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So long, and thanks for all the fish

tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com

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Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were advised (in retrospect incorrectly) to be ambiguous and say "raised under $1M" when the amount we raised was actually much less. Our burn rate was slightly higher than most poor grad students, but not _that_ high.

What a strange advice! You should never play for 'perception', after all, everybody that it matters to will have full disclosure anyway and you set yourself up for being called out at some point in the future. Just say it like it is. I notice that you're still not coming clean about how much you in fact did raise. You're under no obligation to say it but the way it stands right now it could be $100K or it could be $9…

"if you purposefully engage in the spreading of false [...] information then [...]" you must be marketing something

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#92
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for being so open and honest about the whole thing. You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable. I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big…

We didn't want to do Tipjoy as a side project. Like I mentioned in other threads, payments isn't something to do lightly. Any contracting that would pay the bills wouldn't leave enough time to work on Tipjoy.

I didnt really mean it as a side project. I understand it won't work that way. Just keep it on the side till you are able to raise more funds, or organize from other sources (job,consulting etc.) to give you a decent runway.

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#93
post #80
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Australia will pay you $1k/month just to not be a criminal FWIW, this isn't strictly true, at least not in the last 10 years. Provided you are not disabled or retired, Australia will only really pay you ~$1k/month while you demonstrably look for work, or while you are an undergraduate student doing your first degree.

Well .. in theory yes. But in practise, people stay on it for years and years, just putting up with the hoops they make you jump through. Apparently they stop even pretending to care after a couple of years. I know this because a couple of friends of my brother have been on the dole for literally 10 years. There is nothing wrong with them, they just don't want to work and are apparently happy to live within the const…

I just burst into raucous laughter, mostly from my own shock at realizing that that the idea is potentially practical.

I've always thought of government assistance on a large scale as the kind of thing that will seriously damage a country if allowed to continue indefinitely -- by creating economic incentives not to work. [See: Sweden]

I'm not sure it has to work that way. Between food technology and plateaus in first-world population growth, sustenance and covering could probably become as cheap as we are motivated to make them, for some definition of "sustenance" and "covering."

I think it's obvious that society is better off if people work. But society is also better off if the people who work work harder, and only Ayn Rand fans walk around the office glaring at the dullards dragging society down. ;)

In a way, those who really don't want to work are holding a gun to their head and demanding money. If we don't give it to them, then we'll have to get the blood out of our carpet, which will cost more than the few dollars they are asking for. If there were no risk of this, there would be no blood to clean up and thus no reason for social programs to exist. (Those who can't work are already bleeding, and the assistance is intended to keep their situation from worsening expensively).

The people that don't want to work are doing something that I would find morally wrong. But I'm doing something that others doubtless would be troubled by: I work three months out of the year, saving my money, and then live off of that money for the rest of the year in a third-world country. I've had people angry at me for not spending all of my money in the US; others feel it's short-changing society to minimize the amount of work you do for money. Nonetheless, I'm at least paying with my own money, and society is net richer.

From the standpoint of a person, I think that being a parasite is morally questionable.

From the standpoint of society, however, maybe it makes sense to subsidize some level of determined laziness. I can vaguely imagine that under certain circumstances and with sufficient disincentives, such a thing could be a net win for a society.

It seems societally risky, though. ;) Better to "officially" not support such a policy, so you can jettison it if its effects get out of hand.

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#95
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were advised (in retrospect incorrectly) to be ambiguous and say "raised under $1M" when the amount we raised was actually much less. Our burn rate was slightly higher than most poor grad students, but not _that_ high.

We were advised (in retrospect incorrectly) to be ambiguous and say "raised under $1M" when the amount we raised was actually much less. Advised?! By whom.

You sound surprised but this is extremely common in smaller deals IME.

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tips don't really work. You need to sell stuff. Branding in the name sucked when we were pushing long and hard* to become a general purpose payments company. Our twitter API could power a full freemium model, subscriptions, etc. - but not enough apps on twitter used it. *twss

Did you ever see http://www.harmony-central.com/Features/Fairtunes/ - tips for music artists in 2000 that closed down. For musicians, what if there was a way to offer downloads or a virtual chatroom where musicans could interact with tippers only. Artists could keep log of all their fans. The problem may have been a tip niche wasn't honed in upon.

Interesting. So, what became of Goyer and Cormie? I'd like to hear more about their experience. yr. 2000 was early days!

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever see http://www.harmony-central.com/Features/Fairtunes/ - tips for music artists in 2000 that closed down. For musicians, what if there was a way to offer downloads or a virtual chatroom where musicans could interact with tippers only. Artists could keep log of all their fans. The problem may have been a tip niche wasn't honed in upon.

Interesting. So, what became of Goyer and Cormie? I'd like to hear more about their experience. yr. 2000 was early days!

[deleted]

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#99
post #25
post #3

Sad. The thing about "ramen" profitability is there's another level to be achieved after that, which I refer to as "opportunity cost" profitability. It's often much more challenging, and I sense it being an issue in this article.

Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just…

The point of ramen profitable isn't to eat, of course; it's to extend your runway indefinitely such that your odds of getting rich significantly increase.

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish

#100

See Chagora (dot) com and CulturalEngineer.blogspot (dot) com (why chagora, live debate function and other related posts) for the role of the Pooled-User-Determined Account and the microtransaction as essential in politics and a catalyst for enabling the practical micro (and other)transaction in charity and commercial areas. The political microtransaction is a fundamental of speech. I believe this could have made Tip…

Please don't.

I understand... and will consider it. But could you give a clearer evaluation since I've put a great deal into this and would appreciate more helpful feedback. Thanks!
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