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Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

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Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#61

Post by BjoernKW »

gwbas1c wrote: post #43

A better way to hire software engineers, or to find a software engineering job. The problem, when I'm hiring, is that so much of the interviewing process is about determining competence. When I'm job-seeking, a lot of my time is spent determining the competence of the people in charge of the company. In the medical field, doctors and hospitals are accredited. Thus the interviewing process isn't really about a doctor…

There are several differences between the medical field and software engineering, some of which are:

1. The former is highly regulated because of potentially highly catastrophic outcomes in most cases.

2. The former also is several thousand years older than the latter.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#62

Post by gwbas1c »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #48
gwbas1c wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in an apartment without laundry services, I found it was cheaper to just pay a laundry service for pickup and drop-off at my front door. I paid about $50 a month, when an in unit washer dryer would cost a lot more. I also looked into a washer dryer unit that I could plug into my sink. They are really common in Europe but not in the United States. The problem is that American voltage is too low to run a d…

It's not just the voltage / amperage. Even if you buy a really expensive over-under that plugs into a 220 the lack of an output vent slows down drying dramatically.

Dryers are only vented in the United States. Most of the world uses condenser dryers that don't require venting. They also use less energy.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#63

Post by RandomCSGeek »

fiveFeet wrote: post #51

An app/service which provides the location of one mobile phone to another mobile phone. It should work across different manufacturers (iphone blackberry), across different service providers (verizon t-mobile).

Google Maps does that.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#64

Post by RandomCSGeek »

gwbas1c wrote: post #43

A better way to hire software engineers, or to find a software engineering job. The problem, when I'm hiring, is that so much of the interviewing process is about determining competence. When I'm job-seeking, a lot of my time is spent determining the competence of the people in charge of the company. In the medical field, doctors and hospitals are accredited. Thus the interviewing process isn't really about a doctor…

on a similar note, I'd like to have better job listing aggregators. Something that better understands me.

Currently, when I search for fresher jobs, I always end up getting jobs for 5-6 year experience, or those way away from cities I entered, or those from completely irrelevant fields.

NLP and Deep Learning should be able to do this.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#65

Post by gwbas1c »

BjoernKW wrote: post #61
gwbas1c wrote: post #43

A better way to hire software engineers, or to find a software engineering job. The problem, when I'm hiring, is that so much of the interviewing process is about determining competence. When I'm job-seeking, a lot of my time is spent determining the competence of the people in charge of the company. In the medical field, doctors and hospitals are accredited. Thus the interviewing process isn't really about a doctor…

There are several differences between the medical field and software engineering, some of which are: 1. The former is highly regulated because of potentially highly catastrophic outcomes in most cases. 2. The former also is several thousand years older than the latter.

The modern medical field is not thousands of years old. It actually emulates the air traffic control system when it comes to its internal regulations and division of labor. This is how they keep out quacks who still believe in bloodletting.

We could do a lot better if we got over our hubris and tried to learn from how other more mature feilds run themselves.

With self-driving cars on the horizon, and with our entire communications infrastructure defined by software, the potential for catastrophe in our industry is greater than the medical industry.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#66

Post by kapauldo »

eurticket wrote: post #21

+ A test or a person that tests and tracks my health and body nutrients or lack thereof. Then designs a list of items or orders the food/vitamins that have all the micro nutrients that a health body would require. + Accurate food product reviews that test what is inside of the item and reflect if the nutrition labels are correct.

A painless harmless daily test say, through saliva or something that gave you nutritional feedback would be awesome and I would pay for it.. "your cholesterol is high","your vitamin d is low" that kind of thing.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#67

Post by sioux77 »

bovermyer wrote: post #58
sioux77 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think a laundromat is?

A business devoted to maintaining clean, high-quality clothes-washing facilities. The degree to which they succeed varies. If your criteria are specifically a single-household-only washer and dryer setup, and not just avoiding poorly-maintained central facilities, then my suggestion will not suffice.

In my experience, laundromats do not have a ton of competition outside of a dense urban center. In a region where hundreds of thousands live, and in a town 40000, there are 2 laundromats, both very unkept and with old and gross laundry machines. Business is there to make money and squeeze as much out of every machine. Talking to these people, they rarely replace a machine if its dirty or doesn't do a good job, only if its broken/unfixable. I think your view comes from a very rosy world which rarely is replicated in practice.

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#68

Post by GFischer »

exDM69 wrote: post #5

A phone that will last for 10+ years. Easy change of battery, glass, display, connectors, etc without specialist tools. Doesn't matter if it's a bit bigger than a nice form factor phone, I'm just sick and tired of phones dying on me and not being able to service them.

Do you want it to do something besides calls? I've got 2 phones that have lasted 10+ years: Nokia 1100 and Nokia 5110 (the 5125 variant).

I actually had to stop using the 5110 because the technology wasn't supported anymore (the frequencies were re-purposed for something else), and that's probably what will happen to your 10+ year phone.

You can still purchase a Nokia 1100. It's the world's best-selling handset because you can do all you mentioned.

I still have both in a drawer, and they boot when charged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_5110

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#69

Post by GFischer »

melvinmt wrote: post #36
exDM69 wrote: post #5

A phone that will last for 10+ years. Easy change of battery, glass, display, connectors, etc without specialist tools. Doesn't matter if it's a bit bigger than a nice form factor phone, I'm just sick and tired of phones dying on me and not being able to service them.

I believe the Nokia 3310 was just relaunched this year that has 22 hours talk time, 31 days standby for just $52 https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2017/04/13/nokia-33...

Sounds great, I wonder about the maintainability, sounds like what the OP asked:

http://run-belay.ru/to-completely-disassemble-the-nokia-3310...

Re: Ask HN: What product/service would you be willing to pay for?

#70

Post by GFischer »

justincormack wrote: post #24
cagenut wrote: post #2

I'd love to pay taxes for universal healthcare.

The future is just not evenly distributed, try Europe.

Or Uruguay here in South America, or New Zealand... You can actually emigrate here very easily.

Maintaining an U.S. lifestyle OTOH is much more expensive, but healthcare is a BIG plus.

And you WILL pay a lot of taxes - Healthcare-only taxes are 4.5 to 6% of your gross income, and sometimes more on top of it. And then you have 22% VAT and something like 30% of your salary if you're a software developer, and the 12.5% social security tax (all of those on your GROSS salary, and almost no deductions)... prepare to get paid less than half your gross salary in hand.

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