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Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

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Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#31

Post by nicodjimenez »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #13
nicodjimenez wrote: post #11

Pure math, pollution, educating people with no money, income inequality, homelessness, universal health care, ...

Re: Homelessness. I have two profitable solotions for you: 1) Build affordable housing. 2) Create flexible earning opportunities that serve the types of people who are at high risk of homelessness. Ideally, make them accessible to both homeless and housed people. A lot of homeless people have some income, just not enough to finance a middle-class life. The US has largely eliminated affordable housing, which can be pr…

If there was money in solving homelessness it would already have been done. If you tried to do this you would be rapidly discouraged. Just like some products don't have positive unit economics, some people don't have positive unit economics. The big "profit" from solving homelessness would be peace of mind and a better experience walking down the street. Hard to make money from these things.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#32

Post by DoreenMichele »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #31
DoreenMichele wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: Homelessness. I have two profitable solotions for you: 1) Build affordable housing. 2) Create flexible earning opportunities that serve the types of people who are at high risk of homelessness. Ideally, make them accessible to both homeless and housed people. A lot of homeless people have some income, just not enough to finance a middle-class life. The US has largely eliminated affordable housing, which can be pr…

If there was money in solving homelessness it would already have been done. If you tried to do this you would be rapidly discouraged. Just like some products don't have positive unit economics, some people don't have positive unit economics. The big "profit" from solving homelessness would be peace of mind and a better experience walking down the street. Hard to make money from these things.

I know of a writing service that works well for handicapped people (or single parents, etc) to make money flexibly. The service profitable and working for them helped me get off the street and back into housing.

They have no goal of "solving homelessness." They are just looking to be a successful writing service. People who sign up are 1099 contract workers. I am not the only homeless person who ever worked for them.

I am currently in the process of trying to figure out how to foster more of this locally. I would like to help people with the kinds of barriers to employment who are at high risk of homelessness to figure out how to make money online. I am going to public meetings and talking with folks. So far, I have been well received. It has not been a discouraging experience.

What I have to show so far from the little amount of time I have invested up to this point is a new website aimed at becoming a resource for Independent Digital Workers:

http://independentdigitalworkers.blogspot.com/

The cheap rental I currently live in that got me off the street is market based housing. It is a for profit thing. It is not part of some homeless services program or other charity. My landlord is making money off getting me off the street.

I have also applied for a job where I have proposed developing Independent Digital Workers further as part of that job. So I find myself sitting here wondering if there is any way to "take your bet."

If I get the job and some local organization pays me to help reduce homelessness locally, would that count in your eyes as profiting from my solutions? Or would you find some new excuse to simply be dismissive?

I suspect the answer is the latter. I am pretty appalled at hearing you say that some people don't have positive unit economics. Pronouncements like that tend to be self fulfilling prophecies. There are myriad ways to sabotage someone's efforts to make their life work and see to it that they are incapable of having positive unit economics.

People with such attitudes in online forums were the bane of my existence while I was homeless. They not only would not give me useful answers to my questions about "How does one make money online?" they also were contemptuous, dismissive and actively did what they could to undermine my efforts to figure out how to make money online. I firmly believe that if I had gotten genuine support instead of this nonsense, it would have taken me less time to build my online income and I would be in better shape financially.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#33

Post by evanlivingston »

gnode wrote: post #26
evanlivingston wrote: post #15

Racism

I would argue that racism is impeded by the profit incentive. If someone refuses to trade or interact with another on the grounds of race, they act against profit.

But racism isn't defined by or limited to refusal to trade with certain individuals. That is to say economics is only one intersection in the set of racist behavior present in our society, eliminating those economic inequality does not solve structural inequality.

Furthermore, it's so important to demographics in the midwest that they're able to refuse service to individuals they perceive as 'others' that laws have been created protecting economic discrimination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_...

Anecdotally, There's a pizza place in Indiana that went on the news and clearly stated they refuse to service to gay couples. The pizza store owners then raised $800,000 from kickstarter. While it's definitely an anecdote, I think it shows that discrimination can actually be quite profitable.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#34

Post by medz »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #23
medz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because people will pay for a cure / treatment when they are sick. Unfortunately they won't pay for prevention so that they wouldn't get sick in the first place. Besides doctors can't guarantee a resolution, they can only guarantee treatment. If doctors would get paid only for a cure, it would just create different problems. Some people would be refused treatment because the odds of getting paid would be too l…

Historically, we had a tradition of having religious types also provide health care, a la the tribal medicine man who was both a spiritual leader and person who would treat medical stuff. Doctors under a for profit model are not remotely the only possible approach to this problem space. Some good for profit health models include gym memberships and green grocers. Eating right plays a very important role in health and…

Historical practices are not counterarguments against for profit models of medicine. Even if it was, historic non-profit models do not scale.

Doctors for profit might not be the only model, but I'd like to see you propose any other model that actually works.

> Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.

Er, you do know most people are either overweight or obese? It's once thing to know what's right to do, but people don't do it or spend money on it.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#35

Post by danieltillett »

eesmith wrote: post #30
danieltillett wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lot more complex than this (more than a HC post), but the simple version is most of the carbon captured is due to carbon rich waste products falling below 200m (about 400t of carbon for every t of phosphate), while the money is made from selling the fish. I did a rather detailed investigation into the scheme a few years ago. The end result is provided you have a cheap source of phosphate (phosphate-rich rock…

I agree it's complex. I see I also made a mistake - my calculations were for "fish and fish wastes", not "fish". I still don't see how the numbers work out. You need about 7 tons of fish+waste per year to keep CO2 levels as they are. Only a few tens of kilos of those will be extracted via fishing. The numbers I see are something like 1.5 kg feed for 1kg of salmon, so there's not that much waste. You're going to have…

I think where you might be going astray is confusing the biomass of the fish with the carbon fixed. The fish sit at the top of the food chain and account for a tiny percentage of the carbon captured - they are just the profit center.

Most of the carbon is fixed by phytoplankton and the next stage in the food chain. As these die the carbon in the water column increases and eventually the excess carbon settles below 200m where it is trapped for thousands/millions of years.

The limiting factor to primary productivity in most oceans is the phosphate concentration. As long as you don't release too much phosphate at once then you limit the algal growth. You get around 400 tons of carbon fixed for every ton of phosphate added.

Yes we are going to have to use a large amount of the deep ocean, but there is more than enough ocean to do the job.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#36

Post by nicodjimenez »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #32
nicodjimenez wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was money in solving homelessness it would already have been done. If you tried to do this you would be rapidly discouraged. Just like some products don't have positive unit economics, some people don't have positive unit economics. The big "profit" from solving homelessness would be peace of mind and a better experience walking down the street. Hard to make money from these things.

I know of a writing service that works well for handicapped people (or single parents, etc) to make money flexibly. The service profitable and working for them helped me get off the street and back into housing. They have no goal of "solving homelessness." They are just looking to be a successful writing service. People who sign up are 1099 contract workers. I am not the only homeless person who ever worked for them.…

If you are on Hackernews posting well written comments then I think you don't fall into this category of people who I would say have negative unit economics. But consider people with down's syndrome or severe mental disorders. Should we leave these people out to dry? I certainly don't think so. However, are they ever going to be able to contribute more to society than society contributes to them? Probably not. This might not be politically correct but I think the more we can accept reality the better we can do to improve it. There are no safety nets in the US, you are always a few disasters away from being homeless, this is a real problem that needs to be fixed, even if solving this problem costs more dollars than it generates.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#37

Post by DoreenMichele »

medz wrote: post #34
DoreenMichele wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, we had a tradition of having religious types also provide health care, a la the tribal medicine man who was both a spiritual leader and person who would treat medical stuff. Doctors under a for profit model are not remotely the only possible approach to this problem space. Some good for profit health models include gym memberships and green grocers. Eating right plays a very important role in health and…

Historical practices are not counterarguments against for profit models of medicine. Even if it was, historic non-profit models do not scale. Doctors for profit might not be the only model, but I'd like to see you propose any other model that actually works. > Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.…

I used to weigh 245 pounds. I am a lot smaller these days.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#38

Post by DoreenMichele »

nicodjimenez wrote: post #36
DoreenMichele wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a writing service that works well for handicapped people (or single parents, etc) to make money flexibly. The service profitable and working for them helped me get off the street and back into housing. They have no goal of "solving homelessness." They are just looking to be a successful writing service. People who sign up are 1099 contract workers. I am not the only homeless person who ever worked for them.…

If you are on Hackernews posting well written comments then I think you don't fall into this category of people who I would say have negative unit economics. But consider people with down's syndrome or severe mental disorders. Should we leave these people out to dry? I certainly don't think so. However, are they ever going to be able to contribute more to society than society contributes to them? Probably not. This m…

Most people on the street do not fall into the categories you list here.

When I was homeless, my comments on the internet were full of typos and other problems. People dismissed me as a delusional lunatic. Etc.

If anything, I am absolute proof of how wrong you are, yet you will not acknowledge it.

My claim that there are solutions that can be both profitable and effective is not an assertion that we should abandon people with Down's Syndrome.

I think the best I can say is that you and I are talking past each other. That still doesn't make it a positive experience for me to have my ideas so completely dismissed, but I don't really expect that engaging you further will go anywhere good.

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#39

Post by eesmith »

danieltillett wrote: post #35
eesmith wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's complex. I see I also made a mistake - my calculations were for "fish and fish wastes", not "fish". I still don't see how the numbers work out. You need about 7 tons of fish+waste per year to keep CO2 levels as they are. Only a few tens of kilos of those will be extracted via fishing. The numbers I see are something like 1.5 kg feed for 1kg of salmon, so there's not that much waste. You're going to have…

I think where you might be going astray is confusing the biomass of the fish with the carbon fixed. The fish sit at the top of the food chain and account for a tiny percentage of the carbon captured - they are just the profit center. Most of the carbon is fixed by phytoplankton and the next stage in the food chain. As these die the carbon in the water column increases and eventually the excess carbon settles below 20…

Thank you. Yes, that was what I was missing.

"400 tons of carbon for every ton of phosphate added" ... how long does that take? It's diffusion limited, yes?

Ahh, I followed the Wikipedia link to https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/5539/2009/acp-9-5539-2009.... .

> Ocean fertilisation options are only worthwhile if sustained on a millennial timescale and phosphorus addition may have greater long-term potential than iron or nitrogen fertilisation.

How long would it take a company to be in the black with phosphorous mining? First the phytoplankton, then eventually the fish, so that's a few years of waiting, yes?

Since fish move, isn't this the sort of project where one company pays to put the phosphorus in but other companies can profit off the increased fish? So it requires a change to the international fishing laws for the fertilisation company to make a profit?

Re: Ask HN: What problems don't have a profitable business solution?

#40

Post by medz »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #37
medz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historical practices are not counterarguments against for profit models of medicine. Even if it was, historic non-profit models do not scale. Doctors for profit might not be the only model, but I'd like to see you propose any other model that actually works. > Eating right plays a very important role in health and welfare and you don't have to wait until you are sick to wonder if your diet could stand to be improved.…

I used to weigh 245 pounds. I am a lot smaller these days.

Good for you! Not that I know what it has to do with the issue at hand.
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