in the bank, and presumably a much larger multiple of that in investments and other assets - why not spend $1k sometimes on something that you could enjoy or that (in this case) could earn you more money?

Maybe "not a lot of money" was a bit misleading. It really depends on what you want to achieve. I agree that it feels like a lot of money for spending it on a gaming PC (I have the same debate with myself). But since you are a head of something, you probably know how much it costs to hire people to get anything done. So 1000$ does not seem like a lot for investing in a project, for example - even if you don't pay any money for anything, you'll rake up 1000$ in opportunity costs quickly.

If you want to achieve anything, you'll need a lot more than 1000$, so in relation to that 1000$ seems little. And I don't just mean for projects, but in general, if you want to change things in your life (get an education, have kids, whatever).

And it also is not a lot in terms of how much money people need and earn. I think most people will spend more than 1000$ on rent, food clothing and so on every month. Especially if you have children.

I wouldn't spend 1000$ every day just like that, but I would spend it for special occasions (like going on holidays).

He spent it on a project that would potentially earn him more money.

Perhaps that you can not understand it is part of the reason why you can't afford it.

> 1000$ is not a lot of money.

If you're wealthy, sure. Being one of the Americans that can handle a $400 surprise expense doesn't mean you can casually handle a $1000 joke.

But it's not simply $1,000. It's a $1,000/year commitment.

It's also not simply $1,000/year. The article claims they spent weeks on it. That could be anywhere from $500 to $50k in unspecified labor, whether that's simply opportunity cost or the estimated value of your nights and weekends, for an unspecified duration.

Maybe there was no meaningful opportunity cost, maybe this person is well off enough they don't really have to make hard choices or worry about where they will live if their $50k idea is a total loss.

It's not a joke, he is trying to make money. If it doesn't work out, he can cancel it after a year, or only keep the most successful domain names.

As you said, it is nothing compared to opportunity costs. The person from the article seems to also have a day job, though, so they won't end up on the street if the project fails.

Why can't you handle 400$? I have many times been in the situation where an extra 400$ would have been painful. But it was a temporary situation. It doesn't imply 1000$ is a lot of money to spend on a project.

You also have opportunity costs by staying in your current job and not trying new things.

That depends a lot on your privilege level. Yours is apparently extremely high.

What are your monthly costs of living? Where do you get your money from?

I would expect 1000$ is a common cost of living for a month, so that would be "one month of living expenses".

If you can live for less money, perhaps it is you who is privileged.

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