Reddit has become a guide to personal finance • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#141

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #94

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically the word for word consensus advice of decades past. At least two generations grew up in a world where "take out the biggest mortgage you can" was considered good advice by default. As history has proven that is not a consistently successful approach for individuals and has some pretty severe trade-offs at the societal level. I'm not sure if it was the point he was trying to make but in any case it shou…

But we're discussing the group consensus of a self-selected group of people interested in finance, who are nerding out about it on the internet, not the group consensus of the general population.

"Take the biggest mortgage you can" became known by the general population because it was repeated again and again by every financial literacy magazine, talk show and newspaper advice column back in its day. If anything that is an even more refined interest group than Reddit because you needed more than an internet connection and an interest to get into it.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#142

Post by cheese4242 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

P_I_Staker wrote: post #119

tiew9Vii wrote: post #73

Must admit, reddit got me caring more about my finances. It seems not many people are taught about money properly. I certainly wasn’t and non of my friends where. I’ve always been good in that I never spent what I didn’t have and lived within my means. What savings I did have where in a zero interest current account though! Following the finance Reddit’s at least put me in the right path. 6-12 months cash savings now…

> What savings I did have where in a zero interest current account though! That's not great, but overall, I'm not making very much money from my "high-interest savings account". Maybe a grand or two over decades, but even that's generous. I don't know if it's worthy of an exclamation mark. The biggest losses are prevented by not overspending and some of the other things you mentioned.

Very true. Reminds me of this quote I had saved (I don't recall the source)

"Personal-finance gurus obsess over buying coffee not because it is unsustainable, Vanderkam suggests, but because being a personal-finance guru is. “The strongest finance advice can be summed up in a couple sentences,” she explains. Maximize your income. Limit your big monthly expenses. But if your job depends on doling out financial wisdom, Vanderkam notes, “you have all this real estate you have to fill on your blog, your podcast, and your books. That’s where all this little stuff winds up coming in, but in the larger scheme, it’s kind of irrelevant.”

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#143

Post by basch » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #22

People incentivised by karma systems seem to create better information sources than when they’re incentivised by money. Think about how often you turn to Stack Overflow, Reddit, forums (Whirlpool in Australia) over AdSense/affiliate blogs. The latter are almost always biased and essentially misleading.

I dont agree that AdSense/affiliate blogs dont have useful information. They have bias, but that doesnt mean they all need to be dismissed.

Consumer reports, popular mechanics, wirecutter, nerdwallet, valuepenguin, bankrate (the points guy, credotcards.com) bicycling.com The financial and mattress websites have gotten out of hand, but there still IS good information between the ads. Its probably almost time for an aggregation of the roundup sites, one that sorts and links back to all the best of articles on a given topic. Content ads can still be useful starting points for research - such as https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/food-drink/a28493008/b...

You do have to read, and the answer isnt always spelled out at the top of articles. For example, the Wells Fargo Propel card is way better than most card comparison sites give it credit for. They admit how good it is, and then suggest what may be a lesser card for some people (like Wirecutter recommeding the Costco card over it.)

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#144

Post by Humdeee » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #98

lawlorino wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results. Agreed, I often default to Reddit or HN for a lot of stuff although there are an increasing number of obvious adverts disguised as genuine posts (see r/hailcorporate for some examples). More difficult to spot are marketing firms who curate a bunch of fake accounts, make them seem like "rea…

I dated a woman that had this job, but using Facebook (this was some years ago too). It was not just marketing, but PR too, for example she bragged about when Whirlpool had a serious problem with one of their washing machines in my country, and it was going viral, so Whirlpool paid the marketing agency to make all fake profiles (even ones not belonging to their campaigns) make other viral posts to drown out the washi…

The sheer amount of fabrication is nauseating. I suppose it's not much different than the business model of any common ad company at it's purest essence: customer manipulation

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#145

Post by bluntfang » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

m23khan wrote: post #135

I absolutely love reddit - a massive collection of discussion forums on very specific topics and most seem to be moderated by individual(s). I can find topic related to all my interests - finance, economy, devops, machine learning, politics, sports, specific country and even things like walmart and costco. Although effectiveness of advice can vary depending on topic (people are pretty opinionated on certain subreddit…

>most seem to be moderated by individual(s).

How can you tell the difference between an individual and a corporate shill account to a degree that you can make this statement?

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#146

Post by moksly » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

xelhark wrote: post #23

I think a much bigger point can be summarized with this sentence from the article: > Seven of the top ten results are trying to sell you something, which really makes you question the objectivity of the advice. This is true when searching for pretty much everything in Google nowadays, that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results.

I didn’t think much about it, but now that you mention it, I’ve been typing “reddit” after my google queries almost every time I search for something that isn’t a technical problem or me looking to buy something.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#147

Post by sergiotapia » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

lawlorino wrote: post #41

xelhark wrote: post #23

I think a much bigger point can be summarized with this sentence from the article: > Seven of the top ten results are trying to sell you something, which really makes you question the objectivity of the advice. This is true when searching for pretty much everything in Google nowadays, that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results.

> that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results. Agreed, I often default to Reddit or HN for a lot of stuff although there are an increasing number of obvious adverts disguised as genuine posts (see r/hailcorporate for some examples). More difficult to spot are marketing firms who curate a bunch of fake accounts, make them seem like "rea…

Advertising is a tumor on society - god damn.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#148

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

throwaway9d0291 wrote: post #113

paulcarroty wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just asked question in kindle subreddit about reader differences, no links/promoting/etc, next day my post was disappear. And it's common practice on reddit. So yeah, fantastic micro culture!

It was likely removed because the FAQ [0] already lists the differences and searching shows [1] that the question has come up before. Good culture != the ability to substitute the subreddit for Google or your own research. This is quite normal on Reddit. If questions like this are allowed, the subreddit often becomes inundated with them and there's no room for discussing anything else. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/k…

Honestly I never use reddit search. Even if I remember the actual title or parts of the title I can't find the post again. Maybe it's improved but it was absolute garbage the last time I tried.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#149

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #98

lawlorino wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results. Agreed, I often default to Reddit or HN for a lot of stuff although there are an increasing number of obvious adverts disguised as genuine posts (see r/hailcorporate for some examples). More difficult to spot are marketing firms who curate a bunch of fake accounts, make them seem like "rea…

I dated a woman that had this job, but using Facebook (this was some years ago too). It was not just marketing, but PR too, for example she bragged about when Whirlpool had a serious problem with one of their washing machines in my country, and it was going viral, so Whirlpool paid the marketing agency to make all fake profiles (even ones not belonging to their campaigns) make other viral posts to drown out the washi…

It makes sense. A lot or traditional ads are drowned in noise and even if they catch users attention, squashed by internal firewall and indexed under bs.

There are difinitely some posters, who are clearly promoting given brand, but.. 9/10 it is pretty apparent, so again drowned in HN sea.

Incidentally, have you tried Xyz vpn? Totally decentralized, easy setup and great customer service.

Re: Reddit has become a guide to personal finance

#150

Post by virgil_disgr4ce » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #98

lawlorino wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's why if you're looking for any info, searching on reddit usually yields much more objective and generally better results. Agreed, I often default to Reddit or HN for a lot of stuff although there are an increasing number of obvious adverts disguised as genuine posts (see r/hailcorporate for some examples). More difficult to spot are marketing firms who curate a bunch of fake accounts, make them seem like "rea…

I dated a woman that had this job, but using Facebook (this was some years ago too). It was not just marketing, but PR too, for example she bragged about when Whirlpool had a serious problem with one of their washing machines in my country, and it was going viral, so Whirlpool paid the marketing agency to make all fake profiles (even ones not belonging to their campaigns) make other viral posts to drown out the washi…

The next logical step—as terrifying as it is—is automation. Generate those people with GANs, then you 1) don't have to pay the photo companies (and producing photos with real actors in real locations has MASSIVE overhead compared to just some compute time) and 2) the photos can't be found online.

You can similarly generate the history and backstory of each fake person, complete with realistically banal social media posts, etc..