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Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#151

Post by codingmoh »

jagger27 wrote: post #34

Some easy ones right off the bat: online extremism, public transit, housing, access to healthcare, chronic disease treatment. Online dating is pretty rough. I need a company to get extremely serious about desktop Linux and charge me $100/yr for something that actually works. Yes. It’s okay to charge for copyleft software.

>I need a company to get extremely serious about desktop Linux and charge me $100/yr for something that actually works

Could you briefly describe, what you'd be looking for?

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#152

Post by thijsvandien »

monster_group wrote: post #8

Lack of reliable service from plumbers, HVAC, appliance repair people. There are many people available but the quality and consistency of service is highly variable and chances of getting ripped off are high if you don't do your due diligence. I wish there was more standardization in these services where I don't have to worry about getting ripped off and can expect a decent quality of service without spending too muc…

Reliable professionals for just about anything. There's a ton of stuff I'd happily leave to others at a premium price, if I could only rest assured that they'd do it properly. I simply don't know where to look.

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#153

Post by thijsvandien »

bradlys wrote: post #100
monster_group wrote: post #8

Lack of reliable service from plumbers, HVAC, appliance repair people. There are many people available but the quality and consistency of service is highly variable and chances of getting ripped off are high if you don't do your due diligence. I wish there was more standardization in these services where I don't have to worry about getting ripped off and can expect a decent quality of service without spending too muc…

So, I worked at a startup that specifically tried to work on this issue. It ended up failing. You know why? People were cheap. They didn’t care at all about the quality of service until after the job was done and they paid bottom dollar. People are incredibly price sensitive. If there’s a service that is 1% cheaper, they’ll go with that even if it causes 10x as many headaches. The reason? Money is obvious but luck is…

I surely can't be the only one who isn't price sensitive at all. 3x market rate? If that means it gets done well, happily.

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#154

Post by thijsvandien »

bobwaycott wrote: post #117
monster_group wrote: post #8

Lack of reliable service from plumbers, HVAC, appliance repair people. There are many people available but the quality and consistency of service is highly variable and chances of getting ripped off are high if you don't do your due diligence. I wish there was more standardization in these services where I don't have to worry about getting ripped off and can expect a decent quality of service without spending too muc…

So. Much. This. I have spent the last year sorting a number of repairs that involved plumbing, drywall, paint, and trim to walls, floors, and ceilings to repair damage. In every case, I’ve had to ask for things to be done 2 or 3 times at a minimum just to get things done right and look the way they did before the damage occurred and the work began. Not once has the job ever been done correctly the first time I’m aske…

Just what my nightmares are made of.

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#155

Post by BenjiWiebe »

senectus1 wrote: post #130

sorry for this guys... A note taking system that works like my thought process does AND lets me very quickly add notes from my phone. (Android) needs search functionality and RTF.

I don't know how your thought process works...

I use Google Keep for note taking. It's not really fancy though.

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#158

Post by Irongirl1 »

fis wrote: post #51

Cleaning and organizing the house. Decluttering, identifying the right place for all our stuff, keeping it here. Scrubbing, wiping surfaces. Washing, folding, putting away laundry. Sweeping and vacuuming floors. Cleaning and organizing the yard. Pulling weeds, avoiding them in the first place. Pruning and maintaining plants. Planning, building, and maintaining landscape elements. Collecting and disposing yard waste.…

THIS. This is what HomeJoy was supposed to be. Million dollar lawyers who don't understand business law??? How does that work??? During "IT" HomeJoy could have really made it's mark and cemented it's place amongst the SuperZips.

Re: Ask HN: What problem do you wish someone would solve?

#159

Post by muzani »

edanm wrote: post #125
gopher157 wrote: post #38

Problem of unjust societies. My kid will be a multimillionaire in his twenties without a single day of work while his equally capable peers will enface a life of limited opportunity because the best they can do is to work their ass off to pay rent. It is structural and it needs to change. A truly liberal idea could be to reset the "score" when the game is over. Try to be the best you can and earn as much as you can -…

The two big problems with this idea, IMO, are: 1. You're heavily disincentivizing people from doing their most to earn more money. Assuming you buy into capitalism in the first place (which I do), the result of this is generally worse for society. Less new inventions, less new medicines, less new technologies, etc. 2. The second problem is more philosophical, but... what right does society have to take away someone's…

Capitalism does a lot to kill motivation on the right things. No matter how hard I work, I will never make as much money as some guy who sells cosmetics on Instagram. In Malaysia, we have architects quitting their jobs to become bakers, lawyers quitting to sell noodles.

There's also the question on whether inventions, medicine, technology are what we should be optimizing for? Depression and mental health are high despite all this, probably worse in wealthier countries than poorer ones.

The real cost to inequality is that it correlates with political polarization. Countries that are more equal tend to have politics that agree on more things. Political instability is one problem, but it also leads to distrust of the government, leading to the anti-police and anti-vaccine movements we've been seeing lately.

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