npizzolato

> A competitor could easily produce a leaner, better product.

There are several competitors in this space. Pages, LibreOffice, and Google docs come to mind. The only one I've ever heard described as better is Google docs. I'm not sure reality supports your statement.

Off by an order of magnitude? Are you suggesting Twitter spends 2 million per employee per year?

But drivers can drive for multiple services at the same time, using whichever one is giving them a customer at any specific moment. I've talked to many Uber/Lyft drivers that use both apps at the same time.

On the consumer side, having the most cars available is not the only thing to consider. There's also price. For me, Uber is the first app I check (mostly out of habit), but if there's any sort of surge pricing going on, I'll check Lyft. If Lyft doesn't have a similar surge, I'll usually ride with them, even if it means a slightly longer wait.

I'm not going to speak to their ability to become winners in massive markets, but I don't see how Uber or AirBnB have a strong moat that makes it hard to compete. Both seem extraordinarily easy to switch away from to a competitor. Many drivers already drive for both Uber and Lyft at the same time, and it's very easy for consumers to use both apps. I haven't used AirBnB, but it seems like it would be easy to list your apartment/house on multiple marketplaces.

I don't write a blog. I've thought about it quite a few times, but it turns out writing is hard and writing things regularly that people want to read is even harder.

If I ever get over that hump, I certainly wouldn't want to make it harder on myself by hosting my own web server. I would want to write, not manage a server, with whatever complications that brings. That's what makes Medium (and others) attractive.

How is that a different problem than people editing code in a repo that's out of date?

What's the technology here that needs to mature? Honest question, but it seems like just a high-end personal assistant on-demand that uses text messages to communicate. It's not obvious to me what the tech is.

Someone who values their time at $100/hour, working 40 hours/week, is making over $200,000 a year. I'm not sure if that technically qualifies as the 1%, but I think it's close enough to the GP's point.

I too thought it was satire. Two of their examples are "I need to buy $2500 worth of electronics tonight like it's nothing" and "get me a private helicopter tonight for $3500", all the while paying $100/hour for the privilege.

I understand some people spend money like that, but it seemed more likely that someone was making a joke about absurd wealth and the startup scene than a real business. If the Onion wrote an article about it, I wouldn't bat an eye.

Best of luck to the Magic+ team (honestly), but this product clearly isn't for people like me.

> I'm going to go out on what might be something of a limb and suggest that perhaps Twitter is not the place for meaningful discussions, or even, discussion in general.

I tend to agree with you, but then again I've never understood the appeal of Twitter. Do people get enough entertainment out of the "i love tacos lol" tweets to continue using it day after day? You could link to mildly interesting articles, but you can hardly say anything about it in 140 characters, so why use that medium to post/reply to articles?

Thanks for the explanation. I agree with you that (1) is rather questionable, but to me, (2) seems like a fair tax.

Is all that money actually made outside the US? Or is it made outside of the US in the same spirit as how Hollywood movies never make a profit?[1][2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-holl...

http://i.imgur.com/Vf0An8J.png :)

> Yup. Acquired for $101M then subsequently shut down in 1-2 years (just kidding of course).

> hopefully we can become the next billion dollar company. If not, then it's the other two options: get acquired or die.

No offense, but it doesn't really sound like you were kidding. I have no skin in this game because I never used Mailbox and am content to continue using GMail, but if I was upset about this shutdown and in the market for a new email client that would be around long-term, your answer wouldn't exactly inspire confidence. You've basically said you're going to shut down (or get acquired and then, inevitably shut down) unless you hit the lottery ticket of a billion dollar company.

Speaking more generally, I think this sort of attitude is going to catch up with VC-backed startups sooner or later. Why would I make my workflow depend on a startup that is, in all likelihood, going to either shut down or get acquired and shut down? For anything with a high switching cost, using a product from a VC-backed startup that has this outlook is just going to cause me problems later if I get dependent on it.

I think a lot of companies would do better by their customers (and themselves) if they instead looked for a more sustainable business model. But there isn't as much of a lottery ticket in those businesses, so I can see why some founders avoid it.

If you can't get to the status page, it's probably a good indication the service is down :)

> Many users will use these buttons to express agreement or disagreement, even though that is explicitly wrong as defined by the owners of the site.

Interestingly enough, downvoting to express disagreement is not against the hacker news guidelines[1].

A few subreddits I visit pop up a message right next to the comment when you downvote it, saying you should only do so when it does not contribute to the discussion. I think that's a pretty good solution for educating users about the intended purpose of downvoting. I also think HN's idea of only letting older users downvote is a healthy idea.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

When I favorite my banking website, a notification isn't sent to the website telling them I favorited them, nor are my browser favorites public for anyone to see. The semantics, and thus the meaning, are totally different.

Chrome doesn't even use the term favorites. It uses the (more accurate, imo) term bookmarks.

I should include a disclaimer to this comment that despite attempting to use Twitter multiple times, I still cannot find a use for it, so I would not consider myself a "Twitter user". That said, the criticism of the favorite -> like change makes no sense to me.

> Favorite (old) = neutral statement related to the importance of the tweet for you. It's mostly a bookmark, not really an endorsement.

> Favoriting a tweet didn't mean it was her favorite (as Twitter apparently believes)

Oh yeah? If that's true, that's a terrible UX. Any time you have to say "xxx doesn't actually mean xxx", you should stop and think extra hard about what you're saying. "Favoriting" a tweet should mean exactly what it says it means.

And considering how favoriting a tweet notifies the recipient, and a person's favorites are public, I don't buy that favoriting a tweet was a neutral reaction to a tweet. If I got a notification that said Bob favorited tweet yyy, I would take that to mean endorsement.

Just because some users are using it as a bookmarking service doesn't mean that's what most people use it as or what Twitter intends it to be used as.

Ideologically, from a single voter's perspective, you're right. But practically, and looking at the entire population, it's not. The first past the post voting system we use will always result in two prominent parties, and the spoiler effect certainly exists.

I've always found this video a good explanation of the problems of our voting system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

It's hard to complain about others reusing a title when the title is a simply a common English word.

Rework : to make changes to (something, such as a piece of writing or music) in order to improve it[1]

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rework

You're misinterpreting him. "Buy" here is purchasing the product, as a typical customer.

Same. It's kind of sad. Apparently questioning the business reason behind decisions isn't appreciated. I personally find them interesting.

I like the story of how Grep is fast because it tries to do as little work as possible.

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2010-Aug...

> I heard so many times bullshit like "I don't know if you'll be alive in a year or two, so I can't adopt your technology"

I'm not sure why you think this is bullshit. Most startups fail. It seems like good sense to be wary of taking a dependency on another business that might not be around in the near future instead of an alternative that has already proven itself in the market.

I've seen far more problems from people who think they understand the code so they don't need tests than from people who write tests to check their code. The best of the best might be able to get by without tests, but us common-folk stand to benefit a lot from writing tests and listening to the design feedback they provide.

I found a quote recently by G.K. Chesterton about this that I really like.

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."[1]

[1] http://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/

The example breaks down with torrenting because it introduces a third option. For the no-name artist,

    a) Some people would pay $100,000 and get the painting.
    b) Some people would think $100,000 is ridiculous, not pay, and not get the painting.
    c) Some people would copy/steal/whatever the painting, and get the painting for $0.

Is it really surprising that many people choose c? Those people might say they'd actually pay for it if it was $10 instead, and some of them might be telling the truth, but I think many people would still choose option c. $0 is hard to pass up.

Sorry, but I don't see the huge nightmare here. I share my Netflix account with multiple people. We all know the password, and you only have to type it once into every device you own. If someone forgets or gets a new computer, they could message me and have the password immediately. Netflix even has features to support multiple people using the same account.

So then, when you torrent movies, do you send money to the content creators? Otherwise your distinction, while true, isn't very relevant.

I'm unconvinced. Then the piracy rate would decrease for these shows as a result of better availability of HBO Go and other services, but I'm pretty sure they're still Game of Thrones is still the most downloaded torrent. I'd be open to data showing otherwise though.

I think the simple answer is that people like free things, and torrenting is easy enough for a large amount of people to do it. Maybe if every show ever was available on Netflix for $9/month, people wouldn't torrent, but that's a pretty absurd expectation.