Ask HN: Would you use this service?
A question / answer site for asking / answering whether a product or service exists, based on a description.
Simple Example:
Q: "Is there a service that I can use to hail an independent driver via a phone app?"
A: "Yes, it's called Lyft." ✅
A: "Yes, it's called Uber."
The answers to this example question are both valid two years ago but are probably non-obvious to non-SF residents two years ago.
Market:
The primary market would be app developers that want to check for relevant competition before going down any rabbit holes. A relatively small audience would be required for critical mass, because many experts that keep tabs on Tech Crunch, Valley Wag, etc. are out there, and my hypothesis is that they, much like the experts on StackOverflow, would love to help by answering such questions.
Google can be used to find competitors, but it's sometimes ineffective because you might be asking the wrong questions. For example, if you wanted to find out if there was a service providing micropayments for news media, you might be searching for "pay wall", and you might have completely missed Blendle, which solves the same problem, but perhaps changes the paradigm sufficiently to obscure it to somebody searching for "pay wall".
Would you use this service? Why, or why not?
Side Note:
If a service already exists for this, it is ironic, because I don't know where it is to ask if it exists, etc.