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Comment by jopsen | Hacker News Reader

> How many hours of shop time are you willing to pay for with no guarantee of a solution, and very few (if any) parts replaced?

Imagine opening a computer software support business where you bring in your old proprietary binary programs that you got from who knows where, and the business is to fix bugs you've found.

Maybe some really big enterprises would pay for that sort of thing. But I doubt it would be feasible for consumer stuff.

It would be a crazy/fun kind of business to run. I'm sure it probably exists.

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There are companies around that offer VIN re-coding by mail order if you need to swap one of the computers, but you'd have to be in a fairly big metro area to profitably run a company just doing electronic trouble shooting. It's easier just to "fire the parts cannon" after the usual suspects (dead sensors, shorted wiring) have been accounted for.

Having had a 2006 model car in my workshop forever rebuilding the engine, I have though it might be worthwhile starting a business doing that kind of trouble shooting but nobody will want to pay, because the vehicles involved are inevitably old and worthless. It's fun to do it for yourself, but as a business your typical customer who needs you won't be able to justify paying you.

My other thought was to possibly set up the tools and whatnot to support local businesses in doing that kind of troubleshooting on older cars but building the knowledge and tools to distribute would be a very expensive exercise.

> fire the parts cannon

I love this phrase, and it reminds me that the behavior exists in the computer world too. From the Jargon File:

field circus: [a derogatory pun on `field service'] n. The field service organization of any hardware manufacturer, but especially DEC. There is an entire genre of jokes about DEC field circus engineers:

Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer with a flat tire?

A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one is flat.

Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer who is out of gas?

A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one is flat.

That actually sounds like a great business idea.

Bug Hunters

Extremely valuable service. I bet there'd be a lot of demand.

I've toyed with that kind of thought. The technical part seems fun, finding customers (especially the first customers) seems difficult :p I'd really like to work at such a company though.

This feels like something (former?) malware researchers might do. It’s entertaining when they reverse engineer malware and find bugs.

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