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Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

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Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#281

Post by csomar »

ipaddr wrote: post #262
csomar wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the poorest of countries, $90/year is not too much for any serious (heck, even amateur) software developer. A coffee costs around $1 (in poor countries), that's $365/year and most people drink more than a cup per day. Now that's a tool to actually work, not increase your productivity (or mess with it). So $90 is pretty affordable.

Coffee does not cost 1 us dollar. The poorest countries survive on $500.00 to 2000 us a year. $90.00 isn't even affordable to everyone in the west.

I'm really talking about home-made coffee (with some milk). Even in the cheapest countries, a cup of coffee (in a cafe) costs more than $1: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492

People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#283

Post by yarcob »

vbezhenar wrote: post #279
zffr wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it into perspective, for someone making $200k+/yr (a lot of the HN audience), $10 is about 6min of their time/month (assuming a 40hr work week). Over a year it adds up to 72min of time. On the other hand, researching and trying out alternative free/cheaper tools might take hours. For a busy person making good money, $10/mo to make them more productive isn't a crazy ask IMO.

I'm comparing software to software. I want to buy honest software. If I'm paying $100/year for some program, then I'm expecting that another program with similar cost would require similar amount of engineering effort. I'm ready to pay $100/year for operating system. I'm ready to pay $100/year for sophisticated graphical editor like Photoshop. Paying similar price for simple software? Well, I would expect something l…

Size of the market is also important.

Text editor for 30€ is a good business, everyone needs a text editor.

Database client for 30€ is probably a little less profitable, not as many people need that.

Client for a specific database like the protein data bank for 30€ -- well, you might sell two or three copies.

All of these are probably a similar amount of work, but you can't sell them for the same price.

That being said, a menu bar widget has such a huge market that I don't see why they are pricing it so high.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#284

Post by airhead969 »

bernardv wrote: post #261

The whole industry is overhyped. But until investors keep throwing money at it, it will continue. Until it investors turn-off the tap.

I guess you're not a programmer if you don't know the diff between while and until.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#285

Post by Grustaf »

dreamer7 wrote: post #277
Grustaf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but saving a click or two when joining zoom meetings for mac users that don't use the native calendar app doesn't really scream "hair on fire"...

It's not just a click or two when we are joining several meetings in a day. Personally I'm annoyed by repetitive tasks that are slow due to external factors. Joining a meeting through Meet on Chrome involves - 1. Open a new tab on the right user profile 2. Navigate to meet.google.com (second slowest task) 3. Click on a meeting. Wait for it to be setup (slowest task) 4. Join. Wait for a couple of seconds for the strea…

Why don’t you just keep the meet tab open then?

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#286

Post by airhead969 »

bitwize wrote: post #272

A Mac-only widget sounds like a profitable enterprise. Mac users still buy their software, like the old days.

Far more people use mobile and tablets than Macs. And, this tabletization of Macs with iOS compatibility is its own undoing. Apple may want to kill desktop computing for all but the very rich.

A widget for all would be a larger addressable market.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#287

Post by 2arrs2ells »

908B64B197 wrote: post #267
phsource wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. From my YC experience, I know that starting with a niche is good advice and advice they likely would have gotten. Looking at the Launch HN [1], I think the question should instead be "has YC lost it's way when its latest company is founded by 4 University of Waterloo students?". When phrased that way, the answer seems obvious, given that YC started out funding current college students in Boston. Having gone thr…

> "has YC lost it's way when its latest company is founded by 4 University of Waterloo students?" It's interesting to see they are branching out to smaller, lesser known more regional schools. Pretty far from their debut in Harvard/Kendall Square.

Waterloo is a well-regarded engineering powerhouse & has been well represented in YC going back to my batch (s12 - BufferBox) if not earlier.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#288

Post by donnythecroc »

snowwrestler wrote: post #221
dehrmann wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox is in a weird place right now because its free tier is too small, the pair tier is too big and expensive, a $5 tier doesn't work financially, and Google, Microsoft, and Apple offer 80% as good solutions with 2.5x as much space for free. For corporate customers, again, they're probably Exchange or GSuite shops, so they can use one of those storage providers. Dropbox addresses a real problem, it's just that the…

Dropbox’s killer app is: simply working. I have access to and use both Google Drive and O365 One Drive at work and it is shocking how often I have problems with them. To be clear, my expected rate of problems for this functionality is “never.” The only service I have that experience with is Dropbox. With GDrive and One Drive I have seen folders lose sync, files get stuck syncing, and inexplicable conflicts. In additi…

This. From day one I still never had an issue with Dropbox. Icloud and one drive - constant problems.

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#289

Post by thinkingemote »

adenozine wrote: post #68

Was there ever a time where YC only boosted deeply meaningful companies that were focused on uplifting humanity? I mean, no disrespect on yc, but it performs what it says on the tin. It's a business for businesses. Idk. I have tempered expectations moreso than some I guess. You've got a point, I just wonder how egregious is TOO much.

Is it possible for any investment arm to invest in endeavours to uplift humanity?

Re: Has Y Combinator lost its way when the latest company is a Mac only widget?

#290

Post by Tarsul »

csomar wrote: post #281
ipaddr wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coffee does not cost 1 us dollar. The poorest countries survive on $500.00 to 2000 us a year. $90.00 isn't even affordable to everyone in the west.

I'm really talking about home-made coffee (with some milk). Even in the cheapest countries, a cup of coffee (in a cafe) costs more than $1: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.

first off, you're calling bulgaria, india etc. poor countries. relatively, okay, but op was about even poorer countries. But more to the point the prices you quoted were about buying coffee in restaurants. Most people drink their coffee at home (or at work) not in shops. And it's much cheaper then. E.g. I usually drink senseo and it costs me about 25 eurocents per cup.
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