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Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

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531–540 of 587 posts

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#531
post #242

I started working on iparklikeadumbass.com. The idea is for me to upload pictures of people parking like idiots, blur the license plate and just have it out there. I know I wont make any money of it but it is a good way of preventing road/parking raging.

Unable to reach it

Yeah I just bought the domain name a while ago impulsively, still working on it. :D

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#532
post #242

I started working on iparklikeadumbass.com. The idea is for me to upload pictures of people parking like idiots, blur the license plate and just have it out there. I know I wont make any money of it but it is a good way of preventing road/parking raging.

You get my vote for most humorous! I'll be checking that url again one day, and hopefully there's dumbass parking photos up.

Will probably create a Show HN thread as it would definitely be a hit.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#533
I have been working on BestFoodNearMe

https://bestfoodnearme.com

I enjoy eating out and trying new food, but I really do not enjoy having to spend a lot of time reading through reviews to figure out what the best dish is at a restaurant or even what the best food dishes are in a city.

So this is my attempt to solve the problem of deciding what to eat by allowing people to find and share food dishes.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#534
post #12

Oh man, that describes all of them. http://ipfessay.stavros.io/ - Publish uncensorable essays on IPFS https://www.eternum.io/ - Pin IPFS files with a nice interface https://www.pastery.net/ - The best pastebin https://spa.mnesty.com/ - Fuck with spammers https://www.timetaco.com/ - Easily make nice-looking countdowns And this is just the last two months or so? Also, lots of hardware stuff: https://www.stavros.io/proj…

I tried to create a timeTaco countdown for today, but it didn't let me? AFAICT, it only allows for blast-off dates in the future. Also, a little clarity about time format (12 vs 24) and time zone would be nice. Overall though I love the simple UI.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#536

I just saw this thread, and honestly it is probably too late to get noticed by many, but I'm attempting to 'unsuck the web' with my project[0] by pinning "sticky" website elements where they belong - i.e. the website header shouldn't steal your screen real estate and scroll down the page with you. My project/uBO filter list removes the "annoying" elements noted above as well as other "features" of websites (e.g. soci…

I've been using a bookmarklet approach (named "FIXEDFIXER") that aggressively changes all `position:fixed` and `position:sticky`[0] to `position:static`. (I've posted the one-liner code a couple of times before already, can repost on request) Quite often the stickied elements disappear entirely, possibly hidden below other elements or outside of the window--I've never felt the need to check where they go. Which kind…

> Which kind of illustrates my point; I hope your filter list is a whitelist, because in 99.9% of cases, absolutely nothing is lost from these sticky elements.

My two cents is to automatically apply, but make sure to have a notice when it actually changed something. The only thing worse than a site not functioning correctly is when it's only not functioning correctly for you, and nobody has any idea why, including you.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! I just noticed "Not a git repo" on the main page. Say no more! I completely grok why that's there.

>I completely grok why that's there. I don't. Please explain?

Robotic abuse has a tendency to bring cool projects like this to their knees. Any publicly-accessible, readable/writable service will eventually run into this problem.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it, way to go! You should submit it as a "Show HN" 1. You should charge for it. Maybe after a month of monitoring or something. 2. Give more actionable responses. Maybe some links or directions on how to fix the issues. 3. Can you make any money on affiliate links to paid certificates? If not, direct people to Letsencrypt when their cert expires.

Thanks! I did submit a Show HN, but I only got 1 or 2 upvotes and a few visitors... Go figure, this comment had more success! As for charging or monetizing one way or another, I'm still thinking of the best way. It's not easy when you already have 300 free users. And I've already considered giving more actionable advice, it's in the backlog already! But thanks for your comments!

You can always give your free user's a discount or an extended free period. It's a pretty standard practice. Some will leave, some will pay. And that's ok.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#540
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly there could be a better way by reaching out to other companies that work with you and form some sort of partnership agreement. Then you could give amazon "the finger" simultaneously...if you so desire.

There are other book vendors who've reached out to offer their affiliate programs, but I'm not sure any of them are worth it. From the short time I was on Amazon, the lion's share of my affiliate revenue came from items other than books that were purchased using cookies that my app had set. Without those non-book items, I would've made very, very little money (e.g., ~$5 instead of ~$300). Books don't cost very much,…

One idea could be to partner with publishers and maybe 10% of the time a user opens a new tab, the book placement is sponsored. Charge based on impressions, click-throughs, or by some other arrangement.

For users, it keeps the tool free and ideally—if the sponsored placements are good—introduces them to cool new books.

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