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Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

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Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#101

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

kradeelav wrote: post #33
dtdimond wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always been hard for people in those income buckets. But if the question is: are we in a massive economic downturn over the past half year, it's really hard for me to look at the data and answer with a yes. One thing I'm looking at is: https://realtimeinequality.org/ And that's showing that for the first time in over a decade, the bottom half is seeing real wage/wealth gains, even after recent inflation. Am I mi…

Charts can lie. Whether or not you can buy bacon* or gas is real. *substitute with whatever staple you wish. I used bacon here since it's historically a working class' person's meat.

Bacons a funny commodity, I don’t track the futures of it but always look at the grocery store. Pre pandemic bacon was around 2-3/lb for the cheap stuff, 4/lb for quality, and 6/lb for the niche products. I’ve seen these prices double since January this year and some products are up more than 400%. If this isn’ta sure sign of a serious problem I don’t know what would be.

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#102

Post by th1s1sit »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #99
j2bax wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP was referring to major new verticals... Video game vertical is 40+ years old now. Sure still lots of innovation happening within the vertical, but anything that is going to change the trajectory of humanity?

I think it's silly to expect every innovation to "change the trajectory of humanity". Sometimes people just want entertainment and that's fine. Based on the OP's response to my comment, I wonder if they consider leisure time to be wasted time.

Humans went millions of years entertaining themselves without computers.

Why keep chucking real resources down the drain for Zachtronics? If you want logic puzzles there are simple paper books full of them.

This is peak entitlement; the future must cope with your leisure preferences. Not voting rights, or clean water; you are owed video games.

You would defend until the end your right to not sacrifice any scrap of figurative identity. How incredibly dismissive of future peoples entire existence.

Launch the nukes, Putin. If we’re just going to iterate like mindless dweebs into collapse of the species why not go out in a blaze of glory; that would truly be metal af

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#103

Post by dionidium »

glorified-html wrote: post #94
dionidium wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you don't want to make minimum wage for your whole life, you need a college degree!" I started college in 1999. The day my freshmen year started, jokes about English majors asking if you want fries with that were already 60 years old. This argument is revisionist bunk, in other words. Everybody knows there are some degrees that are more valuable than others, that some degrees lead to higher pay and that some do…

How many teenagers really understand the practical implications of what they're signing up for? No one is saying teenagers lack agency, but there is definitely a problem when an outsized number are making decisions that are detrimental to their long-term future

We're in kind of a weird transitionary period with respect to our societal-level view of teenagers. Very often the same exact people are arguing that student loans are illegitimate, on the grounds that teenagers are not sophisticated enough to sign contracts, but on the other hand that the voting and/or drinking ages should be lowered, because teenagers are clearly capable of handling those responsibilities.

I'm kind of happy to go either way on this, but I think we're probably going to have to pick one. If an 18-year-old can't sign a contract, then surely they shouldn't be allowed the vote.

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#104

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

D13Fd wrote: post #61
nickserv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for investment debt like real estate. If you're taking on debt to pay for basic necessities because salary rises don't match inflation it's an altogether different situation.

Yes, if you take on the debt after the inflation it does you no good. But if you take loans in 2015 dollars and repay them in 2022 dollars, you are better off in terms of repayment by having a lot of inflation during that period. It doesn't matter what purpose you took the loan for.

One has to maintain those debts in the interim, unless you’re suggesting banks are offering 7 year no payment loans or equally long deferrals. Being able to weather inflation in the rest of one’s life is the problem. I’d love 1000% inflation on the money I use to pay my mortgage, but 1000% inflation at the till would be devastating. For people even mildly leveraged high inflation is painful because everything but their debt gets more expensive. Low inflation helps ease large debt obligations, but even moderate inflation will see tens of thousands of people squeezed too hard causing defaults which creates more homeless people and deaths from treatable conditions. All this said, one can try to time the market by making foreseeable purchases before inflation takes root. It seems that this time has passed for most things, but those who bought houses and cars in 2019 likely saw significant free equity. Without incoming increasing at the pace of inflation people are being slowly forced into poverty by the machinations of the capital class and their stooges.

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#105

Post by dublin »

AnEro wrote: post #13
NickM wrote: post #12

I find the whole "economic gloom" sentiment a bit odd. We're at extremely low unemployment, and GDP took a small dip in Q1/Q2 but is projected to start growing again in the second half of the year. The S&P 500 is down less than 10% from it's all-time high. Inflation was an issue for a while, but a lot of that seemed to be driven more by temporary supply constraints in certain sectors than any actual currency devaluat…

Knowing people that make under 60k a year, and how harder their lives got and how hard it is to pay back loans and other obligations they where ulitmately strong armed into taking to improve their position. Not to mention how alot of western nations have a large majority of people are pay check to pay check regardless of their tax bracket. Working class is a good litmus of how the economy is doing vs S&P because spec…

We shouldn't be quite so smug. Most of what developers and other tech people do is not really needed. Nice, yeah. Required? Hell, no.

Look at Facebook - they're currently the 8th most valuable company on the planet, but very few people really need what they provide, and most of their customers really don't like Facebook (and IG, etc.) and the way they know the company is manipulating them. Contrast that with a companies like Exxon or Amazon, which like them or not, produce products or services people need and want to buy. Ad markets would continue without them, and I'm already seeing companies shift marketing dollars away form digital given both poor results and waiting to see what happens. (And I'm in Austin, where things are relatively booming...)

My point is simply that 80% of what we as techies do could be eliminated tomorrow, and the world would go on. The 20% remaining could (painfully) keep things going through a downturn, especially if the alternative is unemployment.

If you think your company won't cut you loose if that 80% cost reduction becomes necessary due to depression-level forces, think again - you may not be so indispensable as you think, no matter your position - I've seen a couple of top-level thought leaders/innovators cut from local companies recently, something that didn't happen even in 2008! The reason is usually, "we're pulling back from investing in innovation and new product development." I've got a bad feeling about this...

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#106

Post by jimmygrapes »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #101
kradeelav wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charts can lie. Whether or not you can buy bacon* or gas is real. *substitute with whatever staple you wish. I used bacon here since it's historically a working class' person's meat.

Bacons a funny commodity, I don’t track the futures of it but always look at the grocery store. Pre pandemic bacon was around 2-3/lb for the cheap stuff, 4/lb for quality, and 6/lb for the niche products. I’ve seen these prices double since January this year and some products are up more than 400%. If this isn’ta sure sign of a serious problem I don’t know what would be.

Purely anecdotal but I remember buying 16pz packs of bacon for 1-2 dollars (in a large California city) for awhile, then this phenomenon called "Epic Meal Time" came about and Denny's was making bacon milkshakes and the Internet zeitgeist collectively went "lmao BACON!!" and soon after I was paying 4 dollars per pound. Supply and demand, maybe, sure. In my opinion, it was just demand and marketing.

NOW it's supply and demand, though.

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#108

Post by Kon-Peki »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #101
kradeelav wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charts can lie. Whether or not you can buy bacon* or gas is real. *substitute with whatever staple you wish. I used bacon here since it's historically a working class' person's meat.

Bacons a funny commodity, I don’t track the futures of it but always look at the grocery store. Pre pandemic bacon was around 2-3/lb for the cheap stuff, 4/lb for quality, and 6/lb for the niche products. I’ve seen these prices double since January this year and some products are up more than 400%. If this isn’ta sure sign of a serious problem I don’t know what would be.

https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/APU000070411...

Government price data for bacon goes back to 1980.

PS - there are other price series about bacon, including regional prices:

https://beta.bls.gov/dataQuery/find?removeAll=1&q=Bacon

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#109

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #108
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bacons a funny commodity, I don’t track the futures of it but always look at the grocery store. Pre pandemic bacon was around 2-3/lb for the cheap stuff, 4/lb for quality, and 6/lb for the niche products. I’ve seen these prices double since January this year and some products are up more than 400%. If this isn’ta sure sign of a serious problem I don’t know what would be.

https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/APU000070411... Government price data for bacon goes back to 1980. PS - there are other price series about bacon, including regional prices: https://beta.bls.gov/dataQuery/find?removeAll=1&q=Bacon

Great contribution! Thank you!

That website is arcane but the data is fantastic.

Re: Ask HN: Which startups are thriving in the downturn?

#110

Post by robcohen »

dionidium wrote: post #103
glorified-html wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many teenagers really understand the practical implications of what they're signing up for? No one is saying teenagers lack agency, but there is definitely a problem when an outsized number are making decisions that are detrimental to their long-term future

We're in kind of a weird transitionary period with respect to our societal-level view of teenagers. Very often the same exact people are arguing that student loans are illegitimate, on the grounds that teenagers are not sophisticated enough to sign contracts, but on the other hand that the voting and/or drinking ages should be lowered, because teenagers are clearly capable of handling those responsibilities. I'm kind…

Furthermore, gun control is back in the spotlight after Uvalde. I just attended the TX Democratic convention and at least three speakers argued to raise the age for purchasing firearms to 21. I don’t actually have a problem with that, but we’ve gotta be consistent. There’s no way it’s justifiable to remove a constitutional right from an adult without due process.
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