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Why Toys?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Toys?

#41

Post by zerostar07 »

taeric wrote: post #26
zerostar07 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either maturity has been on a constant decline for millennia personal responsibility has been declining with the aid of comforting technology and it has led to the constant extension of state goverment reach. it's very possible the complaints are valid, and that's simply how history advances.

I'd be interested in citations saying personal responsibility has declined. More likely that your exposure to everyone else's responsibility has increased.

We 'd need a personalresponsibilitymeter for that. However we can consider trends, such as the use of death penalty only for heinous crimes, its abolition in most of the world, and constant increases in government welfare.

Re: Why Toys?

#42

Post by zerostar07 »

schnevets wrote: post #23

I am constantly thinking about the question: What is the future tech entrepreneur's lemonade stand? It would have to be something typical and low-skill so a young entrepreneur can build it and learn the hard lessons about running a business, but it needs some special defense to avoid being out-innovated by an Amazon or Google. The Facebook example as a toy is perfect - the platform was able to thrive by being hyper-l…

has a lemonade stand ever evolved into serious business? I am of the impression they get abandoned

Re: Why Toys?

#43

Post by freehunter »

TylerE wrote: post #34
philwelch wrote: post #4

> This trend does not fit with history either. Standard Oil, US Steel, and Boeing were all iconically huge companies that were built as businesses. None of them went through a phase where they looked like toys. This is largely because "inventing a new thing" and "building a massive business from that invention" are more closely linked now than they have been, historically. Standard Oil and US Steel postdated the inve…

> Standard Oil and US Steel postdated the invention of steel and steam engines by centuries. The first component of what was to become US Steel opened in 1857, only 2 years after the invention of the Bessemer process that made it practical to produce steel in industrial quantities.

>The first component of what was to become US Steel opened in 857

I'm such an idiot that I read that and didn't even think it was a typo. I was really impressed that the company had lasted that long, with that belief propped up by the fact that steel itself by far predates the Roman Empire. Sure, the steelmaking process we use now is pretty new, but battles in Ancient China and Rome were fought using steel weapons.

Re: Why Toys?

#44

Post by loeber »

turingcompeteme wrote: post #27

Standard Oil actually did start out as a toy. They provided oil to burn in lamps. At the time most people thought that was a somewhat silly gimmick and a fad that would quickly pass. Oil in general was seen as something neat but not essential for years. But just like facebook, many people soon came around to the idea and it took over the world. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. covers this all in incredible…

This is plainly wrong. Rockefeller started dealing in oil because the unit economics were excellent, and because he recognized that no dominant players had emerged in the market yet, opening it up to vertical & horizontal integration (both of which he executed flawlessly).

Furthermore, asserting that indoor lighting was a toy -- in an age where other light sources were dim, prohibitively expensive, or excessively smoky -- seems mistaken to me.

Re: Why Toys?

#45

Post by diminish »

ujeezy wrote: post #5

One of my favorite pg ideas: "When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think." http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

while working on our startup [1] this is one of the top pg quotes I like. However while talking to our customers we regularly face the "toy" critic as opposed to "feature rich". however approaching it as a toy keeps it simple , though for saas it appears as too simplistic sometimes.

[1] we offer games and puzzles as a service to serious marketing clients.

Re: Why Toys?

#46

Post by zerostar07 »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #18

i'd love to see more examples of SMB software that started either as "toys" or with "toy-like" features. the only one i can think of off hand is wufoo, but im sure there are others im working on a product that (hopefully) will address an important need, but developing the solution to that need will require pretty robust software and a services component that will take some time. to get users excited about going on th…

that kind of gamification does not alter the nature of your product though. it s still some kind of tool and not something people use almost exclusively for fun/leisure

Re: Why Toys?

#48

Post by brucephillips »

loorinm wrote: post #39

Cute title but this is actually just an extension of “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”. Facebook had TIME to be a toy because Mark Zuckerberg had a rich family, and plenty of skills to get a job if it didn’t work out. “Making a toy” is only possible with the resources of money and time. People who need to make money need to focus earlier on making money, which stunts growth in the long run. This is true…

As much as I disagree with his thesis here, the entire point of it is that YC wants to and does fund toy companies. So they're trying to solve the exact problem you're railing against.

Re: Why Toys?

#49

Post by rhizome »

siong1987 wrote: post #9

This is a really good post but it is disappointing that nowhere in the post it mentions Chris Dixon's post on this: http://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-o...

Eight years on and I'm not sure that essay, while confident, has been borne out by time.

Re: Why Toys?

#50

Post by fiatjaf »

runesoerensen wrote: post #6
zerostar07 wrote: post #2

Toys are on demand because people have become more childish in a way. Avoiding responsibility, seeking protection, hiding behind the groupthink, having more time to engage in juvenile/schoolyard behavior. That is not considered in the article.

"Unless you are doing cutting-edge research in your daily job, you are not much different from those indies working on "superficial crap", apart from the fact that being "part of a company" gives you the illusion that it's more legitimate. Was google search or skype superficial and trivial? They started as programmer toys. The point of the article is that a programmer can start with $0 and build the whole product." Y…

Amazing quotes. You're a gifted commenter.
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