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What a stupid idea

dcurt.is

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Re: What a stupid idea

#201

Post by Joeri »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #177
ryguytilidie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the best comments I've seen on HN in awhile. I think once you spend enough time in the valley, you see how many hacks are trying to "change the world" right until their startup is about to fail and then they adapt the exact same behaviors they were trying to disrupt. It's about survival and once a company becomes your baby you will do anything to survive. It's not a terrible thing, but it is something…

You really hit the nail on the head and i agree 100% with this line " This isn't all the peak of innovation, many times it's just people working on a CRUD site trying to "disrupt big industry player x" until they run out of money and then resort to the same cheap tactics as everyone else." I have to ask myself is it worth it to start a web or mobile phone startup right now or wait a few yrs. The reason why i am think…

Really good ideas can be started at any time, and don't suffer from competitive pressure. The way i see it, there are two categories of products: gold rushes and fishing expeditions. The social space is a classic gold rush scenario. The winners in that space won almost by accident, and someone else could have easily taken their place. Google on the other hand started as a fishing expedition. If they hadn't built it back when they did, we might have used altavisa for another 5 years and been none the wiser.

Re: What a stupid idea

#203

Post by PavlovsCat »

wtvanhest wrote: post #135
ryguytilidie wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel like "but I like it, so your argument is wrong" is a very good counter-argument to "facebook makes human interactions worse".

wrong. I'm describing the value I get. The fact that I get value means it does have value. My guess is that some of the other millions of users also get value. That is a fair guess. His/her comment is ridiculous.

You are describing the value you think you are getting. Someone else describes the value they think you are getting. What is ridiculous and what is not kind of depends on how well they observe and how well you reflect.

Re: What a stupid idea

#204

Post by pekk »

jdietrich wrote: post #197
wtvanhest wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to say it first, I'm sure others will be thinking it. This is the WORST type of comment on HN. Tobacco was invented in 5000 BC according to wikipedia. At that point in time it had basically none of the bad side effects you mention due to shorter life spans. It probably had numerous positive side effects. Now you don't like facebook??? Well, honestly, I do. I like it to keep in touch with people and it had r…

Tobacco was not a particularly great cause of morbidity and mortality until the invention of the cigarette rolling machine. The cheap, mass-produced cigarette offered an instant hit of nicotine which was more convenient than pipes and more affordable than cigars. Tobacco is a natural leaf that became a mass killer because it was packaged in small, easy to consume units that provided an instant dopamine hit, then rele…

Many natural leaves are mildly or severely poisonous, and anything that someone enjoys (or which even surprises them, or involves motor function) can cause a 'dopamine hit'. The pureness or naturalness of tobacco really isn't the issue and neither is dopamine.

Re: What a stupid idea

#205

Post by betterunix »

restlessmedia wrote: post #199
jdietrich wrote: post #104

Success is not validation of an idea and we should be ashamed to think so. Cigarettes are one of the most successful consumer products on earth. Inhaling a lungful of carcinogenic smoke several hundred times a day is undoubtedly a stupid idea. Tobacco has made a small number of people incomprehensibly rich, to the great detriment of humanity. Personally, I think nearly all of these 'social' startups are bad news. Not…

+1 "Tobacco has made a small number of people incomprehensibly rich, to the great detriment of humanity." incredible isn't it how we still allow manufacturers to sells products (at considerable profit) like this that have been proven to make people ill, or at worse, die.

You would have to take a lot of products off the market if the fact that they can make people sick or kill people were the only criterion for doing so. Yes, cigarettes are a particularly dangerous combination: habit forming, enormous long-term harm, little short-term harm, etc. On the other hand, everyone who smokes knows that smoking is bad for them -- we have had a nationwide campaign to educate people, cigarette packs must have warnings of all sorts, cigar boxes and tubes come with warnings, and we show plenty of TV ads about the danger. I suspect that banning cigarettes would do little to prevent people from smoking them; you would just see an underground cigarette trade, and attempting to crack down on it would be as destructive as the rest of the war on drugs.

Re: What a stupid idea

#206

Post by goblin89 »

tomhoward wrote: post #198
jdietrich wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tobacco was not a particularly great cause of morbidity and mortality until the invention of the cigarette rolling machine. The cheap, mass-produced cigarette offered an instant hit of nicotine which was more convenient than pipes and more affordable than cigars. Tobacco is a natural leaf that became a mass killer because it was packaged in small, easy to consume units that provided an instant dopamine hit, then rele…

Yeah, ok. But none of this is what Dustin's post was about. The post was about people asking him if he thought their product could be successful, and how he mistakenly dismissed them as being destined to fail. Your views maybe valid, but your commentary is off topic.

OP talks about successful products and stupid ideas, and jdietrich questions OP's definition of these terms. I don't see how this is off-topic.

Re: What a stupid idea

#207

Post by nollidge »

justinhj wrote: post #153
setrofim_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tobacco was invented in 5000 BC according to wikipedia. At that point in time it had basically none of the bad side effects you mention due to shorter life spans. It probably had numerous positive side effects. Another reason that tobacco historically had "basically none of the bad side effects" is that people didn't smoke it nearly in the quantities they do today. Then a few startups (well, they weren't called tha…

> You mean, you couldn't care less, right? :P (Sorry, that particular Americanism is a pet peeve of mine.) "I could care less" is an American idiom, and this is a US site. Ad hominem.

There's plenty of Americans that are annoyed by it, too.

Also please go learn what "ad hominem" actually means. It does not simply mean "insult".

Re: What a stupid idea

#208

Post by gwern »

schackbrian wrote: post #137
wtvanhest wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to say it first, I'm sure others will be thinking it. This is the WORST type of comment on HN. Tobacco was invented in 5000 BC according to wikipedia. At that point in time it had basically none of the bad side effects you mention due to shorter life spans. It probably had numerous positive side effects. Now you don't like facebook??? Well, honestly, I do. I like it to keep in touch with people and it had r…

You make an interesting point about the shorter lifespans when tobacco was first smoked. Wikipedia says cultivation sites in Mexico date back to 1400-1000 BC or possibly even further [0]. On the other hand, you say, "This is the WORST type of comment on HN...I'm just sick of reading comments like this." Please try to be civil -- Hacker News normally has such a positive community. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hist…

Does he make an interesting point or just a superficially plausible one? Adult longevity != life expectancy at birth, to a pretty considerable degree.

Re: What a stupid idea

#209

Post by joering2 »

derefr wrote: post #87
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought bottled water was idiotic "Who's gonna pay that for water ? ! ? Gone in six months." And phone sex lines. "1.99$ first minute, $.99 each additional minute? Please!" In six months their rates doubled. Business models can be hard to judge.

Both of those are very well-studied business models, though: 1. sell to the lonely and impulsive who are willing to trade money for attention (Also see: therapists, people who run cons on the elderly, everything else involving real interaction with a woman in the sex industry); additionally, take advantage of the sunk-cost bias to keep people after they would have otherwise "passed their limit" (Also see: casinos) 2.…

can you give any example for deodorant? I mean I know diamonds are bullshit and hybrid gas cost equally much to produce as to use oil, but deodorant? If you don't use it, you stink, right?

Re: What a stupid idea

#210

Post by w1ntermute »

neilk wrote: post #171
w1ntermute wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Pinterest even a profitable business? I recall that their site said they were still "figuring out" their revenue model. I can't be the only one that finds this appalling.

They've built a community that is obsessed with showcasing their lifestyle through their tastes and gazing longingly at consumer products. I think they have a few options. I don't really approve of it, but recipe porn is less harmless than other ways to spend time on the internet.

> They've built a community that is obsessed with showcasing their lifestyle through their tastes and gazing longingly at consumer products. I think they have a few options.

It's exactly this sort of thinking that is the problem these days. They don't just "have a few options." If it were so easy, they would've done it by now. But it clearly isn't.

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