Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#551

Post by tighter_wires » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:22 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #489

iamleppert wrote: post #468

Probably going to be downvoted, but I do adult webcam stuff, mostly with private already established regular clients. My net profit can be as high as $1200 per week, $800 on the low side, for a few hours of “work”. I generally use it as a fall-back income when I’m in-between tech jobs but I do it if I’m employed or not to keep my paying client list fresh for when I need it. I could make a lot more, I have a “cam frie…

Why would you be downvoted? I’ve always thought of HN posters as being liberal/libertarian leaning. Personally, I didn’t think twice about it either way. It was neither intriguing or off putting.

penis envy

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#552

Post by TimTheTinker » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

jsf01 wrote: post #294

asciident wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually thinking about ethics a lot while I was doing this little project. By ethics do you mean morals or something different? What framework would you suggest for determining the ethics/morals of doing something like this, where we're playing by the legal rules by trying to optimize for our own benefit?

Think about it like this. The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. That makes life worse for everyone but the people exploiting the loophole. You’re no different from the people who exaggerate their losses to insurance companies in order to claim extra insurance money. Because of them, premiums have gone up. You might see you…

> The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses.

Actually no, they pay for it directly out of transaction fees levied on sellers (which are usually around 3-5%). Some of that they take for themselves, and some they use for consumer rewards. It's a great way to make a lot of money and keep consumers incentivized to use them.

Economically, it's sort of like crappy product/service things licensed to prisons (like video telephones) that charge hefty fees to the inmates and their families, and give a significant portion of those fees back to the prisons. They're taking advantage of the incentives they can provide to the decision makers (prison administrators, or consumers in the case of credit cards) to overcharge the other party (inmates, or vendors), and make a lot of money in the process.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#553

Post by balls187 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #544

balls187 wrote: post #543

Fitness Marketing Automation company. Started in 2018 when my position was eliminated. Achieved $1k in MRR in less than a year. Have a handshake deal with a hollywood actor/martial artist to partner with his 500 affiliates.

What is fitness automation?

fitness marketing automation.

Edited the original post.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#554

Post by gambiting » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:31 AM UTC

richk449 wrote: post #426

holoduke wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am into older Maserati's. Own a couple of them. I do a lot of manufacturing myself. 3d printing, cncing. The problem is that whenever I design a replacement panel, wishbones or various other stuff and try to sell them commercialy I will get sued by the original Maserati company. On a low scale it's fine, but you will never get a living out of it. The only parts which are in a gray area are rims, exhausts, filters,…

What do they sue you for? If you are upfront about what you are selling, and you didn't steal any IP, it isn't fraud or theft of trade secrets. Maybe they have patents, and claim you are violating them? I can't see how it is illegal to reverse engineer a part and sell a similar version.

Exactly, 3rd party replacement market for car parts is huge.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#555

Post by sauravt » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:31 AM UTC

ohlookabird wrote: post #214

puttycat wrote: post #39

I design and sell T-shirts for ML/Data Science geeks [1][2]. I use Redbubble as a storefront which works pretty well. [1] https://www.redbubble.com/people/nurikolan/works/34221227-i-... [2] https://www.redbubble.com/people/nurikolan/works/34221296-i-...

How do you go about advertising your redbubble shop?

via HN comments I guess ;)

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#556

Post by gambiting » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

sridca wrote: post #120

madengr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a Breville expresso machine I repaired multiple times for my wife. The pump was decent, but the electronics were complete garbage for a $500 machine. The main problem were unsealed switches in a humid environment.

If you are someone that drinks no more than 1-3 cups a day, then I see no pointing getting an electric grinder over a higher-quality manual grinder, like the Comandante C40.

I buy beans and grind them all at once probably once a month. It's less effort with an electric grinder.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#557

Post by sauravt » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #436

I never charged money for it, but since I live in Japan and used to teach English for a living, I used to teach English to retired people in the area. I stopped because I don't actually have enough time any more, but it was very rewarding. I'm thinking of starting up again, holding sessions in the pub and charging beer as payment. Now that I think about it, it's how I got together with my wife. I met her running in a…

That's a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing. :)

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#558

Post by holidaygoose » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:57 AM UTC

IanCal wrote: post #548

holidaygoose wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't subscribe to your view at all, but I think this is an interesting discussion. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that users/customers should be trying to guess what the intention of the company is, and doing things not aligned with those goals is unethical? My local gym and Moviepass (remember them?) expects people to sign up and rarely use the gym or watch movies. Otherwise, they would go out of bu…

> If I understand you correctly, you're saying that users/customers should be trying to guess what the intention of the company is, and doing things not aligned with those goals is unethical? No, that's missing the key part that it has to be detrimental to the person offering it. > Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical? I don't think so, if you're using the service because you want to go to the g…

If you remove the editorializing, I don't see a bit of difference between "moviepass says you can see all the films (but if everyone did they would go broke, and they did go broke, leading to loss of service for everyone)" and "financial company says you can send money for free (and if everyone did they would lose money)" which is what the op did.

On a more meta level, I am concerned about an ethical view where different ethical rules apply if different actors are involved. It leads to one person basically not liking something (drugs, activism, etc.) and calling it unethical because of some broad claims about harm to society.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#559

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 6:00 AM UTC

jimmydddd wrote: post #525

RaceWon wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a close look at the USA Hospital (/Healthcare) business model. No payment of property taxes ("Hey, we're a non-profit--nothing to see here"). They get all kinds of Free labor ("Volunteering is good for the community"). They solicit and receive Every manner of donation under the Sun ("We're a Non-Profit; please help us out"). They Make Billions and Billions of dollars... just sayin

All true. Which makes it hard to understand how so many hospitals are in financial trouble. Like you said, low taxes, volunteers, donations, and charging $600 for an aspirin -- and many can't stay afloat. Strange.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#560

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

cameldrv wrote: post #545

greyskull wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity and ignorance, why is cadmium significant?

It's quite toxic. It causes cancer among other problems. A lot of things used to be Cadmium plated because it's an excellent rustproofer. Some things in the aerospace world still are, because for some things, the safety risk from corrosion outweighs the health risk. It's not a great idea to grind or sand Cadmium plated items, because it kicks the Cd into a fine dust that you will inhale and will be absorbed into your…

So far I only brushed it, and am not sure my model is Cd plated or not but well. The more you dig into materials, the more you realize you were handling toxic things all the time without knowing it.