Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think • Hacker News Board

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#231

Post by Ndymium » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:21 AM UTC

eb0la wrote: post #157

There are hidden "unicorns" everywhere. Sometime ago I heard Germany had a lot of "small" companies that are leaders in their market niche but you don't have it in the radar. For instance: Hohner (the Harmonica manufacturer), or Flexi (dog leashes) Every country has some of this hidden unicorns; but it is easier to spot them from the distance.

Heh, in Finnish the general term "fleksi" means an adjustable dog leash. That's how ubiquitous the Flexi is in that category. Like "styroksi" for EPS (from Styrox) or "kyprokki" for drywall (from Gyproc).

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#232

Post by goto11 » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:23 AM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #41

dillonmckay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are always looking for ideas! Can you give a few examples, please?

Not OP but I had a friend who has interned at a few record labels. He's not really a programmer, but knows enough about programming to know what kind of task should be automated. He described a portion of his job to me that he and a bunch of other entry-level workers spent a few hours a day doing (basically scraping and storing data off the internet to be sent to business people for analysis). I worked with him to de…

Are these companies irrational? Perhaps, but there might also be an important point.

A manual process is robust, fault tolerant, and easy to adjust to new circumstances or changing business requirements.

A Python script is fixed, and they day it breaks down due to some slight change in scraped data, you have to pull in a developer to fix it. For a company without dedicated staff to support such automation, it is a high risk.

Ad-hoc automation can turn workflows into Rube Goldberg machines. A Python script here, an Excel macro there - soon nobody knows whats going on and nobody dares change anything.

Developers often think only one step ahead: It was manual, now it is automated with a script. Win! A business have to consider that larger picture - future support, maintainability, risk etc.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#233

Post by regularfry » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

loosetypes wrote: post #183

anonytrary wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I have kids, I'm gonna play a game with them where we look at random stuff and try to make up how it got there, and then compare that to how it really got there. I bet if you did this consistently with kids during their formative years, it would be a great way to teach them about the world and the economy. My parents just had a huge book room with encyclopedias that I was expected to pick up and read.

How would figure out how it really got there though? That you can, for the most part, peel back layers and trace steps back to an origin is one of my favorite things about code. But for a heterogeneous system of opaque supply chains in the physical world? For any given random stuff, I don’t know that I could make reliable progress in that endeavor.

Sending someone at an email saying "I'm working on a school project. Can you tell me about X, please?" probably has a higher success-rate than you'd think.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#234

Post by oblio » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #77

imgabe wrote: post #46

Not just software, but everything. Look around you. Everything around you was made somewhere. The example I like to use is shower curtain rings. Those plastic or metal things that hold your shower curtain onto the rod. Somewhere, there's a factory that makes those. The person who owns that factory is probably rich. My first job out of college was working for a company that makes tilt-tray sorter systems. These are gi…

When I have kids, I'm gonna play a game with them where we look at random stuff and try to make up how it got there, and then compare that to how it really got there. I bet if you did this consistently with kids during their formative years, it would be a great way to teach them about the world and the economy. My parents just had a huge book room with encyclopedias that I was expected to pick up and read.

Have them read this: https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil-audio-pdf-and-html

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#235

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #142

bsder wrote: post #15

That's because this stuff isn't valuable because it's software, it's valuable because of "business value" and expensive because of "customer support". Seriously. I can list tons of things that are reasonably profitable, but I, personally, don't want to do the hard work of customer support so I won't even start.

> Seriously. I can list tons of things that are reasonably profitable, but I, personally, don't want to do the hard work of customer support so I won't even start. This in itself is a business idea. We need an Uber for Sales Support Staff that entrepreneurs can just rent by the hour.

That will work at some point in the future, but it won't work right now, because B2B sales is still all about human relationships.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#236

Post by auggierose » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

erikbye wrote: post #229

auggierose wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't do it because I care more about my time these days than about making millions :-) And why would I want to do something that is so obviously boring?

Ostensibly you’d rather spend your time on HN than making millions.

Definitely! There is no doubt about that :-)

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#237

Post by osrec » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:38 AM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #219

liotier wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These ERP systems are often fairly bespoke That is the paradox with ERP: they are sold as off-the-shelf solutions but customization costs twice the licenses and always ends up producing a bespoke monster.

I'd liken them to LEGOs. SAP sells modules (bricks) and integration (services to make the bricks do what you need). They also sell some easy systems, like a LEGO car, but usually it's better to strip them down and reuse the parts of what you need is a house.

But the end result always requires you to cut/reshape the darn Lego bricks themselves, because the modules never quite fit the use case perfectly, so consultants are brought in to hack it all into some sort of workable shape.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#238

Post by youdonthavekids » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:40 AM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #21

NikolaNovak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating to me, because virtually all my friends have heard of SAP outside of IT - as users or recipients. My engineer friend uses it for supply chain management, a beer store hq clerk helped implement it, construction accountant has used it, etc. At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very star…

> At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very starup focused That’s pretty dismissive. I work at a company with ~80B in revenue, I never interacted or heard of SAP in work context. In fact it is only incidentally that I’ve heard of them previously. There are hundred of thousands of engineers working in com…

SO what ERP system are you using? What do you sell? How do you manufacture? How do you handle inventory and finances?

You're either using SAP and you don't know it or you're using Oracle.

EDIT: just looked at your linkedin profile. I can see that your company literally has SAP consultants working for them full time. I don't know which SAP products you are using but you definitely are an SAP customer.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#239

Post by sq_ » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:45 AM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #18

NikolaNovak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating to me, because virtually all my friends have heard of SAP outside of IT - as users or recipients. My engineer friend uses it for supply chain management, a beer store hq clerk helped implement it, construction accountant has used it, etc. At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very star…

And if it helps understand the ecosystem and its seeking oddness, this is the crucial part of article: "Implementing ERP isn’t just a purchasing decision: it’s committing to redoing how you handle operations. Installing the software is the easy part; adjusting the whole company’s workflow is the most of the work." Don't think of erp and implementing it as a software development challenge. Sure, Developers can fscrew…

This reminds me of something I read while helping a business major friend with a case study a while back. One of the readings she had as background mentioned that companies like SAP that sell ERP are almost selling the process/workflow more than the actual software.

Part of me wonders if these things are more of a "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" thing than anything else. Are people buying the workflow because it's what they really need, or are they buying it because everyone else uses it?

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#240

Post by pif » Wed, May 13, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

tlb wrote: post #59

The metal economy is huge. Almost every product requires metal. But metallurgists don't take home a big fraction of it. What's special about the software economy is that people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, depending how you count. Which is unprecedented. It's not just because software can be zero marginal cost. Musicians don't take home half of music revenue. In most…

Musicians write music. Developers write and maintain software.

Imagine there's no Version, it's easy if you try...

Really, no concept of version: you buy a piece of software as it is, take it or leave it! Either it works enough for you or it doesn't. No bugfix in the next release because there is NO next release. The musician, ehm... developer, has switched to the new shiny thing. You modified yoour environment slightly and you need a tiny change on the software to adapt? Too bad it does not exist!

Really, the point I'm trying to make is that comparing software developers to musicians doesn't hold a lot of water. Both professions include creativity, but a song shipped is as immutable as a piece of hardware. Adaptabillity is what makes software as worth as it is!