Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The only moat left is money?

elliotbonneville.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 398 posts

Re: The only moat left is money?

#131

Post by AstroBen »

advisedwang wrote: post #114

If someone has a problem they need solved: * Attention span won't stop them recognizing a solution * Numerous solutions won't stop them adopting one * That the developer put little effort into building that solution won't put them off. The real answer is of course that there's a lot of stuff that being built that doesn't solve people's problems people have, either because it targets a problem that doesn't really exis…

Of course people will buy software.. but the 80% margins we had of yesteryear won't be there

The result of the barrier to entry being erased is that prices will also be driven to 0 as products are commoditized

It's hardly worth going into a market when you're 1 of 1000 and profit margins are at 3%

Any creativity you add, new spin you put on it, new features, innovation.. all that has negligible cost to copy

I don't think we're quite there yet, but this is where it's quickly heading

Re: The only moat left is money?

#132

Post by OrionNox »

lm28469 wrote: post #36
andsoitis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is not a zero sum game. There’s more wealth in the world today than 50 years ago, 500 years ago, 5000 years ago.

That's why we cured hunger in 2012, cured poverty in 2017, fixed healthcare in 2020, working as intended indeed

[flagged]

Re: The only moat left is money?

#133

Post by Waterluvian »

autoconfig wrote: post #63

> When creation was hard, skill was the differentiator: you had to actually be good to make something worth showing. Now the barrier is near zero, so you need reach. Reach costs money or it costs years. Probably both. Creation has progressively been getting easier since the invention of the computer, it is not a new phenomena. This naturally pushes the boundary on what needs to be delivered in order to find paying cu…

Something I've noticed a lot with Twitch streamers and YouTubers is that many of them want the outcome and are prepared to do the work, but want some sort of guarantee of success. It's very difficult to really sell to people that you will work very hard for a while and there's absolutely no promise that you'll ever have more than 14 subscribers. That's simply the core risk of entrepreneurship.

Re: The only moat left is money?

#134

Post by e10jc »

I really like this article, particularly the part about the gravitational threshold. My overall thoughts about launching products is that there will just be more products with smaller audiences, similar to how streaming broke down linear cable. As a software entrepreneur, this means going wider not deeper. Use your human skills to build relationships with people who have that gravitational pull. If you don’t have those relationships, go create them IRL. For context, I’ve founded and sold a social network to AOL, helped raise over $100m, and had 2 other acquisitions.

Re: The only moat left is money?

#135

Post by elliotbnvl »

e10jc wrote: post #134

I really like this article, particularly the part about the gravitational threshold. My overall thoughts about launching products is that there will just be more products with smaller audiences, similar to how streaming broke down linear cable. As a software entrepreneur, this means going wider not deeper. Use your human skills to build relationships with people who have that gravitational pull. If you don’t have tho…

Um... can we talk? :D

Re: The only moat left is money?

#136

Post by ativzzz »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #115
elliotbnvl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got mouths to feed, so... yeah.

Indeed. But the line of discussion was about the value of human thought.

If our human thoughts can't be translated to food and shelter, then we'll pick up guns and go steal the food and shelter from someone else.

Re: The only moat left is money?

#139

Post by SilverElfin »

I think this was already true but it is becoming a lot more obvious now and the effects of this problem are going to affect a lot more people as we see mass white collar worker unemployment. Some people think with lower costs to make software more software is possible. But you can try to get started building a product only to see an improved AI agent build out your idea cheaply, or a bigger company use capital to copy you and enter the same market, and so on. Also, individuals who are richer can take more risks - the loss of money is not existential for them.

The only real fix is incredibly heavy taxation of income and wealth for the ultra rich individuals and ultra large companies. That is what will break through the money moat and create fair competition.

Re: The only moat left is money?

#140

Post by moomin »

It’s been true for some time. That moat has been getting shallower and shallower everywhere it isn’t inherited wealth. Not entirely shocking, large amounts of human history have been organised that way.
Post reply on HN