How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#21

Post by patio11 » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:34 AM UTC

jheriko wrote: post #4

So, if I understand this is essentially reselling Mechanical Turk services with a little work in hiding the details from the customer? I'm not quite sure if this is a scam or not... ...but I can think of plenty of cases where people sell "expertise" which boils down to the same thing... normally its a bit more complicated than this though. I wonder if the customers would pay if they knew of Amazon's service? My guess…

You're wrapping Turk in a human. That provides value. +

Have you ever dealt with Turkers? I did for a client once. Here's the task, simplified: "I give you job title, you give me degree title. For example, if I say 'elementary school teacher' you say she has a Bachelors degree in Education and so your answer is Education."

Input (to turker): Car technician Output (from turker): BACHELORS DEGREE IN CAR TECHNICIAN

I rejected that: sorry, I will not pay you two cents for that work. The Turker got into a running email argument with me: "WHY U NO PAY?" "Because the answer is in all capital letters, does not follow formatting instructions, and is wrong." "U NO SAY WRITE SMALL LETTERS!!"

Regardless, though: reselling labor is not skeezy.

+: You might think Amazon Turk pays for human intelligence. No, it pays for human intelligence that finds it economically viable to work on Amazon Turk. Y U NO GET DIFRENCE.

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#22

Post by ThisIBereave » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:34 AM UTC

dshipper wrote: post #14

ThisIBereave wrote: post #12

How I Advertised All My Websites To YCombinator

I'm sorry you didn't like the post. I'm really trying to share what I thought was a worthwhile experience with the community. I appreciate the feedback though :)

Hah, don't mind my snarky comment. Just get these kids off my lawn.

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#23

Post by dshipper » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:38 AM UTC

jfi wrote: post #20

Great post, Dan. It reminds me of the article the Buffer App guy wrote on his experience getting everything up and running. very smart and disciplined to root out the demand before committing dev. keep up the good work

Thanks a lot! It took me a while to learn that lesson. My instinct was always to code first and ask questions later. I would recommend 4 Steps to The Epiphany - it was a big eye-opener for me about the development process.

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#24

Post by mtogo » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:52 AM UTC

That was a great read!

I hate to nitpick, but this part caught my eye: I needed to fix about the site – SSL (even though all of the payments are secured through Stripe). If the checkout page isn't loaded over SSL, my credit card number isn't secure since the page is still vulnerable to a MITM attack completely removing the Stripe code.

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#25

Post by dshipper » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:54 AM UTC

mtogo wrote: post #24

That was a great read! I hate to nitpick, but this part caught my eye: I needed to fix about the site – SSL (even though all of the payments are secured through Stripe) . If the checkout page isn't loaded over SSL, my credit card number isn't secure since the page is still vulnerable to a MITM attack completely removing the Stripe code.

Thanks! Yes there is a chance for a MITM attack but as far as I understand from talking to Stripe that risk is very, very low. I'm going to be adding SSL this week anyway however. Thanks for your comment!

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#26

Post by redguava » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 3:54 AM UTC

You have too much drop shadow on your buttons, it makes the text blurry. (Yes, I find reviewing your website ironic when your service is website reviews)

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#27

Post by hhorsley » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 4:01 AM UTC

redguava wrote: post #26

You have too much drop shadow on your buttons, it makes the text blurry. (Yes, I find reviewing your website ironic when your service is website reviews)

agreed - with both the recommendation and that it's ironic :)

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#28

Post by angryasian » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 4:01 AM UTC

jamesgagan wrote: post #6

CrowdPicker has been doing this for awhile: http://www.crowdpicker.com/

other sites doing very similar things

pickfu.com

usertesting.com

feedbackarmy.com

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#29

Post by dshipper » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 4:02 AM UTC

redguava wrote: post #26

You have too much drop shadow on your buttons, it makes the text blurry. (Yes, I find reviewing your website ironic when your service is website reviews)

It's very meta. I'll look into that thanks :)

Re: How I Made $350 In Two Days With Three Pages and Some Payment Code

#30

Post by mtogo » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 4:15 AM UTC

dshipper wrote: post #25

mtogo wrote: post #24

That was a great read! I hate to nitpick, but this part caught my eye: I needed to fix about the site – SSL (even though all of the payments are secured through Stripe) . If the checkout page isn't loaded over SSL, my credit card number isn't secure since the page is still vulnerable to a MITM attack completely removing the Stripe code.

Thanks! Yes there is a chance for a MITM attack but as far as I understand from talking to Stripe that risk is very, very low. I'm going to be adding SSL this week anyway however. Thanks for your comment!

Fantastic!