Is this not the gratuitous negativity that Hacker News seeks to avoid? Satire is not universally good. Many start-ups in their infancy could be classified using that list. Indeed many of those start-up's founders come here for resources or support.
Also because they are actually going to make it?
Emoji is stupid shit no one needs. It also makes people smile.
They are your own ideas, or ideas of others at the hackathon where they self-identified as stupid.
The fact that we do not hear about even more horrible incidents regarding this service is for the most part due to society being overwhelmingly composed of more or less moral individuals (with an active remediation and PR campaign from the incumbents as a distant second reason). But I find hard to believe that anyone who can do any half decent risk assessment would sign in for that kind of liability.
In that we live in a society that, alas, DOES produce "stupid shit no one needs" by the ton?
And maybe that's something we should be thinking about, yeah?
Indeed many of those start-up's founders come here for resources or support.
And we should be giving them resources to help get perspective on how shallow or first-world-problem their idea is, and support in finding a better way of allocating their time and energies.
A lot of startups began as stupid ideas and became billion-dollar corporations. What's so negative about doing it on purpose?
The one thing on the list which could be maybe interpreted as negative is "Peter Thiel", but this is definitely not being "gratuitously" negative. Plus he's got 2.2 billion dollars so if his feelings get hurt he can buy some new ones.
And many startups are crap because of that, both in their infancy and later development.
There's nothing wrong with criticizing BAD things to snip them in the bud, and satire is not "gratuitous negativity", it's critique + humor.
"Negativity isn't the problem -- gratuitous negativity is. By that we mean negativity that adds nothing of substance to a comment."
Doesn't say anything about not linking to satire. Though I've noted satire in the actual comments here doesn't seem to go down well.
Probably the same who then complain about their companies favouring bosses who have more communication/social skills.
Or maybe they're just trolling.
I'm all for founding a company which specializes in "Stupid shit no one needs" and is valued at billions of dollars. Sign me up!
At least in theory, companies "valued at billions" literally cannot specialize in "shit no one needs". That statement comes most likely from an observer that does not belong to your target market and has little capacity for empathy (this shit I don't need, therefore no one ought to need it).
Of course it is possible to sell worthless equity to gullible investors, if you happen to have a knack to find any. Though I don't think that's what you were talking about.
https://gigaom.com/2011/01/17/cheezburger-network-gets-30m-f...
Not sure what's the current valuation after this: http://www.geekwire.com/2013/cheezburger-cutting-35-staff-tr...
Of course, people like entertainment, though it's not something strictly necessary.
I was just pointing out the fact that there is a difference between "There's no market for X" and "Users of X would be better off doing without, so X should not exist."
The first is a fact, the second is a combination of a judgement of value + a prescription based on that particular judgement. And while there are many useful prescriptions based on judgements, there is a slippery slope that ends up with one small group doing all the judgements and the rest of society enduring the prescriptions. So, it's better to proceed with caution.
(Which itself is a judgement/prescription pair... so take it with a grain of salt, or not)
Yes they should diversify into "shit no one wants", "shit no one knows about", "shits no one gives" and "shits not taken".