tallgiraffe

Got downvoted for this comment by a mob. How very on brand.

Dude, you forget it is 2021 and facts don't matter. Outrage is up to 11, and nothing else matters.

Good for you. You got vaccinated, got a few people vaccinated, and the world is safer at large. Ignore the haters~!

You can't really ban "them," because you cannot objectively and factually verify they are bad actors. Check out how many startup pitch groups there are on Clubhouse. Some of those folks are actual investors, and some are just social media publicity stunt gurus. But both can sound equally good. Snake oil salesmen are going make a killing on Clubhouse.

True, although it is not exclusive to Clubhouse. These actors are everywhere on the internet: newsletters, videos, tweets ... This just gives them an easy option to take money directly, instead of first funneling those funds through other products.

Could you help me understand two fundamental issues? (1) Why would I use Mojeek over Google and (2) how do you make money?

Key constraint: you cannot answer "because privacy" for #1, unless you can explain what that means.

Fundamentally, I don't understand why privacy matters.

Google finds stuff that I want , when I want it. How it does it doesn't concern me, as long as it can. It seems (based on using say Duck vs Google) that Google wins by a landslide in quality of search results.

Can you deliver better results with less tracking, and how would I know those are in fact better results?

And of course, if I am to trust all my search to you tool, how do I know you'd be around in 10 years?

Thanks!

"Most people who haven't experienced that kind of failure can't appreciate how much it hurts." - tld. Yeah, most people who are not in startups think you just got a bad quarter or launched an underwhelming project. They have no idea. Talking to other founders helps a lot though. You think you are alone, but then turns out your mind wasn't all that f--up at all, comparing to some others. Cheer up, you will eventually put it behind you, maybe.

Same. I just said I was no longer using WhatsApp. Sure, it puts the pressure on them to switch, and makes you the bad guy for a while, but it works.

I mean, they are not going to stop using it for other people, but at least your communication will be somewhat private. At least until WhatsApp finds a way to siphon data from other apps that is.

Prolog is a wonderful language to dabble into, if for nothing else but to learn how to think more logically.

The iPhone itself? I mean, I am more than happy to be proven wrong. But can we know, for 100% that while I am simply using my phone, Apple isn't actually collecting its location via their own APIs, or those of my cell carrier?

Right. I think what I am trying to say is that by focusing on illusion of privacy, Apple can take a long view on abusing the said privacy. They are all trying to murder the other guy with whatever tools they've got. FB is using ads and data, Apple is using their device strong hold, MSFT is going after business users...etc.

It's not that one is better or worse, but I think it's important to recognize that each one has its flaws.

They tried it circa 2012/13. It was a partnership with Microsoft/Nokia, meant to get people in developing countries hooked on Facebook at a very low price. The phone was crap though, even by dev county standards. I remember testing it, and everything took foreeeever.

On a bright side, it was the same time when FB put a ton of effort into improving their mobile web experience, realizing how bad it was on bad phones with slow networks.

I understand why people are upset with Facebook. I find it interesting that same people don't seem to be upset with Apple, while Apple is largely playing the same game.

Forget all you know about Facebook ad practices for a second, and take a look at what Apple is doing, but putting "Mom and Pop LLC" in place of Facebook.

Apple is using their enormous power to essentially pick and choose what is allowed to execute on your device. Sure, they give user a "choice" to either restrict and app, or to allow it, but they never, ever, give user the same choices about Apple itself. Apple "helping" users to restrict others is no different from Microsoft installing internet Explorer for everyone, to "help" users browser the internet.

In this case Apple is getting all the goodies about the user: their location, their usage, their connections, everything. Meanwhile, they are blocking others from having it.

The difference is that Apple is waving the freedom-fighter flag first, thereby making everyone else look bad in comparison.

It is shocking to me that some people actually prefer to rely on "fact checkers," as if those people are somehow more intelligent, and less biased than the readers themselves.

In fact, the idea that someone could check these facts for you, almost explicitly stipulates that you, the reader, are somehow less capable. But we are not talking about changing oil in the car, or doing brain surgery, we are talking about maybe the only thing that each individual can do on their own, unsupervised, to the beset of their ability - use their brain.

This is not going to end well.

He's got a place to live, and food to eat, and he spends 200% of his time at work. At that point money is really just a thing that idles in the bank.

Sounds like a few engineers found out that Apple was looking into their company and knowing Apple was interested they took a new gig, meanwhile the CEO got upset and decided to fire the last remaining defecting engineer, who out of goodness of heart actually declined Apple, but gratefully took the offer once he got fired. Although it probably hurts to have your team poached, it sounds like potentially it wasn't a great working environment to begin with as the team was happy to jump ship at the first notice.

Charge by the ability to pay, based on your value proposition.

For example, if your service or product can help the customer save $10k/month for the next three years, that's 360k that you will be saving them. It doesn't make sense to charge them $200 for it, but maybe 30% of the net savings can do it, so $100k!

On the other hand, if for 100k they can hire a FT developer to do what you do, plus 10 other features, then charge less so they pick you over the other option.

From the personal experience, I would say avoid building products where you sell something for very little, unless you can get lock-in and your customer's lifetime value is pretty large. So if you offer a $10/m service, and your customer leaves in 3 months, that's a lot of work. But, if they stay for next 10 years, and you can find 10 million customers like them, then it's worth it (hey Dropbox!).

Free speech is when anyone can say anything they want, but if you've followed the trends in Silicon Valley for the last couple of years, there is no more free speech. One cannot for example say they are pro-Republicans, or against housing, or basically pro/against anything that is not in line with the mob, without getting in trouble. Professors are being fired, executives are being let go, all because what they say goes against the group-think.

THAT is the opposite of free speech.

Free speech should not be only available to those you agree with. When an ideology is being forced on you by a loud group that says "you are either with us, or you are against us," that is not free speech.

In my opinion the difference is whether you have the discussion from your free will or because it is being imposed on you.

The stance of the loud is: "This is an important issue and we should all talk about this until the society is better!" But that actually disenfranchises the quiet ones who just want to get work done. Not everyone cares, and forcing them to care is wrong.

It doesn't sound like Zuck will stop you for sitting around the lunch table and discussing the issues, but he will make sure that no one calls you names, or passes you for a promotion ..etc, for wanting to opt out.

I don't really have any information on what's happening on the inside, but judging this from the information we got publicly, it really seems to me as a way to enable every employee whose voice is being outnumbered.

p.s. It's very likely that this response will get instantly down-voted because it doesn't align with current socio-political stance prevalent on the forum. That in itself is however a prime example of what Zuck is trying to avoid at Facebook.

Free speech advocates should be celebrating this decision, rather than trying to portray it as something evil.

"Employees shouldn’t have to confront social issues in their day-to-day work unless they want to." - What part of that is bad?

Regardless of your opinions, your ability to do great work should be separated from your ability to have social/political arguments.

Much like you shouldn't force anyone at work to be Vegan, because you are, or to avoid Gluten, because you do, you also should not insist that employees participate in discussions that are otherwise none of their interests.

Making sure that employees can ignore the social noise and continue to do their job is a net positive - better for the employer, and better for the employee.

There are some good pro's and con's to this strategy, but given market forces I can imagine the future where everyone "works" from the same address in the Bay Area, while being based elsewhere. Maybe I am hoping to see this as a hack :)

Coworker, is that you?

WordPress raised on a 3 Billion valuation last year. They are very much on a unicorn track.

Interesting view, but what would you do when Github grabs a market share, and then start to take 15% off? I am not trying to be cheeky here, legitimately curious. Microsoft isn't in the non-profit business either, and they will try to make money off anything they could.

For example, did you know that when Microsoft bought NPM, they starved NPM employees for oxygen, forcing people to quit over time, as they were unable to work on anything?

That's anecdotal, and I am simply trying to say that MS isn't charity. Maybe it's worth it to support Patreon and help them to avoid (delay, perhaps) their future predatory behavior?

I am just brainstorming here. I don't know what the right answer is.

Sahil built a fantastic personal brand, and now that he's VC-free and profitable, he always forgets to mention that it was done on a back of dozens of employees, through $8m of other people's money. In that sense, taking on VC was anything but dumb.

It's more likely that Patreon will turn into YouTube than it turn cancerous. They have the creators and they have the eyeballs; there is no need for those creators to be on YT to "reach wider audience" because those freeloaders aren't paying them. If Patreon could become the YT of paid content, it could be huge.

Then again, YT can turn Patreon functionality on in a blink, offer everything for free and then some, offer features to subscribers that Patreon doesn't have, and over time, slowly, erode a big chunk of their users.

Even though Snap has not completely died yet, Instagram was able to suck out their oxygen pretty bad by simply offering a wider audience to the creators. YT can't pull the same trick here, but once they found what works, it's only a matter of time.

It will be interesting at the very least.

"This just proof that not everyone is following the same narrative that you’re personally following." Your post is a perfect recursive function.

Fyi, submitted link is HTTPS but PG's site isn't. The link fails to open in some browsers.

There is probably a bit of both going on in the world. In this particular case though, the article describes how Redfin took rather long to react on many accounts, and what it meant for their company and employees.

You could make a case that if they did not react, did not take the money or fire people, they would have weathered the storm and would be better off now. True, but it's easy to make those conclusions after the fact.

It was interesting to read all 3 parts of this essay and follow the timeline, for what it's worth.

Privacy is an unlikely reason for them to cut ties with the 3rd party system. More likely, NYT is aiming to become the platform for other publishers.

They are in a perfectly competitive business. Anyone can write, and they do. We are reading this new on Axios, after all. What NYT still has is eyeballs, and as long as they can retain a reasonable system for exchanging eyeballs for dollars, they can recruit more journalists to keey writing.

Keeping their ad system in-house will also stop data-sharing with their 3rd parties, thus at least protecting their business in the short run. They are going head-to-head with Facebook.