Hacker News Reader

I think Kaggle is great, but I don't really see the model of "work full time for months competing with 80,000 other people in hopes that your data model will turn out 0.001% more accurate than everybody else's [which at some point becomes largely a function of the initial seed on your RNG when you fit the model] in order to get a single pay check" to be a workable concept for work.

View on HN

Yes, you succinctly made the same argument I was trying to make. I think Kaggle is pushing the industry to be more efficient, but in an ironically inefficient way.

Don't overlook those who do it for reasons other than earning money.

Look at how many people solve complex crossword and sudoku puzzles everyday for free...

Just another exploitation of creative labor if you ask me. The people competing for prises may be doing it for fun, but as you can see in the industries using it, these are serious big money applications. Of course, nobody is blind to this and a majority of applicants are going to try to go for the cheapest and easiest solution for a shot at the gold.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com